More on the Fed and the Housing Bubble

I ran into this article today. It's a bit more technical then what I've previously linked to in the past, but if your willing to read through it, its worth it. I had previously posted about how loose monetary policy had been a large contributor to our housing mess. This argues along the same notion. From the article, here are a couple of relevant charts.

Fed Funds Rate














Growth of Subprime Loans















Notice the correlation with subprime growing starting in 2001 and accelerating through 2005, the periods when the Fed held very low interest rates stoking a bubble in housing investment. Whats just as important is realizing that this mess want just subprime, but an explosion of housing lending in general, which is discussed more in t e article. The growth began to slow as the Fed raised rates and then started to fall as the housing bubble popped.

-EJB