I don't blame Bernanke. In fact i think he is doing a pretty good job in a tough situation. I blame Greenspan, who took the the discount rate below 1% in November of 2003 with the idea of goosing the economy to help get Bush re-elected. This was very late in a mild recession that we were already coming out of, and the Fed's action could not be justified on any rational economic basis. Then when it was clear that there were problems on the horizon, he looked the other way. He realized that there was a problem with the disconnect between those marketing mortgages and the ultimate holders of the debt, and said so at one point, but did not do a damn thing about it. He left a real mess for his successor to clean up.