It’s true that the Federal Reserve faces a lot of political pressure and is unpopular in many circles.
It’s the price of success: people start to think you’re omnipotent.
In the future, my communications with the public and with the markets will be entirely through regular and formal channels.
The benefit of appointing a hawkish central banker is the increased inflation-fighting credibility that such an appointment brings.
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.
The more important reason is that the research itself provides an important long-run perspective on the issues that we face on a day-to-day basis.
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.
If Wall Street crashes, does Main Street follow? Not necessarily.
I’d throw dollars out of helicopters if I had to, to stimulate the economy.
Under current law, on January 1st, 2013, there is going to be a massive fiscal cliff of large spending cuts and tax increases.
Both humanity’s capacity to innovate and the incentives to innovate are greater today than at any other time in history.
Investment banks manage to go bankrupt through their investment-banking activities, commercial banks manage to go bankrupt through their commercial-banking activities.
The best approach here if at all possible is to use supervisory and regulatory methods to restrain undue risk-taking and to make sure the system is resilient in case an asset price bubble bursts in the future.
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 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.
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.
The people who best use their advantages, or overcome adversity, and work honestly are those most worthy of admiration.
I come from Main Street, from a small town that’s really depressed.
How much would you pay to avoid a second Depression?
I am confident that we will meet whatever challenges the future may bring.