In many spheres of human endeavor, from science to business to education to economic policy, good decisions depend on good measurement.
Ben BernankeRead
If bankers become overly conservative in response to past lending mistakes - or if examiners force such behavior - it will hurt bankers' own long-term interests and the economy in general.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Caution in banking can lead to negative consequences for both banks and the economy.
In this quote, Ben Bernanke highlights the potential dangers of an overly cautious approach from bankers and examiners in the wake of previous lending mistakes. He argues that while it is important to learn from past errors, excessive conservatism can stifle growth and harm the long-term interests of banks and the wider economy, suggesting a need for balance in financial regulations.
Themes
BankingEconomyConservatismLendingRegulation
In practice
Example use cases
This quote can be used in a lecture on economic policy to emphasize the need for balanced regulation.
More from Ben Bernanke
All quotes βEducation - lifelong education for everyone - from toddlers to workers well advanced in their careers - is indeed an excellent investment for individuals and society as a whole.
Ben BernankeRead
Nobody likes to fail but failure is an essential part of life and of learning. If your uniform isn't dirty, you haven't been in the game.
Ben BernankeRead
Life is amazingly unpredictable; any 22-year-old who thinks they know where they will be in 10 years, much less in 30, is simply lacking imagination.
Ben BernankeRead
The benefit of appointing a hawkish central banker is the increased inflation-fighting credibility that such an appointment brings.
Ben BernankeRead
Economics is a highly sophisticated field of thought that is superb at explaining to policymakers precisely why the choices they made in the past were wrong. About the future, not so much.
Ben BernankeRead
Similar quotes
Markets as well as mobs respond to human emotions; markets as well as mobs can be inflamed to their own destruction.
Owen D. YoungRead
If you followed this economic crisis and you do not think that the world is getting flatter, you are not paying attention. We saw the entire global economy at one time acting totally in sync. The real truth is the world is even flatter than I thought. Our mortgage crisis is killing Deutsche Bank. You still don't think the world is flat?
Thomas FriedmanRead
If the Republican Party continues to take the view that there must be no tax increases, we're stuck. Capitalism can't work without safety nets or fiscal prudence, and we need both in a sustainable balance.
Thomas FriedmanRead
The study of money, above all other fields in economics, is one in which complexity is used to disguise truth or to evade truth, not to reveal it. The process by which banks create money is so simple the mind is repelled.
John Kenneth GalbraithRead
There would be plenty of justification to raise revenues in order to subsidize businesses that employ low-wage workers. But there can be no justification for pandering to the economy's entire bottom half merely to attract its votes.
Edmund PhelpsRead
When the accumulation of wealth is no longer of high social importance, there will be great changes in the code of morals.
John Maynard KeynesRead