Milton Friedman Quotes

There is no entity in the world that controls our lives more than the Federal Reserve System

The Fed has one power that is unique to it alone: it enables the creation of money out of thin air. Sometimes it makes vast new amounts. Sometimes it makes lesser amounts. The money takes a variety of forms and enters the system in various ways. And the Fed does this through techniques such as open-market operations, changing reserve ratios, and manipulating interest rates, operations that all result in money creation.

For the first time the committee [Federal Reserve] was using communication — mere words — as its primary monetary policy tool.

The Fed is totally open.

There is always the potential for a central bank to engage in discretionary monetary policy and to break the one-to-one link between changes in foreign reserves and changes in the money supply.

Our Federal Reserve has unlimited money raising powers.

Monetary policy is like juggling six balls... it is not 'interest rate up, interest rate down.' There is the exchange rate, there are long term yields, there are short term yields, there is credit growth.

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

Whether a bank lent one million, ten million, or a hundred millions, they would not permanently alter the market rate of interest; they would alter only the value of the money they issued.

There's no hidden secrets going on in the Federal Reserve...

The Fed is the greatest hedge fund in history.

Almost every aspect of its (Federal Reserve) history should be approached with a discriminating disregard for what is commonly taught or believed.

I think the role of the Federal Reserve is enormously exaggerated.

The Fed's ability to raise and lower short-term interest rates is its primary control over the economy.

And let the Fed sell bonds to bring bank reserves back down to required reserve levels, so we have restraint on bank lending and bank issuances of liability.

We made a decision that monetary policy will be made by an independent European Central Bank.

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

Interest rates are used to achieve overall economic stability.

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

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.

The Central Bank should have a permanent window for discounting high quality securities where banks could go and discount these. It gives peace of mind to the banks. In the absence of this facility, what banks tend to do is to keep a liquidity cushion for emergency requirements. This is a very expensive way of managing liquidity.

Give me the power to issue a nation’s money; then I do not care who makes the laws.

The Fed [Federal Reserve] is the world’s largest hedge fund.

I don’t think that the Fed [Federal Reserve] ever can be or should be a prisoner of the markets.

The new law will create inflation whenever the trusts want inflation. From now on depressions will be scientifically created.