Ben Bernanke quotes:

Importantly, in the 1930s, in the Great Depression, the Federal Reserve, despite its mandate, was quite passive and, as a result, financial crisis became very severe, lasted essentially from 1929 to 1933.

Community development has a long history of innovation and learning from experience.

In many spheres of human endeavor, from science to business to education to economic policy, good decisions depend on good measurement.

Smart financial planning - such as budgeting, saving for emergencies, and preparing for retirement - can help households enjoy better lives while weathering financial shocks. Financial education can play a key role in getting to these outcomes.

Home purchases that are very highly leveraged or unaffordable subject the borrower and lender to a great deal of risk. Moreover, even in a strong economy, unforeseen life events and risks in local real estate markets make highly leveraged borrowers vulnerable.

Evolutionary psychologists suggest that humans experienced evolutionary benefits from brain developments that included aversion to loss and risk and from instincts for cooperation that helped strengthen communities.

For practitioners of community development, as in any field, joining a network of like-minded professionals is important for building skills and becoming aware of opportunities and resources.

High levels of homeownership have been shown to foster greater involvement in school and civic organizations, higher graduation rates, and greater neighborhood stability.

Stronger regulation and supervision aimed at problems with underwriting practices and lenders' risk management would have been a more effective and surgical approach to constraining the housing bubble than a general increase in interest rates.

The lesson of history is that you do not get a sustained economic recovery as long as the financial system is in crisis.

The Federal Reserve Act requires the Federal Reserve to report annually on its operations and to publish its balance sheet weekly.

To be sure, the provision of liquidity alone can by no means solve the problems of credit risk and credit losses; but it can reduce liquidity premiums, help restore the confidence of investors, and thus promote stability.

Among other objectives, liquidity guidelines must take into account the risks that inadequate liquidity planning by major financial firms pose for the broader financial system, and they must ensure that these firms do not become excessively reliant on liquidity support from the central bank.

The Federal Reserve's job is to do the right thing, to take the long-run interest of the economy to heart, and that sometimes means being unpopular. But we have to do the right thing.

Economic science concerns itself primarily with theoretical and empirical generalizations about the behavior of individuals, institutions, markets, and national economies. Most academic research falls in this category.

The public in many countries is understandably concerned by the commitment of substantial government resources to aid the financial industry when other industries receive little or no assistance. This disparate treatment, unappealing as it is, appears unavoidable.

Many foreclosed homes are neglected or abandoned, as legal proceedings or other factors delay their resale. Deteriorating or vacant properties can, in turn, directly affect the quality of life in a neighborhood, for example, by leading to increases in vandalism or crime.

Monetary policy is a blunt tool which certainly affects the distribution of income and wealth, although whether the net effect is to increase or reduce inequality is not clear.

Consumers going through foreclosure typically will see their credit scores drop, raising longer-term questions about their ability to rebound financially and perhaps pursue a more sustainable home purchase at some later point.

As an educator myself, I understand the profound effect that good teachers and a quality education have on the lives of our young people.

When the economic well-being of their nation demanded a strong and creative response, my colleagues at the Federal Reserve... mustered the moral courage to do what was necessary.

Given the extent of the exposures of major banks around the world to A.I.G., and in light of the extreme fragility of the system, there was a significant risk that A.I.G.'s failure could have sparked a global banking panic.

Because a person has to be either working or looking for work to be counted as part of the labor force, an increase in the number of people too discouraged to continue their search for work would reduce the unemployment rate, all else being equal - but not for a positive reason.

Economic engineering is about the design and analysis of frameworks for achieving specific economic objectives.

To minimize market uncertainty and achieve the maximum effect of its policies, the Federal Reserve is committed to providing the public as much information as possible about the uses of its balance sheet, plans regarding future uses of its balance sheet, and the criteria on which the relevant decisions are based.

Small businesses have played an important role in fueling past economic recoveries.

The stress on the financial system in the fall of 2007 was significant, but not so significant as to threaten the overall stability of the U.S. economy, although it did lead to the beginning of a recession at the end of 2007.

Clear communication is always important in central banking, but it can be especially important when economic conditions call for further policy stimulus but the policy rate is already at its effective lower bound.

I think most of us would agree that people who have, say, little formal schooling but labor honestly and diligently to help feed, clothe, and educate their families are deserving of greater respect - and help, if necessary - than many people who are superficially more successful.

If bankers become overly conservative in response to past lending mistakes - or if examiners force such behavior - it will hurt bankers' own long-term interests and the economy in general.

To be sure, faster growth in nominal labor compensation does not necessarily portend higher inflation.

The Federal Reserve has never suffered any losses in the course of its normal lending to banks and, now, to primary dealers.

