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I think that having good data, good statistics-and the United States generally has better macroeconomic statistics than most countries-and having good economists to interpret those data and present the policy alternatives, has a substantially beneficial effect on policymaking in the United States.

Ben Bernanke

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More quotes by Ben Bernanke

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

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

The Federal Reserve will not monetize the debt.

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 economist John Maynard Keynes said that in the long run, we are all dead. If he were around today he might say that, in the long run, we are all on Social Security and Medicare.

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.

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

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 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.

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 don't see much evidence of an equity bubble.

The benefit of appointing a hawkish central banker is the increased inflation-fighting credibility that such an appointment brings.

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

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.

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