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If you want to understand geology, study earthquakes. If you want to understand the economy, study the Depression.

Ben Bernanke

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Born: December 13

Ben Shalom Bernanke

Benjamin Shalom Bernanke

More quotes by Ben Bernanke

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 financial crisis appears to be mostly behind us, and the economy seems to have stabilized and is expanding again.

Under a cold turkey strategy, at each policy meeting the Federal Open Market Committee would make its best guess about where it ultimately wants the funds rate to be and would move to that rate in a single step.

If you are not happy with yourself, even the loftiest achievements won't bring you much satisfaction.

Nobody really understands gold prices and I don't pretend to understand them either.

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.

In the future, my communications with the public and with the markets will be entirely through regular and formal channels.

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.

I and others were mistaken early on in saying that the subprime crisis would be contained. The causal relationship between the housing problem and the broad financial system was very complex and difficult to predict.

I am very proud of my nerd-dom.

Speaking as somebody who has been happily married for 35 years, I can't imagine any choice more consequential for a lifelong journey than the choice of a traveling companion.

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

I don't think that Chinese ownership of U.S. assets is so large as to put our country at risk economically.

With respect to their safety, derivatives, for the most part, are traded among very sophisticated financial institutions and individuals who have considerable incentive to understand them and to use them properly.

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

The Federal Reserve will not monetize the debt.