Wall Street panic aggravated financial crash, says BernankeThe real estate bust was not the primary reason for the plunge in US economic fortunes in the financial crisis, Ben Bernanke, who steered the Federal Reserve during the debacle, has said.
Mr Bernanke, a fellow at the Brookings Institution and adviser to two investment groups, said panic in the funding and securitisation markets was the main reason for the severity of the crisis. Its early stages would have been “significantly less severe” without the collapse in confidence on Wall Street.