Ben Bernanke Quotes

For market discipline to constrain risk effectively, financial institutions must be allowed to fail. Under optimal financial regulatory and financial system infrastructures, such a failure would not threaten the overall system.

Our current way of regulating the financial system is dysfunctional. Oversight is dispersed among numerous confusing bodies that at times have seemed to be racing each other to the bottom. Setting up One Big Regulator would end that problem.

There's a lot of talk coming from Citigroup about how Dodd-Frank isn't perfect. Let me say this to anyone who is listening at Citi: I agree with you. Dodd-Frank isn't perfect. It should have broken you into pieces.

You cannot have fairness unless you have transparency…We don’t know that is going on inside those boxes … we could have a meltdown [in the entire economy].

We are optimistic with respect to thrifts .... I don't think that there is any cause for undue concern and I would reject any suggestion that we are in the midst of some sort of a major systemic problem with respect to any element of our financial services industry.

I believe that we have to have a new regulatory regime for our financial system.

The financial system has to be regulated, we have to end with the tax havens, and it's necessary that the central banks in the world should control a little bit the banks' financing because they cannot bypass a certain range of leverage.

What we have to find is the right level of regulation of our financial system so that it has the incentive to invest in things, but at the same time, it is sufficiently regulated so it can't get in the kind of trouble that we have seen in the past and we have seen recently.

Some of my colleagues are unwilling to vote for any Dodd-Frank reforms, partly out of the political fear that any reforms will be seen as reducing regulations on the financial sector.

There are parts [in Dodd-Frank] that I don't agree with. But, in total, it is what it is.

No bank should be allowed to become so big that it can blackmail governments.

Dodd-Frank and independent actions of banks go a long way in terms of progress on capital, liquidity, transparency, "living wills" (plans for winding down a bank in the event of a collapse) and resolutions.

The banks, because of mismanagement, because of huge risk taking, are now in very vulnerable positions. We can expect that we're gonna have to do more to shore up the financial system. We also are gonna have to make sure that we set up financial regulations so that not only does this never happen again, but you start having some sort of - trust in how the credit markets work again.

In the case of a meltdown, the regulatory authorities may find themselves obliged to step in to preserve the integrity of the system. It is in that light that the authorities have both a right and an obligation to supervise and regulate derivative instruments.

Any bank that is too big to fail is too big. Period.

If they are too big to fail, make them smaller.

Our financial markets work best when they are competitive, fair, and transparent.

Bringing back something akin to Glass-Steagall would clearly help limit risk in the system. And that's a very good and worthy goal. Letting banks sell securities and insurance products and services allowed them to grow too big too fast and fueled a culture that put profit and pay over prudence.

I'll be very clear about this: I'm not a fan of getting rid of Dodd-Frank.

One of the things I do in banking committees is put pressure on them, and one of the other things I do is through my website, through outside pressure, and I ask people to come and help us join that fight where we can get people outside to keep putting the pressure on the Senate to make sure there are no compromises and weakening of Dodd-Frank.

As with the government failures that made 9/11 possible, neglecting to prevent the crash of '08 was a sin of omission - less the result of deregulation per se than of disbelief in financial regulation as a legitimate mechanism.

The idea that either individuals or organisations are 'too big to fail' or that the tech and start-up sector is somehow different is wrong.

Proprietary trading does not belong in banks with FDIC insurance.

I have and will continue to oppose any legislation that would undermine the important consumer protections provided under Dodd-Frank.

What happened at Mt. Gox is not an isolated incident. This is a plague that continues to play like a bad broken record. As long as this continues to happen, how are we ever going to instill confidence in this industry? How are we better than the old financial system?