Monetary Policy

Traditional monetary policy has been blamed for the financial crisis because it kept interest rates too low for too long following the end of the 2001 recession. Ben Bernanke answers this charge and discusses his views on the causes of the housing price bubble, and the future in this speech.  A great read for anyone interested in the economy and economic policy over the last decade. Bernanke concludes

The lesson I take from this experience is not that financial regulation and supervision are ineffective for controlling emerging risks, but that their execution must be better and smarter. . . . However, if adequate reforms are not made, or if they are made but prove insufficient to prevent dangerous buildups of financial risks, we must remain open to using monetary policy as a supplementary tool for addressing those risk. . .