Ben Bernanke
Ben Bernanke
Ben Shalom Bernankeis an American economist at the Brookings Institution who served two terms as chairman of the Federal Reserve, the central bank of the United States, from 2006 to 2014. During his tenure as chairman, Bernanke oversaw the Federal Reserve's response to the late-2000s financial crisis. Before becoming Federal Reserve chairman, Bernanke was a tenured professor at Princeton University and chaired the department of economics there from 1996 to September 2002, when he went on public service leave...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionPolitician
Date of Birth13 December 1953
CityAugusta, GA
CountryUnited States of America
If Wall Street crashes, does Main Street follow? Not necessarily.
If you are asking me if I would advocate that the Chinese go to greater flexibility in their exchange rate, I certainly would.
We’ve never had a decline in house prices on a nationwide basis. So, what I think what is more likely is that house prices will slow, maybe stabilize, might slow consumption spending a bit. I don’t think it’s going to drive the economy too far from its full employment path, though.
I think one of the lessons of the Depression - and this is something that Franklin Roosevelt demonstrated - was that when orthodoxy fails, then you need to try new things. And he was very willing to try unorthodox approaches when the orthodox approach had shown that it was not adequate.
I come from Main Street, from a small town that's really depressed.
I am very proud of my nerd-dom.
Monetary policy cannot do much about long-run growth, all we can try to do is to try to smooth out periods where the economy is depressed because of lack of demand
In the future, my communications with the public and with the markets will be entirely through regular and formal channels.
It's the price of success: people start to think you're omnipotent.
It's true that the Federal Reserve faces a lot of political pressure and is unpopular in many circles.
The American people are among the most productive in the world. We have the best technologies. We have great universities. We have entrepreneurs.
The amount of currency in circulation is not changing. The money supply is not changing in any significant way.
Speaking as somebody who has been happily married for 35 years, I can't imagine any choice more consequential for a lifelong journey than the choice of a traveling companion.
It must be awfully frustrating to get a small raise at work and then have it all eaten by a higher cost of commuting.