I really don’t like to beat up on Ben Bernanke. I don’t know him personally, but everyone I know who does says that he’s a really nice guy. And, there is no doubt he is a very smart economist. But he shares the blame for the downturn with his former boss, Alan Greenspan. Even worse, he still seems resistant to getting the story right.

No wonder these guys are rich, they never stop asking for other people’s money.

Larry Kudlow, fond of pushing his conservative talking points, ran into a couple of CEOs unwilling to go along. “Why aren’t businesses investing?” he asked. Was it because of uncertainty? Over-regulation? Obamacare?

No, said John Faraci and Don Peebles. The problem is demand. First and above all else, companies need customers.

It’s good to see some pushback like this at CNBC. Unless, of course, you’re Larry Kudlow.

The Mortgage Bankers Association reports a decrease in mortgage purchase activity last week, but an increase in refinancing activity, led by the new version of HARP. No surprise, since banks are using HARP on their own loans to capture much of the interest spread during the refinancing.

While writing a book about ACORN, I got to know Wade Rathke, spending dozens of hours hanging out with him, interviewing him, e-mailing back and forth, interviewing friends and enemies, and literally following Rathke as he worked. In an age of stylish cynicism, whatever else you might say about Wade, he believes in the basic goodness of people, our capacity for empathy, kindness, and caring. These traits are expressed not only through individual acts with his family and friends; but also with strangers, especially those who inhabit the squalid urban communities across the globe–the people ignored by the public officials and exploited by the rich and powerful.

Wells Fargo and JPMorgan Chase, showing no ill effects from a foreclosure fraud settlement that was supposed to penalize them for fraudulent misconduct, both announced robust earnings gains today. Matt Stoller has a good look inside the numbers. But I was intrigued by the fact that both banks attributed stronger mortgage lending numbers for their earnings gains.

Ed DeMarco, the Acting Director of the Federal Housing Finance Agency for the past three years, will deliver a speech today at the Brookings Institution that leans in the direction of allowing principal reduction on Fannie and Freddie-backed loans in certain cases. This is definitely a crack in the otherwise rigid objection to principal reduction on these loans, but his preliminary analysis suggests the idea may not produce that great an effect.

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau has begun its rulemaking process for mortgage servicing, starting with a description of the rules they will consider. The formal proposal of servicing rules will come this summer, and the final rules will get promulgated in January 2013.

Mark Zandi now predicts that the job market will come back at a much stronger clip than he previously expected, with the jobless rate under 8% by the end of 2012 and under 7% by the end of 2013. Zandi is the guy who predicted a bottom in housing prices in 2008, 2009, 2010 and 2011. One of these days he may be right, and all of Washington will hail his analytical acumen.

Over the next several weeks, these bank accountability leaders told me they will step up their direct efforts against the banks and also the Administration.