NEW YORK — In a story in today's New York Times about how The Federal Reserve, the U.S. Treasury and other regulators repeatedly ignored warnings on the subprime housing crisis, Martin Eakes singled out the Fed's slow reaction to rein in lenders.

The former CEO and co-founder of the Center for Community Self-Help and CEO of The Center for Responsible Lending in Durham, N.C., Eakes said, "The Federal Reserve could have stopped this problem dead in its tracks. If the Fed had done its job we would not have had the abusive lending and we would not have a foreclosure crisis in virtually every community across America."

Former Fed Chairman Alan Greenspan has been defending the Fed's role as regulator, claiming in a series of interviews and in his book, "The Age of Turbulence: Adventures in a New World," that the Fed was ill-suited to investigate deceptions and fraud in mortgage lending.