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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.

Ben Bernanke

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More quotes by Ben Bernanke

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 Federal Reserve is not currently forecasting a recession.

The Federal Reserve will not monetize the debt.

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

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.

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.

I don't see much evidence of an equity bubble.

Over the years, the U.S. economy has shown a remarkable ability to absorb shocks of all kinds, to recover, and to continue to grow.

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.

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

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

Education - lifelong education for everyone - from toddlers to workers well advanced in their careers - is indeed an excellent investment for individuals and society as a whole.

Life is amazingly unpredictable any 22-year-old who thinks they know where they will be in 10 years, much less in 30, is simply lacking imagination.

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