Bernanke's Princeton Commencement Speech, June 2, 2013: Link To Text Of Full Speech

Posted by Milton Recht:

From written version of Chairman Ben Bernanke's Commencement Speech at the Baccalaureate Ceremony at Princeton University, June 2, 2013, "The Ten Suggestions" [PDF version]:

But my experience is that most of our politicians and policymakers are trying to do the right thing, according to their own views and consciences, most of the time. If you think that the bad or indifferent results that too often come out of Washington are due to base motives and bad intentions, you are giving politicians and policymakers way too much credit for being effective. Honest error in the face of complex and possibly intractable problems is a far more important source of bad results than are bad motives. For these reasons, the greatest forces in Washington are ideas, and people prepared to act on those ideas. Public service isn't easy. But, in the end, if you are inclined in that direction, it is a worthy and challenging pursuit.

The speech is also available from the Princeton University website. [Updated link, July 15, 2013.]

If Princeton decides to post a video of Bernanke's speech, it will most likely become available on this webpage of archived special events media. The video is currently not posted.

The video of Bernanke's Princeton speech is now available on Vimeo.

I have embedded the video in a later blog post, "Video Of Ben Bernanke's Princeton Commencement Speech, June 2,2013."