Quote

Investment banks manage to go bankrupt through their investment-banking activities, commercial banks manage to go bankrupt through their commercial-banking activities.

Ben Bernanke

Change background

T

T

T

Change font

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.

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

One might as well try to perform brain surgery with a sledgehammer.

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.

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

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

The Federal Reserve is not currently forecasting a recession.

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.

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

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

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.

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.

Among the largest banks, the capital ratios remain good and I don’t expect any serious problems . . . . among the large, internationally active banks that make up a very substantial part of our banking system.

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.