Paul Krugman Quotes

The most important thing to remember is that inflation is not an act of God, that inflation is not a catastrophe of the elements or a disease that comes like the plague. Inflation is a policy.

Inflation is a monetary phenomenon. It is made by or stopped by the central bank.

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

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.

Whip Inflation Now

After a long period in which the desired direction for inflation was always downward, the industrialized world's central banks must today try to avoid major changes in the inflation rate in either direction.

I'm just opposed to a pure inflation-only mandate in which the only thing a central bank cares about is inflation and not employment.

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.

A crucial responsibility of any central bank is to control inflation, the average rate of increase in the prices of a broad group of goods and services.

By the time I became chairman and there was more of a feeling of urgency, there was a willingness to accept more forceful measures to try to deal with the inflation.

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

Domestic inflation reflects domestic monetary policy.

Our purpose is to lean against the winds of deflation or inflation, whichever way they are blowing.

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.

The government will always tell you that it wants low inflation. The real issue is the horizon over which to bring inflation down.

Yes, 4% is the government-mandated target to the MPC. The plus/minus 2 percentage-point upper and lower bands are the tolerance levels specified by the government. If we breach those for three consecutive quarters, we need to inform the government of why that happened and what we propose to do to bring inflation within the two bands.

Janet Yellen at the FED is equivalent to having a biology schoolteacher who has never seen blood perform brain surgery.

When the Fed decides that inflation is too high, they have the tools, and they've shown historically that they have the will, to bring it down. And, it might be painful.

The United States has experienced high rates of inflation in the past and appears to be running the same type of fiscal policies that engendered hyperinflations in 20 countries over the past century.

Inflation is probably the most important single factor in that vicious circle wherein one kind of government action makes more and more government control necessary. For this reason all those who wish to stop the drift toward increasing government control should concentrate their effort on monetary policy.

Inflation has always been an important resource of policies of war and revolution and why we also find it in the service of socialism.

It was gradually learned that acceptance of a somewhat higher inflation rate would not really bring somewhat higher employment.

We pay some price when necessary to bring down inflation but that price is temporary and is not large relative to the permanent gain from reduced inflation.

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

If I am confirmed, I am confident that my colleagues on the Federal Open Market Committee and I will maintain the focus on long-term price stability as monetary policy's greatest contribution to general economic prosperity and maximum employment.