The Federal Reserve, like other central banks, wields powerful tools; democratic accountability requires that the public be able to see how and for what purposes those tools are being used.

As you know, in the latter part of 2008 and early 2009, the Federal Reserve took extraordinary steps to provide liquidity and support credit market functioning, including the establishment of a number of emergency lending facilities and the creation or extension of currency swap agreements with 14 central banks around the world.

There are a number of institutions globally where the Federal Reserve typically leads the U.S. effort to work with financial regulators from other countries, and we try to, to the extent possible, establish international standards for how - the amount of capital a bank should hold, for example, or how much.

Because financially capable consumers ultimately contribute to a stable economic and financial system as well as improve their own financial situations, it's clear that the Federal Reserve has a significant stake in financial education.

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.

Economic management involves the operation of economic frameworks in real time - for example, in the private sector, the management of complex financial institutions or, in the public sector, the day-to-day supervision of those institutions.

Neighborhoods and communities are complex organisms that will be resilient only if they are healthy along a number of interrelated dimensions, much as a human body cannot be healthy without adequate air, water, rest, and food.

The movement toward a holistic approach to community development has been long in the making, but the housing crisis has motivated further progress.

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.

The Federal Reserve has always recognized the importance of allowing markets to work, and government oversight of financial firms will never be fully effective without the aid of strong market discipline.

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

The downturn following the collapse of Japan's so-called bubble economy of the 1980s was not as severe as the Great Depression.

I come from Main Street, from a small town that's really depressed.

If I am confirmed, I am confident that my colleagues on the Federal Open Market Committee and I will maintain the focus on long-term price stability as monetary policy's greatest contribution to general economic prosperity and maximum employment.

Achieving price stability is not only important in itself, it is also central to attaining the Federal Reserve's other mandate objectives of maximum sustainable employment and moderate long-term interest rates.

Long-term unemployment is particularly costly to those directly affected, of course. But in addition, because of its negative effects on workers' skills and attachment to the labor force, long-term unemployment may ultimately reduce the productive capacity of our economy.

The Mexican debt crisis, Latin American debt crisis, the crises of the 1990s, the Wall Street stock market crash, and other events should have reminded us, and did remind us, that financial instability remains a concern, remains a problem.

The Depression was an incredibly dramatic episode - an era of stock-market crashes, breadlines, bank runs and wild currency speculation, with the storm clouds of war gathering ominously in the background... For my money, few periods are so replete with human interest.

The Fed's policy choices can always be debated, but the quality and commitment of the Federal Reserve as a public institution is second to none, and I am proud to lead it.

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

Since World War II, inflation - the apparently inexorable rise in the prices of goods and services - has been the bane of central bankers.

I was a professor at Princeton University. And, in that capacity, I studied for many years the role of financial crisis in the economy.

Textbooks describe economics as the study of the allocation of scarce resources. That definition may be the 'what,' but it certainly is not the 'why.'

A gold standard doesn't imply stability in the prices of the goods and services that people buy every day, it implies a stability in the price of gold itself.

After the 1929 crash, the Federal Reserve mistakenly focused its policies on preserving the gold value of the dollar rather than on stabilizing the domestic economy.

Deflation can be particularly dangerous when a financial system is shaky, with household and corporate balance sheets in poor shape and banks undercapitalized and heavily burdened with bad loans.

The best solution to income inequality is providing a high-quality education for everybody. In our highly technological, globalized economy, people without education will not be able to improve their economic situation.

No economy can succeed without a high-quality workforce, particularly in an age of globalization and technical change.

History has demonstrated time and again the inherent resilience and recuperative powers of the American economy.

Many savers are also homeowners; indeed, a family's home may be its most important financial asset. Many savers are working, or would like to be.

Building a rainy-day fund during good times may not be politically popular, but it can pay off during the bad times.

If you're in a car crash, you're mostly involved in trying to not go off the bridge, and later on you say, 'Oh my God!'

The role of liquidity in systemic events provides yet another reason why, in the future, a more system wide or macroprudential approach to regulation is needed.

Only a strong economy can create higher asset values and sustainably good returns for savers.

In the future, financial firms of any type whose failure would pose a systemic risk must accept especially close regulatory scrutiny of their risk-taking.

The Fed's independence is critical.

The actions taken by central banks and other authorities to stabilize a panic in the short run can work against stability in the long run if investors and firms infer from those actions that they will never bear the full consequences of excessive risk-taking.

The Libor system is structurally flawed. It is a major problem for our financial system and for the confidence in the financial system. We need to address it.

As we try to make the financial system safer, we must inevitably confront the problem of moral hazard.

The amount of currency in circulation is not changing. The money supply is not changing in any significant way.

