Molly Ivins Quotes

The Fed [Federal Reserve System], whether it likes it or not, is required to provide adequate reserves to the banking system in order for the government to finance its needs, even when that is inflationary.

The Federal Reserve is playing a mind game—but with enormous real-world consequences.

Alan Greenspan is the worst Chairman of the Fed in history.

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.

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

Prices are going up. Unemployment continues to go up. And we have not had the necessary correction for the financial bubble created by our Federal Reserve system.

It's pointless to talk to Fed members about economics because they are academics who believe in money-printing. Some of them believe they didn't print enough, and so with these kinds of people, it is like running to the pope. What do you want to tell them?

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.

Long before folks fretted the demise of 'quantitative easing,' I fretted its existence. It proved the reverse of its image, an antistimulus, and we've done okay not because of it, but despite it.

If Federal Reserve loans are subsidies, it doesn't show up in the federal budget.

The Federal Reserve bank buys government bonds without one penny

Our Federal Reserve has unlimited money raising powers.

In 2006, the Congress had approved plans to allow the Fed, beginning in 2011, to pay interest on banks' reserve balances. In the fall of 2008, the Congress moved up the effective date of this authority to October 2008.

I believe that the history of Fed policymaking is that, you know, there are times when we need to raise rates.

The Fed's job is not to stall growth or to prevent economic 'overheating.' It is to keep prices stable and the dollar a strong and reliable currency.

Forget quantitative easing - I've always thought the idea of injecting virtual money into the system is an accident waiting to happen.

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

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.

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.

There's nothing the people love more than a Federal Reserve joke.

The central focus of what we are doing at the Fed is to keep inflation from accelerating - and preferably decelerating.

The Fed has the ability to put money out, it's got the ability to take money back in, and if they don't do that, we will have hyperinflation worse than we had in 1980 and 1981.

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

I never liked quantitative easing. It's misunderstood by almost everybody. Flattening the yield curve is not stimulative; flattening the yield curve is anti-stimulative.

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.