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Nationally, the share of mortgages that are underwater fell by about one-half between 2011 and 2014.
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A clear lesson of history is that a 'sine qua non' for sustained economic recovery following a financial crisis is a thoroughgoing repair of the financial system.
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A crucial responsibility of any central bank is to control inflation, the average rate of increase in the prices of a broad group of goods and services.
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By putting downward pressure on interest rates, the Fed is trying to make financial conditions more accommodative - supporting asset values and lower borrowing costs for households and businesses and thus encouraging the spending that spurs job creation and a stronger recovery.
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It slightly worries me that when people find a problem, they rush to judgment of what to do.
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Increased business sales would almost certainly raise the productive capacity of the economy by encouraging additional capital spending, especially if accompanied by reduced uncertainty about future prospects.
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Social safety-net spending is an important form of public funding that helps offset disparities in family resources for children.
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To me, a wise and humane policy is occasionally to let inflation rise even when inflation is running above target.
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Yankee Stadium is a natural venue for another lesson: You won't succeed all the time. Even Ruth, Gehrig, and DiMaggio failed most of time when they stepped to the plate. Finding the right path in life, more often than not, involves some missteps.
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In government institutions and in teaching, you need to inspire confidence. To achieve credibility, you have to very clearly explain what you are doing and why. The same principles apply to businesses.
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It's important for the Fed, hard as it is, to attempt to detect asset bubbles while they're forming.
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Because food and energy prices are volatile, it is often helpful to look at inflation excluding those two categories - known as core inflation - which is typically a better indicator of future overall inflation than recent readings of headline inflation.
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We need to increase the transparency of shadow banking markets so that authorities can monitor for signs of excessive leverage and unstable maturity transformation outside regulated banks.
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In 2006, the Congress had approved plans to allow the Fed, beginning in 2011, to pay interest on banks' reserve balances. In the fall of 2008, the Congress moved up the effective date of this authority to October 2008.
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The financial sector is vital to the economy. A well-functioning financial sector promotes job creation, innovation, and inclusive economic growth.
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Labor force participation peaked in early 2000, so its decline began well before the Great Recession. A portion of that decline clearly relates to the aging of the baby boom generation. But the pace of decline accelerated with the recession.
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We're charged by Congress with regulating financial institutions. We take that mission seriously. We are tough supervisors and regulators.
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Audit the Fed is a bill that would politicize monetary policy, would bring short-term political pressures to bear on the Fed. In terms of openness about our financial accounts, we are extensively audited.
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In 1977, when I started my first job at the Federal Reserve Board as a staff economist in the Division of International Finance, it was an article of faith in central banking that secrecy about monetary policy decisions was the best policy: Central banks, as a rule, did not discuss these decisions, let alone their future policy intentions.
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We need to keep in mind the well-established fact that the full effects of monetary policy are felt only after long lags. This means that policy makers cannot wait until they have achieved their objectives to begin adjusting policy.
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Policies to strengthen education and training, to encourage entrepreneurship and innovation, and to promote capital investment, both public and private, could all potentially be of great benefit in improving future living standards in our nation.
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When I was very young, my father had an accident. He fell down a flight of stairs, fractured his skull, and lost sight in one eye.
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As a general principle, the American people would be well served by the active pursuit of effective policies to support longer-run growth in productivity.
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Although we work through financial markets, our goal is to help Main Street, not Wall Street.