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Lehman 10/8
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Bernanke: 'I Didn't Leave the Republican Party. I Felt That the Party Left Me'
Oct 7, 2015 | Newsmax Finance
...Bernanke said that the weekend in September 2008 when regulators sought desperately but in vain to save investment bank Lehman Brothers was his worst moment in the crisis. He said he was concerned that the failure of Lehman, the biggest bankruptcy in U.S. history, could send the entire economy into another Great Depression like the 1930s. -
Stephen Colbert Talks Economics with Ben Bernanke -- And Millions Love It
Oct 8, 2015 | The Street
By Leon Lazaroff
The conversation drifted back to the serious as Bernanke averred that it was "out of his power" to save Lehman Brothers, the first major financial firm to go under during the 2008 crisis, even though the federal government was able to bail out so many others, including Goldman Sachs and mortgage lenders Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Colbert pressed him on the point, confused for a moment about the nature and extent of his powers. -
Goldman’s Jordan to Work for Russia Slot-Machine Billionaire
Oct 7, 2015 | Bloomberg
By Irina Reznik and Ksenia Galouchko
...Jordan, born in the U.S. and raised by a Russian immigrant family, departed Deutsche Bank in 2007 for Lehman Brothers, leaving in November 2008 after the bank’s collapse. At Deutsche Bank, Jordan participated in the acquisition of Moscow brokerage United Financial Group.
Client Attorney Privileged/Attorney Work Product/At Request of Counsel
Ben Bernanke
Nick Jordan
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Bernanke: 'I Didn't Leave the Republican Party. I Felt That the Party Left Me'
Oct 7, 2015 | Newsmax Finance
Former Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke confesses he doesn’t consider himself a Republican any longer.
Bernanke, in a new memoir, says continual run-ins with hard-right Republicans—such as noted Fed critic Ron Paul, the former Texas congressman—gradually pushed him away from the party that first put him in charge of the Fed in 2006, Quartz reported.
“[T]he increasing hostility of the Republicans to the Fed and to me personally troubled me, particularly since I had been appointed by a Republican president who had supported our actions during the crisis. I tried to listen carefully and accept thoughtful criticisms. But it seemed to me that the crisis had helped to radicalize large parts of the Republican Party,” Bernanke writes on page 432.
While arguing that Democrats “suffered their own delusions, especially on the far left,” the former Princeton economics professor said he had “lost patience with Republicans’ susceptibility to the know-nothing-ism of the far right. I didn’t leave the Republican Party. I felt that the party left me,”
“I view myself now as a moderate independent, and I think that’s where I’ll stay.”Bernanke's new book, "The Courage to Act: A Memoir of a Crisis and Its Aftermath," went on sale in bookstores this week. The 610-page memoir, which Bernanke began writing after he left the Fed in January 2014, is his defense of the extraordinary measures the Fed employed to rescue the economy after the 2008 financial crisis.
Meanwhile, Bernanke says the U.S. economy is outperforming Europe at the moment because the Fed moved more quickly and aggressively to fight the 2008 financial crisis than Europe did, the AP reported.
Bernanke, writing an opinion piece in the Wall Street Journal this week, said that U.S. economic output is 8.9 percent higher than its previous peak before the recession. That is "an enormous difference" from the Eurozone, where output is only 0.8 percent higher than its previous peak.
Bernanke credited those differences to aggressive efforts by the Fed to jump-start economic growth. He said the Fed started six years ahead of moves by the European Central Bank.
In his opinion piece, Bernanke was critical of the fact that for too long, the Fed was the only game in town in terms of pursuing efforts to get the country out of the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression because of political gridlock in Congress.
"Monetary policy (interest rates controlled by the Fed) can no longer be the only game in town. Fiscal policy makers in Congress need to step up," Bernanke wrote. "We need to do more to improve worker skills, foster capital investment and support research and development."
Bernanke said that the weekend in September 2008 when regulators sought desperately but in vain to save investment bank Lehman Brothers was his worst moment in the crisis. He said he was concerned that the failure of Lehman, the biggest bankruptcy in U.S. history, could send the entire economy into another Great Depression like the 1930s.
"I was very worried," Bernanke said in an interview Monday with CNBC. "My whole background as an academic was studying the Great Depression, studying financial panics, their effect on the economy. And I saw we were having the grand-daddy of all financial panics about to explode on us and I thought the consequences would be tremendous."
For full story:
http://www.newsmax.com/Finance/StreetTalk/Ben-Bernanke-Republican-Party-GOP-Federal-Reserve/2015/10/07/id/695078/
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Stephen Colbert Talks Economics with Ben Bernanke -- And Millions Love It
Oct 8, 2015 | The Street
By Leon Lazaroff
It's a bird! It's a plane! It's Super-Bernanke!
