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If Wall Street crashes, does Main Street follow? Not necessarily.

Ben Bernanke

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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.

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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

Our mission, as set forth by the Congress is a critical one: to preserve price stability, to foster maximum sustainable growth in output and employment, and to promote a stable and efficient financial system that serves all Americans well and fairly.

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