Quotes from Ben S. Bernanke

For me personally and for the entire Fed, Don's retirement was a great loss. He is an outstanding economist and a wise policymaker, admired and trusted by colleagues throughout the Federal Reserve System and at central banks around the world.

I did what I could to keep others in the loop on the Lehman negotiations.

executive pay at any financial institution benefiting from the program should be restricted.

Jay expressed his concerns mostly within the Fed, as did Betsy. Sandy,

I avoided false optimism, but I did not want to appear defeatist, either.

Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont, a self-described socialist who caucused with the Democrats, seemed to see the world as a vast conspiracy of big corporations and the wealthy.

King gave me an important piece of information: He

The initial August report showed a complete stall in job growth.

Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont, a self-described socialist who caucused with the Democrats, seemed to see the world as a vast conspiracy of big corporations and the wealthy. (Corporations and the wealthy have lots of power, certainly, but in the real world most bad things happen because of ignorance, incompetence, or bad luck, not as the result of grand conspiracies.)

We were always looking for people who could bring knowledge of community banking to the Board,

I asked if he could weigh in on the issue and he said he would try.

I saw little evidence of an emerging consensus in favor of them and widespread confusion about how they would work.

Given the seriousness of the threat posed to global financial stability by a Lehman bankruptcy,

The unemployment rate, after its encouraging drop early in the year, would stagnate near 9 percent into the fall

After subtracting our operating expenses, we remit our profits to the Treasury, in turn reducing the federal deficit.

That said, based on knowing her and on her record on the Board in the 1990s when inflation was a concern, I also had little doubt that she would tenaciously defend price stability when necessary.

We would be left holding Lehman's bad assets, having selectively bailed out the creditors who could exit the most quickly, and the firm would fail anyway.

It was a real loss for the Fed and the country.

Economists are criticized for not being able to predict the future,

The Fed is normally very profitable, since we typically earn a higher interest rate on our Treasury and mortgage-backed securities than we pay on the bank reserves that finance our holdings

We saw the cooldown in housing as mostly good news.

Our whole strategy was based on finding a buyer,

One headwind was the lingering effects of the financial crisis.

Many in Congress wanted to cap pay at financial institutions that benefited from taxpayer dollars.