Although low inflation is generally good, inflation that is too low can pose risks to the economy – especially when the economy is struggling.
BEN BERNANKEI 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.
More Ben Bernanke Quotes
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Speaking as somebody who has been happily married for 35 years, I can’t imagine any choice more consequential for a lifelong journey than the choice of a traveling companion.
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[Virtual Currencies] may hold long-term promise, particularly if the innovations Promote a faster, more secure and more efficient payment system.
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I’d throw dollars out of helicopters if I had to, to stimulate the economy.
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It takes about two and a half percent growth just to keep unemployment stable.
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In the future, my communications with the public and with the markets will be entirely through regular and formal channels.
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Every effort needs to be made to try and offset the costs of Katrina and Rita by reductions in other government programs, especially those that are wasteful, duplicative and ineffective.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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The best approach here, if at all possible, is to use supervisory and regulatory methods to restrain undue risk-taking and to make sure the system is resilient in case an asset-price bubble bursts in the future.
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The risk that the economy has entered a substantial downturn appears to have diminished over the past month or so.
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Nobody really understands gold prices and I don’t pretend to understand them either.
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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.
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I am very proud of my nerd-dom.
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The GSEs are adequately capitalized. They are in no danger of failing.
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Developments in financial markets can have broad economic effects felt by many outside the markets.
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Under current law, on January 1, 2013, there’s going to be a massive fiscal cliff of large spending cuts and tax increases.
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The benefit of appointing a hawkish central banker is the increased inflation-fighting credibility that such an appointment brings.
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Investment banks manage to go bankrupt through their investment-banking activities, commercial banks manage to go bankrupt through their commercial-banking activities.
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If Wall Street crashes, does Main Street follow? Not necessarily.
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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.
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The Federal Reserve will not monetize the debt.
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The lesson of history is that you do not get a sustained economic recovery as long as the financial system is in crisis.
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I don’t think that Chinese ownership of U.S. assets is so large as to put our country at risk economically.
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We’ve never had a decline in house prices on a nationwide basis. So, what I think what is more likely is that house prices will slow, maybe stabilize, might slow consumption spending a bit. I don’t think it’s going to drive the economy too far from its full employment path, though.
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I don’t fully understand movements in the gold price.
BEN BERNANKE