Carlyle Group To Get a Man on the Federal Reserve Board

It's all about insiders when it comes to the Federal Reserve.

A White House statement says President Obama will nominate two former U.S. Treasury Department officials for the Federal Reserve Board.

Obama's picks are Jerome Powell, an attorney who was a Treasury undersecretary for former President George H.W. Bush, and Jeremy Stein, a Harvard University economist who has advised the current administration.

David Rubinstein is popping champagne. Powell from 1997 through 2005, was a partner at The Carlyle Group, where he founded and led the Industrial Group within the U.S. Buyout Fund.

In addition to Carlyle, in the years since leaving the Treasury Powell worked at Bankers Trust Co.; the Global Environment Fund, a private-equity firm; and his own investment company. In other words a complete Wall Street-DC Corridor insider.

Stein is currently a professor at Harvard. From February to July 2009, Stein worked in the Obama administration as a senior adviser to Treasury Secretary and as a staff member of the National Economic Council.

According to the Crimson, Stein first joined Harvard as an assistant professor of finance at Harvard Business School from 1987 to 1990. From 1990 to 2000, he was a professor at the MIT Sloan School of Management, first as an associate professor of finance and eventually as the J.C. Penney Professor of Management.

Stein graduated summa cum laude from Princeton in 1983 with a bachelor’s in economics, earning his Ph.D. from MIT in 1986. Thus, another MIT econ PhD joins the hierarchy of the Fed. This will be the fifth.

The nominees must still be confirmed by the Senate.

The salary of Fed chairman Ben Bernanke is $199,700. The annual salary of the other Board members is $179,700.

Guess Who Toasted George and Barbara Bush at Their 60th Wedding Anniversary Party?

Laura Bush is out with her memoir, Spoken from the Pocketbook Heart.

Fed chairman Ben Bernanke doesn't make it into the book, neither does Treasury Secretary during the GW  years, Hank Paulson. But what's a White House memoir without a memory of  David Rubenstein, the co-founder of the private equity firm Carlyle Group, who made George H. W. hundreds of millions after he left the White House ?

Laura tells us that not only did Rubenstein show up at the White House for a 60th wedding anniversary party for George H.W. and Barbara Bush, but he gave the toast!

Rubenstein informed the onlookers during his toast that George and Barbara are the only couple who have lived in the White House and have celebrated a 60th wedding anniversary. Nice touch by David.

Laura describes David as a "long time friend."  Translation: Anybody that can figure out how to exploit George's connections for more money than any of them had ever seen before can certainly be a life long friend.

Look, Rubenstein on a personal level is a nice guy. Whenever I have spoken to him, he has always been polite to me. When I have asked him a question out of left field to throw him off, he tends to really spend time to think about the question and give me a thoughtful answer, but of all the people George and Barbara have met over the years, and some probably truly long-term friends, it is remarkable that Rubenstein, who is roughly 30 years younger than George H. W., is giving a toast at at the Bush's 60th wedding anniversary.