Amateurs want to be right. Professionals want to make money.

What we have found over the years in the marketplace is that derivatives have been an extraordinarily useful vehicle to transfer risk from those who shouldn't be taking it to those who are willing to and are capable of doing so.

At the risk of some oversimplification, if the skill composition of our work force meshed fully with the needs of our increasingly complex capital-stock, wage-skill differentials would be stable, and the percentage changes in wage rates would be the same for all job grades.

History demonstrates that participants in financial markets are susceptible to waves of optimism. Excessive optimism shows the seeds of its own reversal in the form of imbalances that tend to grow over time.

The tub helps me relax, and it's a great place to read.

Since I've become a central banker, I've learned to mumble with great incoherence. If I seem unduly clear to you, you must have misunderstood what I said.

If all currencies are moving up or down together, the question is: relative to what? Gold is the canary in the coal mine. It signals problems with respect to currency markets. Central banks should pay attention to it.