Ben Bernanke Quotes
-
Monetary policy is most effective when it is coherent, consistent and predictable as possible, while at all times leaving full scope for flexibility and the use of judgment as conditions may require.
-
Monetary policy cannot do much about long-run growth, all we can try to do is to try to smooth out periods where the economy is depressed because of lack of demand.
-
Congress had made clear that it has affirmed the principle of keeping banking and commerce separate. This loophole ... circumvents that principle. If Congress wants to revisit banking and commerce, that's their prerogative but it doesn't seem a good approach to allow a loophole in which that distinction breaks down.
-
Identity theft is a serious crime that affects millions of Americans each year.
-
The GSEs are adequately capitalized. They are in no danger of failing.
-
With respect to their safety, derivatives, for the most part, are traded among very sophisticated financial institutions and individuals who have considerable incentive to understand them and to use them properly.
-
Central bankers got it right in the United States in 1987 when they avoided deflationary pressures as well as serious trouble in the banking system.
-
If I am confirmed to this position, my first priority will be to maintain consistency and continuity with the policies established during the Greenspan years.
-
Although I expect policy to follow the usual gradualist pattern, the pace of tightening will of necessity respond to evolving economic conditions, particularly the strength of the ongoing recovery in the labor market and developments on the inflation front.
-
High energy prices are burdening household budgets and raising production costs, and continued increases would at some point restrain economic growth.
-
By not tying policy to a small set of forecast indicators, we may sacrifice some degree of simplicity, but we are less likely to be misled when a favored variable behaves in an unusual manner.
-
The crisis and recession have led to very low interest rates, it is true, but these events have also destroyed jobs, hamstrung economic growth and led to sharp declines in the values of many homes and businesses.
-
The Federal Reserve has always recognized the importance of allowing markets to work, and government oversight of financial firms will never be fully effective without the aid of strong market discipline.
-
Our assessment currently is that the risks to inflation are perhaps the more significant at the moment, and we need to address that.
-
Given the central role of effective, firmwide risk management in maintaining strong financial institutions, it is clear that supervisors must redouble their efforts to help organizations improve their risk-management practices...We are also considering the need for additional or revised supervisory guidance regarding various aspects of risk management, including further emphasis on the need for an enterprise-wide perspective when assessing risk.
-
As we try to make the financial system safer, we must inevitably confront the problem of moral hazard.
-
If Wall Street crashes, does Main Street follow? Not necessarily.
-
If you are asking me if I would advocate that the Chinese go to greater flexibility in their exchange rate, I certainly would.
-
I think there's a good chance we'll dodge the bullet this time.
-
The banks have accounts with the Fed, much the same way that you have an account in a commercial bank.
-
Because financially capable consumers ultimately contribute to a stable economic and financial system as well as improve their own financial situations, it's clear that the Federal Reserve has a significant stake in financial education.
-
The economist John Maynard Keynes said that in the long run, we are all dead. If he were around today he might say that, in the long run, we are all on Social Security and Medicare.
-
After a long period in which the desired direction for inflation was always downward, the industrialized world's central banks must today try to avoid major changes in the inflation rate in either direction.
-
I would argue that no financial instrument counted as regulatory capital should be allowed to receive any protection from losses.