Speaker: David Wessel, Economics Editor of The Wall Street Journal

In late 2007, as the worst financial panic in more than 50 years gripped the world, Chairman Bernanke was determined to avoid the once unthinkable: a repeat of the Great Depression. He declared, “Whatever it takes…”

For more than twenty years David Wessel has been The Wall Street Journal’s insider at the Fed, with continual access to its chairmen, governors, policy-makers, and staffers. With the thoroughness and clarity that are the hallmarks of a great journalist, he explains one of the biggest ongoing stories of our time in terms that you don’t need to be a Wall Street insider to grasp. In Fed We Trust is a breathtaking and singularly perceptive look at the opaque and undemocratic inner workings of the Fed, while revealing how the Bernanke Fed led the desperate effort to prevent the world’s financial engine from grinding to a halt.

David Wessel is economics editor of The Wall Street Journal and writes the Capital column, a weekly look at the economy and forces shaping living standards around the world. He has shared two Pulitzer Prizes, one for Boston Globe stories in 1983 on the persistence of racism in Boston and the other for stories in 2002 in The Wall Street Journal on corporate wrongdoing. A 1975 graduate of Haverford College, he was Knight Bagehot Fellow in business and economics journalism at Columbia University in 1980–81. Registration: e-mail to admin@hrleadershipforum.org. Location: NRECA Conference Center , 4301 Wilson Blvd., Arlington VA 703-907-5939 Metro: Ballston on the Orange Line. Parking at Ballston Common across Wilson Blvd.

8:15-9:00am - registration, networking, Continental breakfast 9:00-10:30am - program 10:30-11:00am - informal conversation time with speaker(s)

Cost: included in membership for HRLF members; $75 non-members

HRLF members may send a substitute to any program they cannot attend and may bring one guest free during their membership year.