Milton Friedman Quotes

Our system works best if the value of money stays the same.

Low and stable inflation in many countries is an important accomplishment that will continue to bring significant benefits.

Requiring the Fed to focus on preserving the purchasing power of the dollar will create a solid foundation for economic growth.

The main long-run contribution monetary policy can make is to provide a stable macroeconomic and financial environment.

Japan's experience suggests the importance of assessing the sustainability of price stability over a fairly long period, which many central banks have emphasized in recent years.

The benefit of appointing a hawkish central banker is the increased inflation-fighting credibility that such an appointment brings.

Our mission, as set forth by the Congress is a critical one: to preserve price stability, to foster maximum sustainable growth in output and employment, and to promote a stable and efficient financial system that serves all Americans well and fairly.

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.

And I am convinced that a single focus on preserving the purchasing power of the dollar, in effect, guarding against inflation or deflation, actually creates a solid foundation for the greatest job growth and the strongest economy that America can have.

It has a sound and rational circulating medium, a real and definite representative of wealth.

Growth is good for this society as long as it doesn't pass the point of tripping off inflation.

The most important quality of a currency is its stability.

If by carelessness in controlling inflation and imposing controls on our general economy we are unable to meet these temporary but vital calls upon us, we will be courting real disaster.

Backing of paper money should be upon the gold, the silver, the wheat, the corn, and everything else in the country, including the public credit.

Inflation is always and everywhere a monetary phenomenon in the sense that it is and can be produced only by a more rapid increase in the quantity of money than in output. ... A steady rate of monetary growth at a moderate level can provide a framework under which a country can have little inflation and much growth. It will not produce perfect stability; it will not produce heaven on earth; but it can make an important contribution to a stable economic society.

Monetary stability is a cornerstone of the social contract.

Avoiding inflation is not an absolute imperative but rather is one of a number of conflicting goals that we must pursue and that we may often have to compromise.

There is nobody who would want, in any way, to lose what Paul Volcker won for the American people by fighting inflation and achieving price stability.

Exchange-rate stability is extremely important.

I don't think Congress, in general, has done a good job articulating to the American public how inextricably linked our credit markets are to our entire economic system.

Currency regimes in the past were always destroyed by volatility. So sooner or later, people desire a currency that is stable.

The best way that a central bank can support growth on a durable basis is to ensure inflation is low, stable - there is financial stability - and that is the role that the central bank plays.

The Federal Reserve is incapable of accomplishing its stated objectives.

The Congress has tasked the Federal Reserve with achieving stable prices and maximum employment - the dual mandate.

The Federal Reserve is committed to fulfilling our statutory mandate of stable prices and maximum employment.