Bernanke’s Personal Assets Increase as Much as 31%
July 30, 2010, 1:17 PM EDTBy Joshua Zumbrun and Scott Lanman
(Updates with Bernanke’s textbook royalties in sixth paragraph.)
July 30 (Bloomberg) -- Federal Reserve Chairman Ben S. Bernanke’s personal assets rose by as much as 31 percent last year as U.S. stocks rebounded.
The central bank chief and his family owned financial assets valued at $1.15 million to $2.48 million last year, a higher range than the $852,000 to $1.9 million in 2008, according to an annual financial disclosure released by the Fed today. The forms from the Office of Government Ethics require officials to report only a range in the value of holdings.
Bernanke’s two largest assets are retirement accounts, listed as TIAA Traditional and CREF Stock Large Cap Blend. Both were valued in a range of $500,001 and $1 million. Last year, his CREF fund holding was listed in a range of $250,001 and $500,000.
The Standard & Poor’s 500 Index rose 23 percent in 2009 after a 38 percent drop in 2008. Bernanke has fought the worst U.S. recession and financial crisis since the 1930s by lowering the benchmark U.S. interest rate to zero and having the Fed purchase $1.7 trillion of housing debt and Treasury securities.
The S&P 500 declined 1.2 percent this year through yesterday.
Bernanke, 56, who succeeded Alan Greenspan as chairman in 2006 and began a second four-year term in February, received a salary last year of $196,700, an amount set by Congress.
A former Princeton professor, Bernanke earned between $200,002 and $2 million in royalties from textbooks last year, more than his compensation as central bank chief.
$1 Million
Fed governors Daniel Tarullo, a law professor at Georgetown University before joining the Fed, and Elizabeth Duke and Kevin Warsh, both former bankers, also have assets of more than $1 million, according to the disclosures.
Earlier this week, the Senate Banking Committee approved the nomination of San Francisco Fed President Janet Yellen to be vice-chairman of the Fed. The panel also approved Massachusetts Institute of Technology professor Peter Diamond and Maryland’s commissioner of financial regulation, Sarah Bloom Raskin, for spots on the Fed board.
Previously released financial disclosures show that all three have combined assets of at least $1 million with their spouses. If confirmed by the Senate, the entire Fed board will consist of millionaires.
--Editors: James Tyson, Andrew Barden
To contact the reporter on this story: Scott Lanman in Washington at slanman@bloomberg.net. Joshua Zumbrun in Washington at jzumbrun@bloomberg.net.
To contact the editor responsible for this story: Christopher Wellisz at cwellisz@bloomberg.net
