NYT
report:
On Tuesday, Ben S. Bernanke spoke in Abu Dhabi; on Wednesday, he was in Johannesburg. By Friday, he was in Houston. That week in March was a particularly busy one for Mr. Bernanke, the former chairman of the Federal Reserve.
During his eight years as steward of the world’s largest economy, Mr. Bernanke’s salary was about $200,000 a year. Now he makes that in just a few hours speaking to bankers, hedge fund billionaires and leaders of industry. This year alone, he is poised to make millions of dollars from speaking engagements...
On the speaking circuit, he is putting just one foot through the revolving door between Washington and Wall Street, being paid by financial firms but not employed by one...
Mr. Bernanke has agreed to speak with a Middle Eastern bank, private equity firms and trade associations, as well as at investment bank get-togethers, charging his hosts fees that range from $200,000 in the United States and $400,000 for engagements in Asia. While he has dined with hedge fund managers at small events arranged by investment and brokerage firms including JPMorgan Chase, some Wall Street firms have balked at the high fees.
“Chairman Bernanke decided after he left office, like most good civil servants, that he wanted to make a little bit of money and did the dinner circuit,” Michael E. Novogratz, a principal of Fortress Investment Group, told an audience of wealth managers at a conference in Las Vegas last week.
At his first of several dinners after retiring from the Fed in March, Mr. Bernanke spoke to a group of hedge fund managers, including Mr. Novogratz, at Le Bernardin in Midtown Manhattan. The setting was so intimate that the group took up just one of the four-star restaurant’s three private dining rooms.
I wonder what these guys think they are going to learn from Bernanke. I pretty much think he is clueless about how the business cycle works. His book
Essays on the Great Depression
provides all the information you need to know about his thinking. It is an extraordinarily terrible rehash of Keynesian orthodoxy.
Wow. And as Lew Rockwell put it, Von Mises worked in an office the size of a coat closet and depended on benefactors for his livelihood. I heard he'd give a speech at no charge to ANY group interested in economics. Can you imagine, one of the great minds of the ages talking to the ladies every other Thursday garden club for free?.
ReplyDeleteThese guys would do infinitely better by inviting Robert Wenzel and paying him the $200,000 speaking fee. At least he would tell these guys what they need to know (i.e. the truth) rather than what they want to hear. And they would learn something in the process.
ReplyDeleteHey should rehash some of his congressional testimony at the Laff Factory.
ReplyDeleteMore on the Belgium Treasury Purchase
ReplyDeletePaul Craig Roberts and Dave Kranzler
In response to our account of the mysterious large rise in Belgium’s Treasury purchases http://www.paulcraigroberts.org/2014/05/12/fed-great-deceiver-paul-craig-roberts/ , it was suggested that the transaction would show up on the Fed’s balance sheet. However, the Fed is under no obligation to show the transaction.
The $141.2 billion in Treasuries purchased into the Belgium account represents 3.2% of the total current size of the Fed’s balance sheet. The Fed is a private corporation and is therefore not beholden to GAAP accounting standards. However even with GAAP standards applied, a corporation does not have to itemize and disclose the details of any event that represents less than 5% of its assets. In other words, the Fed can easily bury a 3% transaction in its financial statements.
http://investmentresearchdynamics.com/more-on-the-belgium-treasury-purchase/
Yellen tells graduates: Show grit like Bernanke
ReplyDeletewhat example did Yellen find for such an inspirational beacon of bravery?
Why, her predecessor, Ben Bernanke.
My predecessor at the Fed, Chairman Ben Bernanke, demonstrated such courage, especially in his response to the threat of the financial crisis. To stabilize the financial system and restore economic growth, he took courageous actions that were unprecedented in ambition and scope. He faced relentless criticism, personal threats, and the certainty that history would judge him harshly if he was wrong. But he stood up for what he believed was right and necessary. Ben Bernanke’s intelligence and knowledge served him well as Chairman. But his grit and willingness to take a stand were just as important. I hope you never are confronted by challenges this great, but you too will face moments in life when standing up for what you believe can make all the difference.
The praise comes on the same day the New York Times ran a hit piece of sorts against Bernanke, noting the lavish pay he’s received for making speeches and hosting dinners with hedge-fund titans.
http://blogs.marketwatch.com/capitolreport/2014/05/21/yellen-tells-graduates-show-grit-like-bernanke/
FALSE GOD INDOCTRINATION.
Fiat Money Slaves
ReplyDelete"Fiat money is at base a form of indirect wealth transfer from those forced to hold the money to those issuing the money .. Debt is freely accepted as the line of least resistance in a system that incentivizes debt and places high barriers to debt-free independence from a Status Quo operated to benefit the owners and issuers of debt, not the debtors .. Being forced to use state-issued fiat currency is a form of servitude, as fiat money is at base a form of indirect wealth transfer from those forced to hold the money to those issuing the money ..
The financial nobility can borrow billions of dollars at near-zero interest from the Federal Reserve,
and use this nearly-free fiat money to buy student loans that pay 7+% annually. They can also snap up houses for cash that the nobility then rents to debt-serfs who have been outbid by those with the extraordinary advantage of unlimited access to the Fed's nearly-free fiat money."
http://www.oftwominds.com/blogmay14/fiat-slave5-14.html
ben playing to his crowd...as always.
We made burgers that taste like tacos...and they were flippin' fabulous! After we scarfed them down, Andrew said we needed to make them again...soon.Cook Dinner Faster
ReplyDelete