"The typical pattern ... is that the Fed lowers interest rates when the economy is in a recession and they increase interest rates later. And what many are saying -- and I will say, with the benefit of hindsight -- is that the Fed waited a year too long to raise interest rates," says Dr. Walden, a professor of agricultural and resource economics. "They didn't raise interest rates until 2004, some say they should have increased interest rates beginning in 2003.

"Now what does this mean? What could this have done to get us into the situation we are in now?" Walden asks. "Well, what the critics say is that this gave the economy a full additional year of very low interest rates, lots of money and credit floating around in the economy. ... Much of this money went into the housing market; some of it went into loans that we now can say were marginal loans. They weren't credit-worthy loans. And now since interest rates have gone up many of those loans have turned out to be bad, and foreclosures have gone up.

"And the critics of the Federal Reserve say that if the Fed had actually raised interest rates in 2003, not all but some of this would have been eliminated," Walden adds. "So this is why the Fed is having some fingers pointed at it. I should say that ... these decisions were made under the previous Fed chairman, so Greenspan is getting some heat here. But again this is all the benefit of hindsight. It's actually very difficult believe it or not to know exactly where you are in the economy at a particular time."