Quotes from Ben S. Bernanke

courtyard. During the crisis I wished more than once that I could skip the office and sit with them for the day.

The prospect of improvement in the economy was nowhere in sight.

That's not the same as, or nearly as bad as, failing to raise the debt ceiling and defaulting on government debt.)

once rates hit zero, it marked the exhaustion of monetary policy options.

Would routine exams of holding company subsidiaries by the Fed, as Ned had proposed, have made a difference? Probably yes, although the difference might not have been large,

In an email, he recapped a particularly gloomy presentation by Martin

Legally, the decision had to be Bank of America's.

Now the time had come to put my ideas into practice.

raising people's inflation expectations substantially, using only talk, is easier in theory than in practice.

The Federal Reserve, funded by earnings on our securities portfolio, remained open.

bottom-up style of forecasting. He

Don, far from an optimist himself, thought that Feldstein's outlook was too dark.

I was dismayed to learn that the Labor Department's report on September employment, due out October 4, would be delayed by the shutdown.

The hawks (shorthand for policymakers who tended to worry more about inflation) did not sit at a different table than the doves (policymakers who tended to worry more about growth and employment).

But I was determined to go further if necessary.

We were also careful not to advise Lewis on the disclosures to his shareholders about Merrill's losses,

and parents would volunteer their time in lieu of paying the small tuition.

securities at a time when many investors were shying away from them.

I agreed that it would have been better to tie our policy plans more directly to conditions in the economy rather than setting a date.

Formulating effective monetary policy requires timely information.

meeting by summarizing key financial developments

Those mortgages had been bundled and sliced and diced into complex instruments and distributed around the world. No one really knew where the losses would surface.

Consequently, many viewed the subsequent decision on AIG as an inconsistent reversal, rather than what it was: a different response to different circumstances.

Lewis persuaded his board to go through with the merger,