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[Don Bowen KI6DIU <don.bowen AT earthlink.net>]

This is a good overview by one of the Fed Vice Chairmen.
http://www.federalreserve.gov/newsevents/speech/kohn20070921a.htm

This part highlighted by
http://calculatedrisk.blogspot.com/2007/09/feds-kohn-on-causes-of-housing-bubble.html

"... it is far too soon to pass judgment on what went wrong in the U.S. 
housing market and why. I suspect that, when studies are done with cooler 
reflection, the causes of the swing in house prices will be seen as less a 
consequence of monetary policy and more a result of the emotions of 
excessive optimism followed by fear experienced every so often in the 
marketplace through the ages. To some extent, too, the amplitude of the 
housing cycle was heightened by the newness of the subprime market, the 
fragmentation of regulatory oversight responsibility for that market, and 
the complexity and opacity of the newer instruments for transforming and 
distributing risk. Low policy interest rates early in this decade helped 
feed the initial rise in house prices. However, the worst excesses in the 
market probably occurred when short-term rates were already well on their 
way to more normal levels, but longer-term rates were held down by a 
variety of forces. And similar, sometimes even sharper, trajectories of 
house prices have been witnessed in some economies in which the central 
banks said they were paying more attention to asset prices."

While there watch the little video on Real estate bubbles and California's 
economic growth.

Don Bowen              Awl Knotted Up                       KI6DIU
http://www.braingarage.com