Ben Bernanke Lending Quotations

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.

Equally important, stable prices allow people to rely on the dollar as a measure of value when making long-term contracts, engaging in long-term planning or lending for long periods.

As you know, in the latter part of 2008 and early 2009, the Federal Reserve took extraordinary steps to provide liquidity and support credit market functioning, including the establishment of a number of emergency lending facilities and the creation or extension of currency swap agreements with 14 central banks around the world.