Congress created Fannie Mae in 1938 and Freddie Mac in 1970. For many years, these institutions prudently pursued their core mission of enhancing the availability of credit for housing.

A risk-insensitive leverage ratio can be a useful backstop to risk-based capital requirements. But such a ratio can have perverse incentives if it is the binding capital requirement because it treats relatively safe activities, such as central clearing, as equivalent to the most risky activities.

Liquidity problems can occur in central clearing, even if all counterparties have the financial resources to meet their obligations, if they are unable to convert those resources into cash quickly enough.

Regulatory changes have forced banks to closely examine their liquidity planning and to internalize the costs of liquidity provision. The costs of committed liquidity facilities will be passed on to clearing members. These costs are perhaps highest in clearing Treasury securities, where liquidity needs can be especially large.

We need a national focus on increasing the sustainable growth rate of our economy.

While the move to central clearing has made the system safer, we need to make sure that the central counterparties have the resources and risk-management practices to withstand plausible but severe shocks.

The Federal Reserve seeks to support MDIs in a number of ways, including our Partnership for Progress, our program for outreach and technical assistance to MDIs.

The Fed's organization reflects a long-standing desire in American history to ensure that power over our nation's monetary policy and financial system is not concentrated in a few hands, whether in Washington or in high finance or in any single group or constituency.

The question of how to structure our nation's financial system arose in the early years of the republic.

Against this backdrop of technological change and heightened expectations, it is worth remembering our broad public policy objectives, which are driven by the fundamental importance of the payments system in our society.

The Congress has tasked the Federal Reserve with achieving stable prices and maximum employment - the dual mandate.

Our discussions of the economy may sometimes ring in the ears of the public with more certainty than is appropriate.

Long-term economic growth depends mainly on nonmonetary factors such as population growth and workforce participation, the skills and aptitudes of our workforce, the tools at their disposal, and the pace of technological advance. Fiscal and regulatory policies can have important effects on these factors.

The main long-run contribution monetary policy can make is to provide a stable macroeconomic and financial environment.

Over time, low rates can put pressure on the business models of financial institutions.

Real short- and long-term rates were relatively high in the late-1990s, so financial excess can also arise without a low-rate environment.

If the public understands the central bank's views on the economy and monetary policy, then households and businesses will take those views into account in making their spending and investment plans; policy will be more effective as a result.

My own experience is that the best outcomes are reached when opposing viewpoints are clearly and strongly presented before decisions are made.

Central banking often comes across as obscure and complicated, and we try to help the public understand what we do.

Below-target inflation increases the real value of debts owed by households and businesses and reduces the ability of central banks to respond to downturns.

The only way to ensure that inflation expectations remain safely anchored near the FOMC's target is to keep inflation close to that target on a consistent basis.

The financial crisis and the Great Recession left firms with excess capacity, reducing incentives to invest. If businesses expect slower growth to continue, that will also hold down investment.

The FOMC has considerable control over short-term interest rates. We have much less influence over long-term rates, which are set in the marketplace.

Given that trade benefited the Asian economies on the way up, it seems natural that the slowdown in global trade, whatever its causes, could lead to some loss of dynamism and growth in the region.

To ensure financial stability, we expect the provision of U.S. government securities settlement services to be robust in nearly all contingencies.

The longer workers are unemployed, the greater the likelihood that their skills will erode and workers will lose attachment to the labor force, permanently damaging the economy's dynamism and potential output.

By purchasing and holding large amounts of Treasury securities and MBS, we put additional downward pressure on term premiums and so on long-term rates.

Businesses and households react to lower rates by investing and spending more. Lower rates also support the prices of housing and financial assets such as stocks and bonds.

The Federal Reserve places great importance on our relations with the Bundesbank. Few such relationships have been as important, over the decades, in promoting financial stability and prosperity around the world.

Perhaps the greatest challenge for the resolution of a systemic global bank is the possibility that public or private actors in different countries might take local actions that would cause the overall resolution to spin out of control.

Although I have never worked in a community bank, I have been a customer, and I know from personal experience the special skills that these institutions bring to their customers.

My colleagues on the Board of Governors and I understand the value of having a diverse financial system that includes a large and vibrant contingent of community banks.

By fostering the economic health and vitality of local communities throughout the country, community banks play a central role in our national economy. One important aspect of that role is to serve as a primary source of credit for the small businesses that are responsible for creating a substantial proportion of all new jobs.

We understand that America's prosperity is bound up with the prosperity of other nations, including emerging market nations.

Emerging market economies have long grappled with the challenges posed by large and volatile cross-border capital flows.

AIG's failure revealed systemic problems in the OTC derivatives market that went well beyond the failure of a single market participant.

I honestly believe that advertising is the most fun you can have with your clothes on.

There is a great deal of advertising that is much better than the product. When that happens, all that the good advertising will do is put you out of business faster.

Almost everything looks better from a distance, Long Island included.

Advertising should always be in good taste without a question.

The whole idea of a spokesman is a joke and a fraud if you drop someone like a hot potato if there's controversy.

I couldn't get along with the French.

The fact is, Joe Isuzu is very successful at selling cars.

In our quest to tweet, like, and trend, we have forgotten that brands can be built through advertising. Ads can generate big ideas that can never be trumped by tactics. That is the magic of an ad, and that is what is missing from many ads today.

That's great advertising when you can turn Chicago into a city you'd want to spend more than three hours in.

I have a small vocabulary, which I move around fast.

Kids don't know what life was like without cell phones.

If you look at 'Mad Men,' it's set in the wrong decade. The style of Mad Men is really the 1950s, not the 1960s.

On the weekends, some people garden; I slice salmon.

Imagine there wasn't photography. Where would we be? How would I remember what I looked like as a kid? It links us all. It keeps us all together; it's what our history is.