Ben Bernanke is officially a celebrity. The New York Post’s venerable celebrity gossip section Page Six carried news of former NYC Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s fete for Ben in honor of the publication of his memoir Courage to Act. In attendance were many of Ben’s best--or at least most grateful--friends from Wall Street. These included: NY Fed President Billl Dudley; JPMorgan Chase’s Jamie Diamond; J. Tomilson Hill, Blackstone Group’s Vice Chairman and President and CEO of its hedge fund group; Robert Rubin, former Clinton administration Treasury Secretary and former director and senior counselor of Citigroup during the financial crisis and subsequent bailout; Ralph Shlosstein, co-founder of Blackrock, ”the largest asset manager on the planet,” and now CEO of Evercore investment banking advisory firm; Glenn Hutchins of Silver Lakes Partners, a huge private technology investment fund; CNBC’s senior economic report Steve Liesman; Anthony Scaramucci, former Goldman Sachs and Lehman Brothers banker and a co-founder and co-managing partner of Skybridge Capital, a hedge fund seeding firm.
With no disrespect intended to former Chairman Bernanke, it is unlikely that he won such rich and powerful friends with his scintillating personality, arcane academic publications, or fashionable haircut.