Remember that physical beauty is evolution's way of assuring us that the other person doesn't have too many intestinal parasites.

Rents should begin to decelerate as the demand for owner-occupied housing stabilizes and the supply of rental units increases.

The Federal Reserve can only buy Treasuries and agencies, and moreover quantitative easing typically involves buying longer-term Treasuries and agencies in terms of bills, for example.

After a long period in which the desired direction for inflation was always downward, the industrialized world's central banks must today try to avoid major changes in the inflation rate in either direction.

China is growing very quickly and is clearly becoming an important player in the world economy.

You want to put the fire out first and then worry about the fire code.

I would argue that no financial instrument counted as regulatory capital should be allowed to receive any protection from losses.

It takes about two and a half percent growth just to keep unemployment stable.

Honest error in the face of complex and possibly intractable problems is a far more important source of bad results than are bad motives.

The banks have accounts with the Fed, much the same way that you have an account in a commercial bank.

The crisis and recession have led to very low interest rates, it is true, but these events have also destroyed jobs, hamstrung economic growth and led to sharp declines in the values of many homes and businesses.

Every effort needs to be made to try and offset the costs of Katrina and Rita by reductions in other government programs, especially those that are wasteful, duplicative and ineffective.

Developments in financial markets can have broad economic effects felt by many outside the markets.

Monetary policy has less room to maneuver when interest rates are close to zero, while expansionary fiscal policy is likely both more effective and less costly in terms of increased debt burden when interest rates are pinned at low levels.

Well, optimism's a good thing. It - makes people go out and - you know, start businesses and spend and do whatever is necessary to get the economy going.

Income inequality is troubling because, among other things, it means that many people in our society don't have the opportunities to advance themselves.

Interest rates are used to achieve overall economic stability.

There will not be an automatic increase in interest rate when unemployment hits 6.5%.

No one will lend at a negative interest rate; potential creditors will simply choose to hold cash, which pays zero nominal interest.

Uncertainty is seen to retard investment independently of considerations of risk or expected return.

In any given month, a large number of workers are being hired or are leaving their current jobs, illustrating the dynamism of the U.S. labor market.

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.

Banks will have to win the confidence of their customers through fair dealing, making good loans, and remaining financially healthy.

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

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.

History proves... that a smart central bank can protect the economy and the financial sector from the nastier side effects of a stock market collapse.

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

In a mature economy like India's, which is becoming modern and a financially-oriented economy, an independent central bank, responsible central bank, is really central to success.

The central bank needs to be able to make policy without short term political concerns.

At the most basic level, a central bank must be clear and open about its actions and operations, particularly when they involve the deployment of public funds.

Most of the policies that support robust economic growth in the long run are outside the province of the central bank.

When historical relationships are taken into account, it is difficult to ascribe the house price bubble either to monetary policy or to the broader macroeconomic environment.

The Fed needs an approach that consolidates the gains of the Greenspan years and ensures that those successful policies will continue - even if future Fed chairmen are less skillful or less committed to price stability than Mr. Greenspan has been.

I generally leave the details of fiscal programs to the Administration and Congress. That's really their area of authority and responsibility, and I don't think it's appropriate for me to second guess.

It must be awfully frustrating to get a small raise at work and then have it all eaten by a higher cost of commuting.

The sources of deflation are not a mystery. Deflation is in almost all cases a side effect of a collapse of aggregate demand.. a drop in spending so severe that producers must cut prices on an ongoing basis in order to find buyers.

The basic prescription for preventing deflation is straightforward, at least in principle: Use monetary and fiscal policy as needed to support aggregate spending, in a manner as nearly consistent as possible with full utilization of economic resources and low and stable inflation. In other words, the best way to get out of trouble is not to get into it in the first place.

While rising delinquencies and foreclosures will continue to weigh heavily on the housing market this year, it will not cripple the U.S.

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.

I am very proud of my nerd-dom.

The risk that the economy has entered a substantial downturn appears to have diminished over the past month or so.

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. Flexible and efficient markets for labor and capital, an entrepreneurial tradition, and a general willingness to tolerate and even embrace technological and economic change all contribute to this resiliency.

A meritocracy is a system in which the people who are the luckiest in their health and genetic endowment; luckiest in terms of family support, encouragement and, probably, income; luckiest in their educational and career opportunities; and luckiest in so many other ways difficult to enumerate - these are the folks who reap the largest rewards.

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

September and October of 2008 was the worst financial crisis in global history, including the Great Depression,

The crisis in Europe has affected the U.S. economy by acting as a drag on our exports, weighing on business and consumer confidence, and pressuring U.S. financial markets and institutions.

Under current law, on January 1st, 2013, there is going to be a massive fiscal cliff of large spending cuts and tax increases.