I’m probably supposed to comment here about great ironies and pain in this day and age: Even Ben Bernanke is touched by our collective financial collapse! Even our chief economist can’t protect his own halcyon memories from America’s economic downfall!

Okay, now here’s the story: The Wall Street Journal reports that Bernanke’s childhood home in South Carolina recently when into foreclosure. A young, local banker bought the property in December. 

Bernanke himself won’t comment about the sale, saying only ” “We believe that getting the credit markets going, getting banks lending again, increasing the demand for all products—-including those made in Dillon—- are part of economic recovery…That’s what the Fed’s trying to do.”

Yes, Dillon is the name of Bernanke’s hometown. It’s located on the northeastern edge of the state close to the North Carolina border. President Barack Obama visited the area twice during the campaign “to highlight the desperate state of its schools.”  Watchers  of the long-failing NBC show “Friday Night Lights”——Just me, I fear—- may also recognize Dillon as the name of the show’s fictionalized downtrodden West Texas town. Hardscrabble points all around.  

Well, at least Bernanke’s stardom got his old house sold. “It’s just a great sense of pride to know that one of the greatest leaders we have in our time period walked the same floors I walk…It’s just sheer excitement,” says the young man that now owns the property. 

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