Ben Bernanke Quotes

Nobody likes to fail but failure is an essential part of life and of learning. If your uniform isn't dirty, you haven't been in the game.

I'd throw dollars out of helicopters if I had to, to stimulate the economy.

The U.S. government has a technology, called a printing press (or, today, its electronic equivalent), that allows it to produce as many U.S. dollars as it wishes at essentially no cost.

The impact on the broader economy and financial markets of the problems in the subprime markets seems likely to be contained.

Economics is a very difficult subject. I've compared it to trying to learn how to repair a car when the engine is running.

The Federal Reserve is not currently forecasting a recession.

It is not the responsibility of the Federal Bank - nor would it be appropriate - to protect lenders and investors from the consequences of their decisions

I and others were mistaken early on in saying that the subprime crisis would be contained. The causal relationship between the housing problem and the broad financial system was very complex and difficult to predict.

The Federal Reserve will not monetize the debt.

The amount of currency in circulation is not changing. The money supply is not changing in any significant way.

Like gold, U.S. dollars have value only to the extent that they are strictly limited in supply. But the U.S. government has a technology, called a printing press (or, today, its electronic equivalent), that allows it to produce as many U.S. dollars as it wishes at essentially no cost. By increasing the number of U.S. dollars in circulation, or even by credibly threatening to do so, the U.S. government can also reduce the value of a dollar in terms of goods and services, which is equivalent to raising the prices in dollars of those goods and services.

There's no denying that a collapse in stock prices today would pose serious macroeconomic challenges for the United States. Consumer spending would slow, and the U.S. economy would become less of a magnet for foreign investors. Economic growth, which in any case has recently been at unsustainable levels, would decline somewhat. History proves, however, that a smart central bank can protect the economy and the financial sector from the nastier side effects of a stock market collapse.

To avoid large and unsustainable budget deficits, the nation will ultimately have to choose among higher taxes, modifications to entitlement programs such as Social Security and Medicare, less spending on everything else from education to defense, or some combination of the above.

I don't see much evidence of an equity bubble.

If you want to understand geology, study earthquakes. If you want to understand the economy, study the Depression.

A money-financed tax cut is essentially equivalent to Milton Friedman's famous 'helicopter drop' of money.

Economics is a highly sophisticated field of thought that is superb at explaining to policymakers precisely why the choices they made in the past were wrong. About the future, not so much.

In fact, the world needs more nerds.

The lesson of history is that you do not get a sustained economic recovery as long as the financial system is in crisis.

Monetary policy is not a panacea.

Our mission, as set forth by the Congress is a critical one: to preserve price stability, to foster maximum sustainable growth in output and employment, and to promote a stable and efficient financial system that serves all Americans well and fairly.

Importantly, in the 1930s, in the Great Depression, the Federal Reserve, despite its mandate, was quite passive and, as a result, financial crisis became very severe, lasted essentially from 1929 to 1933.

If your uniform isn't dirty, you haven't been in the game.

A gold standard doesn't imply stability in the prices of the goods and services that people buy every day, it implies a stability in the price of gold itself.

It must be awfully frustrating to get a small raise at work and then have it all eaten by a higher cost of commuting.