Both humanity’s capacity to innovate and the incentives to innovate are greater today than at any other time in history.
BEN BERNANKEI don’t think that Chinese ownership of U.S. assets is so large as to put our country at risk economically.
More Ben Bernanke Quotes
-
-
I don’t fully understand movements in the gold price.
BEN BERNANKE -
The people who best use their advantages, or overcome adversity, and work honestly are those most worthy of admiration.
BEN BERNANKE -
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.
BEN BERNANKE -
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.
BEN BERNANKE -
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.
BEN BERNANKE -
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.
BEN BERNANKE -
House prices have risen by nearly 25 percent over the past two years. Although speculative activity has increased in some areas, at a national level these price increases largely reflect strong economic fundamentals.
BEN BERNANKE -
The benefit of appointing a hawkish central banker is the increased inflation-fighting credibility that such an appointment brings.
BEN BERNANKE -
How much would you pay to avoid a second Depression?
BEN BERNANKE -
One might as well try to perform brain surgery with a sledgehammer.
BEN BERNANKE -
Education – lifelong education for everyone – from toddlers to workers well advanced in their careers – is indeed an excellent investment for individuals and society as a whole.
BEN BERNANKE -
Investment banks manage to go bankrupt through their investment-banking activities, commercial banks manage to go bankrupt through their commercial-banking activities.
BEN BERNANKE -
Not all information is beneficial.
BEN BERNANKE -
Over the years, the U.S. economy has shown a remarkable ability to absorb shocks of all kinds, to recover, and to continue to grow.
BEN BERNANKE -
Indeed, in general, healthy investment returns cannot be sustained in a weak economy, and of course it is difficult to save for retirement or other goals without the income from a job.
BEN BERNANKE -
September and October of 2008 was the worst financial crisis in global history, including the Great Depression.
BEN BERNANKE -
The Federal Reserve is not currently forecasting a recession.
BEN BERNANKE -
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.
BEN BERNANKE -
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.
BEN BERNANKE -
Although low inflation is generally good, inflation that is too low can pose risks to the economy – especially when the economy is struggling.
BEN BERNANKE -
Under a cold turkey strategy, at each policy meeting the Federal Open Market Committee would make its best guess about where it ultimately wants the funds rate to be and would move to that rate in a single step.
BEN BERNANKE -
The economic repercussions of a stock market crash depend less on the severity of the crash itself than on the response of economic policymakers, particularly central bankers.
BEN BERNANKE -
A money-financed tax cut is essentially equivalent to Milton Friedman’s famous ‘helicopter drop’ of money.
BEN BERNANKE -
The central bank needs to be able to make policy without short term political concerns.
BEN BERNANKE -
Life is amazingly unpredictable; any 22-year-old who thinks they know where they will be in 10 years, much less in 30, is simply lacking imagination.
BEN BERNANKE -
The more important reason is that the research itself provides an important long-run perspective on the issues that we face on a day-to-day basis.
BEN BERNANKE