Hedge Fund Manager: Private Dinner Conversation with Bernanke ‘Frightening’

Einhorn Says Bernanke Answers ‘Frightening’ During Dinner (Bloomberg)

David Einhorn, manager of the $10 billion Greenlight Capital Inc., said he found a recent dinner conversation with former Federal Reserve Chairman Ben S. Bernanke scary.

“I got to ask him all these questions that had been on my mind for a long time,” Einhorn said in an interview today with Erik Schatzker and Stephanie Ruhle on Bloomberg Television, referring to a March 26 dinner with Bernanke. “It was sort of frightening because the answers were not better than I thought they would be.”

Einhorn, 45, has been critical of Bernanke’s willingness to leave interest rates near zero for more than five years. The hedge-fund manager has said the benefits of low rates diminish over time until they are more harmful than helpful, and that the Fed’s stimulus has led to income inequality. Bernanke, a former Princeton University economics professor, stepped down this year after eight years helming the U.S. central bank.