Bernanke was delusional, but others saw the bubble for what it was. Four months months earlier, in The Economist: "The worldwide rise in house prices is the biggest bubble in history. Prepare for the economic pain when it pops. [...] According to estimates by The Economist, the total value of residential property in developed economies rose by more than $30 trillion over the past five years, to over $70 trillion, an increase equivalent to 100% of those countries' combined GDPs. Not only does this dwarf any previous house-price boom, it is larger than the global stockmarket bubble in the late 1990s (an increase over five years of 80% of GDP) or America's stockmarket bubble in the late 1920s (55% of GDP). In other words, it looks like the biggest bubble in history."[1]<p>There's been a narrative developing lately that none of the mainstream economists saw the crash coming. This is not true; plenty of them did. But their message did not appeal to incumbent politicians, and so it was ignored.<p>1: <a href="http://www.economist.com/node/4079027?story_id=4079027" rel="nofollow">http://www.economist.com/node/4079027?story_id=4079027</a>