Ben Bernanke

Compensation structures led to misaligned incentives and excessive risk taking, contributing to bank losses and financial instability.

If no action is taken on January 1, 2013, between expiration of tax cuts, sequestration, and a number of other measures, there will be a very sharp change in the fiscal stance of the Federal Government, which by itself with no compensating…

I do not think many people, including many good friends of mine on both sides of the aisles, would argue that tax cuts fully pay for themselves.

Yes, I think a very substantial additional tack on the deficits is needed.

I think we are the premier economy, we are the safe haven, we have a strong interest in maintaining that status.

What we need is an armistice between Republicans and Democrats to solve this problem.

If you determine that you want to change it, we will, of course, do whatever you assign us to do.

I appreciate this opportunity to discuss my views on the economic outlook, monetary policy, and the challenges facing federal fiscal policymakers.

I think it is important for me to say that if Congress is being lulled, they should not be lulled.

We need to make sure that the recovery continues and doesn't drop back and that unemployment rate continues to fall.

As I have said often before, I am in favor of the law of arithmetic.

You can take policy actions which are supportive of recovery, and that would involve perhaps not doing sharp near-term cuts.

We never take anything off the table because we don't know where the economy is going to go.

Clearly this is an issue that we have to address, and it is not something that can wait 10 years.

I have great sympathy for you. These are very, very difficult problems. They involve very fundamental questions of what the government should do and how big it should be.

I think we need to have open and fair trade.

We need to make sure people have technical skills, because technological change has been one place where a lot of people are getting left behind.

The working and middle class are the drivers of the economy of this country.

We have a serious issue with distribution of wealth in this country, and that really needs to be addressed.

The brinkmanship of the summer... was a negative for the financial markets.

I strongly support efforts to put our fiscal policy back on a long-term sustainable path.

I think that would create some certainty and maybe would allow some of the private sector securitization activities to resume.

I would just urge Congress to look carefully at what might be done. There are a lot of possibilities.

Greater scope for market forces to determine the value of the RMB would reduce an important distortion in the Chinese economy.

For our part, we at the Federal Reserve will continue to work to help create an environment that provides the greatest possible economic opportunity for all Americans.