No economy can succeed without a high-quality workforce, particularly in an age of globalization and technical change. – Ben Bernanke
The public in many countries is understandably concerned by the commitment of substantial government resources to aid the financial industry when other industries receive little or no assistance. This disparate treatment, unappealing as it is, appears unavoidable. – Ben Bernanke
The Federal Reserve Act requires the Federal Reserve to report annually on its operations and to publish its balance sheet weekly. – Ben Bernanke
The ultimate purpose of economics, of course, is to understand and promote the enhancement of well-being. – Ben Bernanke
The one thing people don’t appreciate, I think, is that central banking is not a new development. It’s been around for a very long time. – Ben Bernanke
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. – 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
To the extent that bank panics interfere with normal flows of credit, they may affect the performance of the real economy. – Ben Bernanke
It must be awfully frustrating to get a small raise at work and then have it all eaten by a higher cost of commuting. – Ben Bernanke
Monetary policy has less room to maneuver when interest rates are close to zero, while expansionary fiscal policy is likely both more effective and less costly in terms of increased debt burden when interest rates are pinned at low levels. – Ben Bernanke
China is growing very quickly and is clearly becoming an important player in the world economy. – Ben Bernanke
The Federal Reserve has always recognized the importance of allowing markets to work, and government oversight of financial firms will never be fully effective without the aid of strong market discipline. – Ben Bernanke
Low and stable inflation in many countries is an important accomplishment that will continue to bring significant benefits. – Ben Bernanke
The Fed needs an approach that consolidates the gains of the Greenspan years and ensures that those successful policies will continue – even if future Fed chairmen are less skillful or less committed to price stability than Mr. Greenspan has been. – Ben Bernanke
Our financial system is so complicated and so interactive – so many different markets in different countries and so many sets of rules. – Ben Bernanke
I’ve never been on Wall Street. And I care about Wall Street for one reason and one reason only because what happens on Wall Street matters to Main Street. – Ben Bernanke
No one will lend at a negative interest rate; potential creditors will simply choose to hold cash, which pays zero nominal interest. – Ben Bernanke
Economic management involves the operation of economic frameworks in real time – for example, in the private sector, the management of complex financial institutions or, in the public sector, the day-to-day supervision of those institutions. – Ben Bernanke
In all likelihood, a significant amount of time will be required to restore the nearly eight and a half million jobs that were lost nationwide over 2008 and 2009. – Ben Bernanke
Because a person has to be either working or looking for work to be counted as part of the labor force, an increase in the number of people too discouraged to continue their search for work would reduce the unemployment rate, all else being equal – but not for a positive reason. – Ben Bernanke
The Federal Reserve’s job is to do the right thing, to take the long-run interest of the economy to heart, and that sometimes means being unpopular. But we have to do the right thing. – Ben Bernanke
The financial crisis that began in the summer of 2007 was an extraordinarily complex event with multiple causes. – Ben Bernanke
Long term, I have a lot of confidence in the United States. We have an excellent record in terms of innovation. We have great universities that are involved in technological change and progress. We have an entrepreneurial culture, much more than almost any other country. – Ben Bernanke
In many spheres of human endeavor, from science to business to education to economic policy, good decisions depend on good measurement. – Ben Bernanke
In a slow-growing world that is short on aggregate demand, Germany’s trade surplus is a problem. – 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