Bernanke Outlines Steps to Avoid Future Crises
Bernanke Outlines Steps to Avoid Future Crises
Wall Street Journal
U.S. Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke on Tuesday outlined steps he thinks would help avert future financial crises, saying the time for such a longer-term discussion has come even as policy makers address the worst crisis since the 1930s.
"In the near term, governments around the world must continue to take forceful and, when appropriate, coordinated actions to restore financial market functioning and the flow of credit," Mr. Bernanke said. In the U.S., officials are determined "to ensure that systemically important financial institutions continue to be able to meet their commitments," Mr. Bernanke said.
"Until we stabilize the financial system, a sustainable economic recovery will remain out of reach," he said.
Interactive Graphic: Foreclosures in Sacramento County
The Sacramento Bee
This interactive map shows the number of Sacramento County foreclosures in a week picked at random — the second week of January — for each of the last five years.
All Boarded Up
New York Times Magazine
Tony Brancatelli, a Cleveland City Councilman, yearns for signs that something like normal life still exists in his ward. Early one morning last fall, he called me from his cellphone. He sounded unusually excited. He had just visited two forlorn-looking vacant houses that had been foreclosed more than a year ago. They sat on the same lot, one in front of the other. Both had been frequented by squatters, and Brancatelli had passed by to see if they had been finally boarded up. They hadn’t. But while there he noticed with alarm what looked like a prone body in the yard next door. As he moved closer, he realized he was looking at an elderly woman who had just one leg, lying on the ground.