Ben S. Bernanke Quotes & Sayings

If we acted, nobody would thank us. But if we did not act, who would? Making politically unpopular decisions for the long-run benefit of the country is the reason the Fed exists as a politically independent central bank. It was created for precisely this purpose: to do what must be done - what others cannot or will not do. — Ben S. Bernanke

I believe that the many administration officials, lawmakers, and regulatory policymakers - and their staffs - who poured a year and a half of prodigious work into the legislation had been guided, knowingly or not, by a simultaneously high-minded and pragmatic sentiment that Woodrow Wilson voiced before he launched the effort that would establish the Federal Reserve System. "We shall deal with our economic system as it is and as it may be modified, not as it might be if we had a clean sheet of paper to write upon; and step by step we shall make it what it should be," Wilson said in his first inaugural address. Wilson's words continued to make good sense a century later. — Ben S. Bernanke