The lesson of history is that you do not get a sustained economic recovery as long as the financial system is in crisis.

It's the price of success: people start to think you're omnipotent.

If I am confirmed, I am confident that my colleagues on the Federal Open Market Committee and I will maintain the focus on long-term price stability as monetary policy's greatest contribution to general economic prosperity and maximum employment.

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.

I don't see much evidence of an equity bubble.

Investment banks manage to go bankrupt through their investment-banking activities, commercial banks manage to go bankrupt through their commercial-banking activities.

Weaker currencies abroad mean a strong dollar, and a stronger dollar, together with a weak global environment, is a drag on the U.S. economy. So it's important, as it affects overall levels of production and employment in the U.S. There are many domestic industries doing well in the United States, notwithstanding a strong dollar.