In many spheres of human endeavor, from science to business to education to economic policy, good decisions depend on good measurement.
Ben BernankeRead
When the economic well-being of their nation demanded a strong and creative response, my colleagues at the Federal Reserve... mustered the moral courage to do what was necessary.
Interpretation
This quote emphasizes the importance of moral courage in leadership during challenging economic times.
Ben Bernanke highlights the necessity for leaders, particularly within the Federal Reserve, to exhibit moral courage when faced with the demands of economic circumstances. His assertion implies that decisive and creative actions, driven by ethical considerations, are essential for the economic well-being of a nation.
In practice
In a discussion about leadership in economics, I quoted Ben Bernanke on moral courage.
In many spheres of human endeavor, from science to business to education to economic policy, good decisions depend on good measurement.
Education - 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.
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.
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.
The benefit of appointing a hawkish central banker is the increased inflation-fighting credibility that such an appointment brings.
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.
That's why the American Recovery & Reinvestment Plan won't just throw money at our problems, we'll invest in what works
They will come to learn in the end, at their own expense, that it is better to endure competition for rich customers than to be invested with monopoly over impoverished customers.
The 'boom-bust' cycle is generated by monetary intervention in the market, specifically bank credit expansion to business.
We want a free market, but we know that the paradox of a 'free' market is that sometimes you have to intervene. You have to make sure it's not the law of the jungle but the laws of democracy that works.
To get back to the kind of shared prosperity and upward mobility we once considered normal will require another era of fundamental reform, of both our economy and our democracy.
As soon as the recovery is well under way, we need to set up a long-term plan to reduce the structural deficit and make sure we are not leaving a mountain of debt for the next generation.
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