Ben Bernanke

The Fed is involved very unwillingly because there is no good system for addressing the failure of a major financial institution.

So if you raise taxes during a recession, you probably want to offset it with a tax cut elsewhere, for example.

I think many people are convinced that the way Fannie and Freddie were set up before was not entirely satisfactory, and we need to have some rethinking about what role the government should play in the housing market.

One of the last decisions businesses make is new employees and a commitment to new employees.

The historical experience is that the labor market tends to lag the business cycle.

They will get extra income.

From a fiscal perspective, the reforms to health care need to address the cost issue.

I have asked Vice Chairman Kohn to lead a review of our disclosure policies, with the goal of increasing the range of information that we make available to the public.

We have to restore ourselves to a more balanced fiscal path after addressing the financial and economic crises.

I certainly am concerned about that.

The U.S. economy has contracted sharply since last fall, with real gross domestic product (GDP) having dropped at an average annual rate of about 6 percent.

We are very focused--like a laser beam, if I may--on this issue of the exit and making sure that we have price stability in the medium term.

If the banks cannot meet those standards in the private market, which is our strong preference, then they have to take government capital.

Then they would have to avail themselves of the Treasury's backstop.

'Too big to fail,' has been sometimes called a policy or a doctrine. It is not a policy; it is a problem.

It is imperative on all of us as the policymakers, particularly the Congress which is responsible for fiscal policy, to make sure that we do achieve the necessary stabilization that will allow deficits to come down.

If you want to increase spending, then you have to be willing to accept the tax increases and the consequences that that may have for growth and efficiency.

Yes, sir, our expectation is that we will begin to see growth in the economy, so the end of the technical recession, later this year.

Only with the New Deal's rehabilitation of the financial system in 1933-35 did the economy begin its slow emergence from the Great Depression.

Fiscal monetary stimulus may provide broader support for the economy than monetary policy alone.

There are institutions too big to fail.

[T]he United States also needs improved tools to allow the orderly resolution of a systemically important nonbank financial firm, including a mechanism to cover the costs of the resolution.

Given how important robust payment and settlement systems are to financial stability, a good case can be made for granting the Federal Reserve explicit oversight authority for systemically important payment and settlement systems.

I do think that we will get it stabilized and we'll see the recession coming to an end probably this year. We'll see recovery beginning next year, and it'll pick up steam over time.

We've seen some progress in financial markets, absolutely. But until we get that stabilized and working normally we're not going to see recovery. But we do have a plan. We're working on it.