We live in a world defined by the rapid pace of technological change.
The Federal Reserve is committed to fulfilling our statutory mandate of stable prices and maximum employment.
The financial crisis revealed important weaknesses in many areas of our financial system.
By the beginning of the 20th century, the debate about monetary policy and the nation's financial system had been going on for over a century. Increasingly, the shortcomings of the existing system were causing too much harm to ignore.
Long experience, in the United States and in other advanced economies, has demonstrated that monetary policy is most successful when decisions are rendered independent of influence by elected officials.
Risk management systems and controls may discourage or limit certain revenue-generating opportunities. Failure to ensure the independence of these functions from the revenue generators and risk takers has been shown to be dangerous, and this is something for which the board is accountable.
All economic forecasts are subject to considerable uncertainty. There is always a wide range of plausible outcomes for important economic variables, including the federal funds rate.
I am unable to think of any critical, complex human activity that could be safely reduced to a simple summary equation.
The revenue stream for Social Security benefits comes from payroll taxes, which are credited to the Social Security Trust Fund - accounting for the program's finances separately from the rest of the budget.
A digital currency issued by a central bank would be a global target for cyber attacks, cyber counterfeiting, and cyber theft.
The Government Securities Act gave the Treasury Department some rulemaking authority over all government securities brokers and dealers. But the act also required these firms to register with the SEC.
The success of monetary policy should be judged by the economy's performance against our statutory mandates of price stability and maximum employment.
Higher capital requirements increase bank costs, and at least some of those costs will be passed along to bank customers and shareholders. But in the longer term, stronger prudential requirements for large banking firms will produce more sustainable credit availability and economic growth.
If investors avoid the Treasury market, we could be unable to pay off maturing securities, which would mean an immediate default. Market participants generally agree that even a brief default would create potentially catastrophic risks to the financial system, like the meltdown of 2008.
No single housing finance institution should be too big to fail.
There is certainly a role for regulation, but regulation should always take into account the impact that it has on markets, a balance that must be constantly weighed.
More regulation is not the best answer to every problem.
Regional interest rate differentials persisted until around the time of World War I and helped shape the attitudes of Americans living in western areas toward the nation's financial system.
An efficient payments system provides the infrastructure needed to transfer money in low-cost and convenient ways. Efficient systems are innovative in improving the quality of services in response to changing technology and changing demand.
The Federal Reserve is not charged with designing or evaluating proposals for housing finance reform. But we are responsible for regulating and supervising banking institutions to ensure their safety and soundness, and more broadly for the stability of the financial system.
