Bernanke – ‘Notable increases’ in unemploymentB

Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke probably didn’t mean for that cat to slip out of the bag while urging Congress to do more about the housing crunch.

But it did:

The reasons behind surging late payments and foreclosures can vary and that needs to be taken into account when developing solutions, Bernanke said. For instance, parts of New England, states in the Great Lakes, including Minnesota, Michigan and Wisconsin, show increased mortgage delinquencies and “notable increases” in unemployment rates, he said.

So much for Alan Greenspan’s “mild recession,” or whatever the hell he called it. So much for the Bushshit of the day about the economy.
Meanwhile, The Worst Fed Head Since Greenspan™ admitted, in essence, that even he is at a bit of a loss on how to proceed:

“A widespread decline in home prices, by contrast, is a relatively novel phenomenon, and lenders and servicers will have to develop new and flexible strategies to deal with this issue,” Bernanke said.

I wonder how much indigestion this Monday dinner speech at Columbia University is going to wind up giving Wall Street today?