“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.”

I am very proud of my nerd-dom.

The financial crisis appears to be mostly behind us, and the economy seems to have stabilized and is expanding again.

In the future, my communications with the public and with the markets will be entirely through regular and formal channels.

While rising delinquencies and foreclosures will continue to weigh heavily on the housing market this year, it will not cripple the U.S.

It’s the price of success: people start to think you’re omnipotent.

Investment banks manage to go bankrupt through their investment-banking activities, commercial banks manage to go bankrupt through their commercial-banking activities.

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.

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.

Not all information is beneficial.

So it’s important, as it affects overall levels of production and employment in the U.S. There are many domestic industries doing well in the United States, notwithstanding a strong dollar.

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.

Under current law, on January 1, 2013, there’s going to be a massive fiscal cliff of large spending cuts and tax increases.

The people who best use their advantages, or overcome adversity, and work honestly are those most worthy of admiration.

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

We do not expect significant spillovers from the subprime market to the rest of the economy or to the financial system.

I served seven years as the chair of the Princeton economics department where I had responsibility for major policy decisions, such as whether to serve bagels or doughnuts at the department coffee hour.

How could I, blest with thee, long nights employ; And how with the longest day enjoy!

It is impossible for men engaged in low and groveling pursuits to have noble and generous sentiments. A man’s thought must always follow his employment.

Medicine is not merely a science but an art. The character of the physician may act more powerfully upon the patient than the drugs employed.

The defects of human nature afford us opportunities of exercising our philosophy, the best employment of our virtues. If all men were righteous, all hearts true and frank and loyal, what use would our virtues be?

Teaching thinking for just five hours to unemployed youngsters increased employment 500 percent.

Fighting, and the employment of force, even for the right cause, will not bring about good results. The oppressed who have right on their side, must not take that right by force; the evil would continue. Hearts must be changed.

It is observed at sea that men are never so much disposed to grumble and mutiny as when least employed. Hence an old captain, when there was nothing else to do, would issue the order to “scour the anchor.

We employ the mind to rule, the body to serve.