Ben Bernanke Quotes

I’ve always been a little nervous about the Fed. Quite frankly, I’m a little nervous about the degree of their independence.

In the past, Federal Reserve chairmen have not generally gone directly to the public.

There is a European Central Bank, of course, established and it has the structure similar to the Federal Reserve system, not precisely the same but similar.

The Fed is the major U.S. firefighter. It's not the Treasury. It's not the Congress. We certainly saw that vividly in 2008.

There's no other job in public life that is like chairman of the Fed.

It's true that the Federal Reserve faces a lot of political pressure and is unpopular in many circles.

The nation can't count on the Fed when the Fed can't count.

Communication has become a fulcrum of policy [of the Federal Reserve]. Policy makers shape expectations and, thus, economic behavior.

A snarky but accurate description of monetary policy over the past five years is that the Federal Reserve successfully replaced the technology bubble with a housing bubble

Double-digit inflation is a terrible thing - and it got up to 14 or 15 percent on a monthly basis for a while, shortly after I became chairman of the Fed.

The job of the Central Bank is to worry.

The Federal Reserve Act requires the Federal Reserve to report annually on its operations and to publish its balance sheet weekly.

The Fed is totally open.

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.

The Fed's policy choices can always be debated, but the quality and commitment of the Federal Reserve as a public institution is second to none, and I am proud to lead it.

All the Federal Reserve can do is make loans against collateral.

The president has very little effect on the economy. If you want to put blame or credit, the main person who influences the business cycle is the head of the Federal Reserve Bank.

The Federal Reserve cannot solve all the economy's problems on its own.

Of course I've already taken a very modest position on the monetary system, I do take the position that we should just end the Fed.

The Federal Reserve has never suffered any losses in the course of its normal lending to banks and, now, to primary dealers.

When the economic well-being of their nation demanded a strong and creative response, my colleagues at the Federal Reserve... mustered the moral courage to do what was necessary.

The Fed is the biggest enemy of this economy. In fact, Ben Bernanke, as far as I'm concerned, he's public enemy No. 1. We're never going to have a recovery while this guy's in charge.

The principle that a central bank, charged with controlling inflation, should be independent from the government is unassailable. It may also be true that it's easier for the central bank to guard its independence from political pressure when it mainly holds government securities.

The Federal Reserve, the Treasury, all the regulator agencies - if there's a problem of the financial mechanism in society, the only one to fix it is government. They've got a legitimate role.

I think the Fed is not designed to have effective tools to deal with the economy. It should settle for just controlling the money supply. And - if it insists, it can worry about inflation.