The image of Ben Bernanke as Superman - coming to save the U.S. economy from the villainy of the 2008 financial crisis - was just one of many satirical portrayals of the former Federal Reserve chairman called forth by Stephen Colbert, the late-night talk show host who still loves to play politics.
Bernanke, the ex-banker-in-chief with a book to sell, visited with Colbert on CBS's(CBS - Get Report) Late Show, reminding the audience, whether it needed it or not, just how close the country came in 2008 to "unimaginable" disaster - and of course, how lucky the country was to have Bernanke as its commanding officer.
The title of Bernanke's new book, The Courage to Act: A Memoir of a Crisis and its Aftermath, likely conjures images of sleep-deprived bankers doing math on legal pads, making furtive calls on solid-red telephones all in the service of calming markets and nervous bankers. And Bernanke, as stolid as ever, did little to discourage such a portrait.
For those eager to relive those days, Bernanke's memoir is certain to be added to the already thick pile of recollections about that most critical moment in economic history.But such a discussion would have been all too serious for a late-night crowd, and Colbert would have none of that. though
Embracing the role of satirist that made him famous on Viacom's (VIAB - Get Report)The Comedy Channel's The Colbert Report, the successor to David Letterman did his best Elton John impersonation by singing, "B-B-B-Benny and the Fed!" The crowd went wild, sort of.The needling went further as Colbert compared the stoic former central banker's apparent composure under duress to that of the Eastern prophet Buddha. "How do you keep your poker face when the world is crumbling," Colbert asked him.
"I'm not going to tell you," Bernanke responded, stone-faced, winning a laugh from the crowd.
The conversation drifted back to the serious as Bernanke averred that it was "out of his power" to save Lehman Brothers, the first major financial firm to go under during the 2008 crisis, even though the federal government was able to bail out so many others, including Goldman Sachs and mortgage lenders Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Colbert pressed him on the point, confused for a moment about the nature and extent of his powers.
For full story:
http://www.thestreet.com/story/13316574/1/stephen-colbert-talks-economics-with-ben-bernanke-and-millions-love-it.html
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Goldman’s Jordan to Work for Russia Slot-Machine Billionaire
Oct 7, 2015 | Bloomberg
By Irina Reznik and Ksenia Galouchko
Nick Jordan, Goldman Sachs Group Inc.’s joint head of Russia, will move to a private-equity firm owned by billionaire Oleg Boyko after becoming the latest high-profile departure from Moscow’s shrinking banking industry.
Jordan, a Russian-speaking investment banker who spent 19 years in the country with Deutsche Bank AG, UBS Group AG and Goldman, is joining Boyko’s Finstar Financial Group as its general director, Finstar said in an e-mailed statement Wednesday.
Investment-banking profits in Russia have declined 62 percent this year for both foreign and domestic firms as international sanctions over the Ukraine conflict and falling oil prices curtail deal making. Boyko, a paraplegic who helps support the Paralympic Games, made his fortune running slot-machine halls in Russia and moved his betting businesses outside the country when gambling was banned in 2009. He exited the gaming industry in 2014.
"Foreign bankers in Russia, even legendary ones, are becoming an anachronism,” Anton Tabakh, a director at Moscow-based ratings company RusRating, said by e-mail. “In part, this is because of the shrinking of the financial sector due to sanctions and the recession."Asset Manager
Finstar manages about $2 billion in assets and is focused on financial markets, information technology and telecommunications, according to the statement.
Deutsche Bank, where Jordan spent more than a decade until 2007, will close its Russian banking and securities businesses as the lender grapples with a probe into alleged money laundering at its Moscow office. Joerg Bongartz, chairman of the bank’s business in the country, moved to Frankfurt from Moscow, the lender said last month.Mark Stadler left his job as the head of HSBC Holding Plc’s Russian unit for a Dubai post in August.
Goldman announced the departure of Jordan on Sept. 30 and said Paolo Zannoni, the other Russian co-CEO, will move to head the company’s investment-banking business in Italy.Negative View
“The overall positive view of Russia -- typical for global investors and bankers in the 1990s and 2000s -- has changed to negative,” said Ilya Sherbovich, president of United Capital Partners in Moscow and an acquaintance of Jordan. “In this environment, international banks are very conservative and do not consider the development of Russian business a priority."
Jordan, born in the U.S. and raised by a Russian immigrant family, departed Deutsche Bank in 2007 for Lehman Brothers, leaving in November 2008 after the bank’s collapse. At Deutsche Bank, Jordan participated in the acquisition of Moscow brokerage United Financial Group.
For full story:
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-10-07/goldman-s-jordan-to-leave-for-russian-slot-machine-billionaire
Client Attorney Privileged/Attorney Work Product/At Request of Counsel
Ben Bernanke
Nick Jordan
Full Text of Stories Below
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