"Federal Reserve Chairman Ben S. Bernanke, seeking to end the worst housing slump in a quarter century, urged the government and mortgage lenders to intensify their efforts to avoid home foreclosures," reports Bloomberg. "Bernanke, in a speech in New York yesterday, also reiterated his call for lenders to forgive portions of mortgages for some struggling homeowners. ... The Fed chief also backed the idea of having the Federal Housing Administration refinance troubled mortgages, a concept included in Democratic legislation in Congress, without explicitly endorsing the bill."

In "Blame the Fed," Gerald P. O'Driscoll Jr., Cato senior fellow and former vice president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas, writes: