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

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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.

Among the largest banks, the capital ratios remain good and I don’t expect any serious problems . . . . among the large, internationally active banks that make up a very substantial part of our banking system.

The Federal Reserve will not monetize the debt.

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.

The basic prescription for preventing deflation is therefore straightforward, at least in principle: Use monetary and fiscal policy as needed to support aggregate spending.

Achieving price stability is not only important in itself, it is also central to attaining the Federal Reserve’s other mandate objectives of maximum sustainable employment and moderate long-term interest rates.

The risk exists that, with aggregate demand exhibiting considerable momentum, output could overshoot its sustainable path, leading ultimately in the absence of countervailing monetary policy action to further upward pressure on inflation.

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.

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.

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.

I generally leave the details of fiscal programs to the Administration and Congress. That’s really their area of authority and responsibility, and I don’t think it’s appropriate for me to second guess.

Conventional money is supposed to be doing everything. By adding in complementary currencies, you actually get different types of things and different outcomes from different complementary currencies.

Only one fellow in ten thousand understands the currency question, and we meet him every day.

The alternative is only whether the crisis should come sooner as the result of voluntary abandonment of further credit expansion, or later as a final and total catastrophe of the currency system involved.

Generosity is not only about money. There is more than one currency. Let your generosity be pervasive in life.

Before things are written down they don’t exist in quite the same way. The act of fixing them in words gives them a kind of currency that can be traded.

From now on, the pound abroad is worth 14 per cent or so less in terms of other currencies. That doesn’t mean, of course, that the Pound here in Britain, in your pocket or purse or in your bank, has been devalued.

There is no subtler, no surer means of overturning the existing basis of society than to debauch the currency.

Is a currency worth anything if no one wants it? We used to buy shoes in Italy. Remember?