Bair: "It's clear the Fed should have acted earlier"

Today's scathing page one NY Times piece "Fed Shrugged as Subprime Crisis Spread" points a finger directly at former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan for the current credit and housing market mess. They have a nice chronology of all the warning signs.
The entire report is well worth reading - kind of like a stroll down memory lane. My favorite part was:

Mr. Greenspan and other Fed officials repeatedly dismissed warnings about a speculative bubble in housing prices. In December 2004, the New York Fed issued a report bluntly declaring that “no bubble exists.” Mr. Greenspan predicted several times — incorrectly, it turned out — that housing declines would be local but almost certainly not nationwide.