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The crisis and recession have led to very low interest rates, it is true, but these events have also destroyed jobs, hamstrung economic growth and led to sharp declines in the values of many homes and businesses.

Ben Bernanke

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The American people are among the most productive in the world. We have the best technologies. We have - great universities. We have entrepreneurs.

If you are asking me if I would advocate that the Chinese go to greater flexibility in their exchange rate, I certainly would.

To avoid large and unsustainable budget deficits, the nation will ultimately have to choose among higher taxes, modifications to entitlement programs such as Social Security and Medicare, less spending on everything else from education to defense, or some combination of the above.

It's the price of success: people start to think you're omnipotent.

Economics is a highly sophisticated field of thought that is superb at explaining to policymakers precisely why the choices they made in the past were wrong. About the future, not so much.

The Federal Reserve will not monetize the debt.

A money-financed tax cut is essentially equivalent to Milton Friedman's famous 'helicopter drop' of money.

The more guidance a central bank can provide the public about how policy is likely to evolve the greater the chance that market participants will make appropriate inferences.

The risk exists that, with aggregate demand exhibiting considerable momentum, output could overshoot its sustainable path, leading ultimately in the absence of countervailing monetary policy action to further upward pressure on inflation.

I am very proud of my nerd-dom.

Indeed, in general, healthy investment returns cannot be sustained in a weak economy, and of course it is difficult to save for retirement or other goals without the income from a job.

The economic repercussions of a stock market crash depend less on the severity of the crash itself than on the response of economic policymakers, particularly central bankers.

We do not expect significant spillovers from the subprime market to the rest of the economy or to the financial system.

It takes about two and a half percent growth just to keep unemployment stable.

Economics is a very difficult subject. I've compared it to trying to learn how to repair a car when the engine is running.

I assure this committee that, if I am confirmed, I will be strictly independent of all political influences... essential to that institution's ability to function effectively and achieve its mandated objectives.