By
BINYAMIN APPELBAUM
| New York Times – 13
hours ago
WASHINGTON — As the housing bubble entered its waning
hours in 2006, top Federal Reserve officials marveled at
the desperate antics of home builders seeking to lure
buyers.
The officials laughed about the cars that builders
were offering as signing bonuses, and about efforts to
make empty homes look occupied. They joked about one
builder who said that inventory was “rising through the
roof.”
But the officials, meeting every six weeks to discuss
the health of the nation’s economy, gave little credence
to the possibility that the faltering housing market
would weigh on the broader economy, according to
transcripts that the Fed released Thursday. Instead they
continued to tell one another throughout 2006 that the
greatest danger was inflation — the possibility that the
economy would grow too fast.
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