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What Bernanke's New Employer Had To Say About Him Just 2 Years Ago
Having previously explained the 175,846,629,768 reasons why former Fed Chair Ben Bernanke would join Citadel - the most-levered hedge fund in the world and alleged conduit of fed put protection; we thought it intriguing to note what billionaire Citadel Ken Griffin had to say about Bernanke and his policies just 2 years ago...
The revolving door between Wall Street and Washington doesn’t often involve big banks like Citigroup or Goldman Sachs anymore. Instead, as Forbes' Nathan Vardi reports, hedge fund and private equity firms have become the destination of choice. They are richer and guys like Bernanke feel they are less controversial than the big banks.
But, ironically, Griffin has been publicly critical of some of the more prominent Federal Reserve policies that were implemented on Bernanke’s watch. He particularly took some shots at those policies in 2013, as Bernanke was coming close to finishing his run at the Fed.
In a statement on Thursday,
Griffin said that Bernanke “has extraordinary knowledge of the global economy and his insights on monetary policy and the capital markets will be extremely valuable to our team and to our investors.”
But two years ago - he was not so sure...
Here are some of Griffin’s criticisms of Federal Reserve policy during the Bernanke years.
To The Economic Club of Chicago, May 2013:
“I think QE3 is a terrible idea because we are now reaching the point where the Fed is becoming captive to our political institutions. You see with the Fed owning several trillion dollars of U.S. Treasuries it’s easy to imagine that at the next confirmation hearing the questions posed by politicians will be of the nature, will you continue to help subsidize the cost of the U.S. federal government’s borrowings even at the ensuing risk of potentially creating uncontrollable inflation? That last part won’t be asked but that will be the risk. And I think there will be real pressure on picking people to the Federal Reserve board who will appease our politicians and continue to try to drive interest rates to an artificially low level, very worried about that, very worried about that.”
To The Milken Institute Conference, April 2013:
“The Federal Reserve is really trying to counteract a number of the very poor policies that are coming from our legislative and executive branches and it’s damn near impossible to overcome the headwinds created by Obamacare, an inability to reform tax policy, inability to thoughtfully create jobs in our country and the Fed’s policies are doing two things that I am very gravely concerned about. Number one is we have all learned over the years that if you reduce the cost of capital you increase your use of fixed assets and you take out jobs. Corporate America seeing an ever increasing cost for its employee base and extraordinary low interest rates is taking every step they can possibly take to reduce employment, to build factories abroad and domestically to substitute technology and automated processes for people. So one of the very sad negative characteristics of the Fed’s policies is it’s leading to job destruction.”
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This 'flip-flopping' though, is understandable - the only 'edge' any fund has anymore is an inside line on monetary policy headlines and actions and the fee generation from running the Fed's trades likely came with some quid pro quo...
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Ken Griffin was of to a great start in Chicago when you had real markets. He is a tremendous success story. Then Icarus happened.
Yeah right. He should write a book "Naked short selling for dummies" :/
Wall Street "secret government" outed
by Les Leopold
American democracy has been hijacked by a secret government that many researchers have identified as being a powerful oligarchy that manipulates from behind the scenes the very essence of the state, controlling the financial wealth of the country beyond the reach of any State institution. Printing money indiscriminately and creating wealth out of thin air, this unscrupulous elite has ruined the economy and generated the biggest bubble in history, that of the dollar, which will fatally knock it off its pedestal of world reserve currency. ...
http://www.voltairenet.org/article172054.html
Fed Chair Bernanke Held 84 Secret Meetings in the Lead Up to the Wall Street Collapse
http://wallstreetonparade.com/2014/03/fed-chair-bernanke-held-84-secret-meetings-in-the-lead-up-to-the-wall-street-collapse/
Yes but a deal is a deal and the only way to legally disburse the accrued commission-based "Pension Fund" was to recruit him as an "Advisor". These revolving doors sre getting costlier all the time...but I suppose only to the average taxpayer, so........
The terms "elite" and "oligarch" were adopted by a confederacy of those masking themselves as leaders or surreptitiously running things from behind the thrones. By putting those words into the minds of people, they do not have to do anything to prove they are at a higher level than mere mortal humans. Their publicists beat the drums and declares them "elite".
IMO the so called "elite" are not elite... and so called "oligarchs" are only oligarchs if you passively cede power to them.
So, with that in mind, what is the origin of the above comment... and for that matter much of what is written on these pages?
I freelance over th? internet and earn about 80-85$ an hour. I was without a job for 7 months but last month my paycheck with big fat bonus was $15000 just working on my computer from my home for 5-6 hours. Here's what i have been doing... www.globe-report.com
I don't believe you. I think you're making it up.
Why would he lie? Also, if you had a sure way to make lots of money, wouldn't you tell everyone? I'm sure he's writing in good faith. In fact, I'm about as sure he's telling the truth as I am that Hillary tells the truth.
If Bernanke's hiring isn't confirmation of the Fed-Citadel conduit (and cementing it's continuation into the future), I'm not sure how much more obvious they could make it. Short of Janet Yellen accidentially confirming it in a press conference on an open mic she thought was turned off.
Oh yeah, like QE3 and ZIRP hurt Citadel and top hats like Griffin.
Smoke and mirrors, and a couple truckloads of fresh manure.
Quid pro quo Clarice. And whatever became of your "completely neutral" federal lamb, Clarice? ;-)
I cooked her, then I lied and said she ran away. Her name was BoPeep.
Eaten with some Fava beans and a nice Chianti would be my guess.
No honor amongst scumbags.
The banksters need to repay us.
WTF is up with the zerohedge chat is it down?
Indict all 535 morons + Criminal-in-Charge for fraud, treason
Now that the financial crisis has been solved and everything is back to hunky dory, why shouldn't he accept gainful employment. Everyone knows that Financial jobs attract only the best and brightest our society has to offer...
I'm sure it is comforting to many of you that the B man can now finally get approved for a mortgage. That $250K per speech just wasn't enough
Years from now economic text books will show QE and ZIRP stimulus orchestrated by Bernanke, to be the biggest financial scams in human history.