Bernanke and Paulson: bosom buddies?
This should come as no surprise to PPT readers, but it tuns out that Bernanke and Paulson have been meeting at least once a week during the last few months: (hat tip to John Crudele at the NY Post)
...Wharton School lecturer Ken Thomas requested Bernanke's calendar under the Freedom of Information Act and the Fed complied...
Well, Thomas has analyzed Bernanke's record of meetings and found that he and Paulson are damned near bosom buddies - a lot more bosomy than Ben was with Paulson's successor.
According to the documents, Bernanke has met with officials of the Treasury Department 66 times, or 3.5 times a month, during his tenure. That includes the last months of John Snow's tenure as head of Treasury and Paulson's ongoing term. The breakdown of those meetings is interesting.
The Fed chairman met with Snow, who wasn't previously employed on Wall Street, only eight times before the former Treasury head resigned. But Paulson met 58 times with Bernanke. That averages out to 4.1 meetings a month for Paulson, says Thomas, but only 1.6 times a month for Snow.
This is just more evidence to support what we all know is true: the Plunge Protection Team is on the move and in full market manipulation mode.
Did anyone see the breakout to lifetime highs of Goldman Sachs, Paulson's previous firm, today? The last time we saw some interesting price action in GS was during the August swoon when Goldman began recovering prior to the rest of the stock market -- the leak from the PPT was in. Could we see another "surprise" 50 basis point cut this week? After all, the Goldman guys need a big bonus this year, don't they Mr. Paulson?
