Quotes from Ben S. Bernanke

Moreover, Fuld and his team seemed in denial about how badly their bets had gone wrong.

A coordinated rate cut presented tricky logistical problems.

I could never decide whether Tim's dry sense of humor was a defense mechanism or whether he was as truly immune as he seemed to the stress and criticism that came with his high-profile jobs.

Over time I would become more sympathetic to the behavioral view.

were growing increasingly skeptical of Lehman's judgment of the value of its holdings.

But, despite all our efforts, panic persisted and credit remained frozen.

The logistical challenges of holding such a high-profile and market-sensitive event on live television were daunting,

we had both been eager for a change from the Cambridge and Wellesley scene, and for the chance to live in California.

but there's more to it than has been portrayed.

Not surprisingly, this voluntary arrangement was less strict than one required by law might have been.

could have a stronger effect on the U.S. and global economies than if we acted alone.

We expected reporters' questions to be more pointed and more technical than those usually asked by members of Congress.

I was fine with the choice.

Despite a sincere effort, the SEC was not well suited to supervising the investment banks.

we had been swamped by requests to attend.

Larry had been critical of some of our actions as well,

Banks have spent hundreds of millions of dollars complying with the new rules and are not looking for a rollback.

and in fact lacked the authority to do so,

At the same time, we all knew the frustrations of struggling with extraordinarily complex problems under unrelenting public and political scrutiny.

Tim was the Fed's principal contact with Fuld.

Many other central banks hold press conferences, some as frequently as monthly, and adopting the practice seemed the natural next step for increasing transparency at the Fed.

The absurdity of our discussion did not escape us, but we had learned through bitter experience that a single word often mattered.

But that's the baggage that comes with consequential policy jobs,

eliminating it would be a big step backward.