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From Richard Posner, who is decidedly unimpressed with Ben Bernanke’s reputation as a great crisis manager:

He is like a general who having been defeated in battle because of his errors manages the retreat of his army competently. He does not thereby escape blame for the defeat, and should not be permitted to shift blame to the soldiers under his command who gave way under attack.

There are plenty of things that I think a reasonable person might have missed about the dangers of the Bush-era credit boom.  But I’ll go to my grave not understanding how so many people missed the housing bubble.  What were they all smoking?

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