Bernanke Says Action Is Needed In Mortgage Crisis

By Los Angeles Times
May 6, 2008

WASHINGTON — As the House prepared to take aggressive new steps to stem the wave of home foreclosures, Federal Reserve Chairman Bernanke yesterday night endorsed the need for government intervention, saying that letting markets take their own course could "destabilize communities, reduce the property values of nearby homes, and lower municipal tax revenues."

In a speech in New York, the central bank chairman reiterated his controversial call for lenders and mortgage service companies to consider cutting the principal of some customers' loans to prevent foreclosure.

"When the source of the problem is a decline of the value of the home well below the mortgage's principal balance, the best solution may be a write-down, perhaps combined with (a government-orchestrated refinancing)," Mr. Bernanke told a Columbia Business School audience.

Mr. Bernanke stopped short of endorsing of a bill being pushed by Rep. Barney Frank, a Democrat from Massachusetts, chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, that would allow the Depression-era Federal Housing Administration to guarantee repayment of as much as $300 billion in mortgages in return for lenders' making steep cuts in mortgage holders' loan balances.

The Fed chairman did say, though, that Congress "can take an important step by moving quickly to reconcile and enact legislation permitting the [FHA] to increase its scale...."