At the turn of the twentieth century, private banking was a personal enterprise in which business relationships were a statement of identity and reputation. In an era when ethnic and religious differences were pronounced and anti-Semitism was prevalent, Anglo-American and German-Jewish elite bankers lived in their respective cordoned communities, seldom interacting with one another outside the business realm. Ironically, the tacit agreement to maintain separate social spheres made it easier to cooperate in purely financial matters on Wall Street. But as Susie Pak demonstrates, the Morgans’ exceptional relationship with the German-Jewish investment bank Kuhn, Loeb & Co., their strongest competitor and also an important collaborator, was entangled in ways that went far beyond the pursuit of mutual profitability.
Delving into the archives of many Morgan partners and legacies, Gentlemen Bankers draws on never-before published letters and testimony to tell a closely focused story of how economic and political interests intersected with personal rivalries and friendships among the Wall Street aristocracy during the first half of the twentieth century.
https://universityseminars.columbia.edu/books/gentlemen-bankers-the-world-of-j-p-morgan/
Thomas Jefferson Warned The Nation To Beware The Power Of The Banks
Before there was John Kenneth Galbraith or Joe Stiglitz or Nouriel Roubini, or Simon Johnson or Niall Ferguson or Occupy Wall Street-- there was one of the Founding Fathers, Thomas Jefferson giving an advance warning of 2008 some 200 years ago. An awesome foreboding it was, too.
"I believe that banking institutions are more dangerous to our liberties than standing armies," Jefferson wrote. " If the American people ever allow private banks to control the issue of their currency, first by inflation, then by deflation, the banks and corporations that will grow up around(these banks) will deprive the people of all property until their children wake up homeless on the continent their fathers conquered."
"The issuing power of currency shall be taken from the banks and restored to the people, to whom it properly belongs."
We should all meditate on that amazing prediction of things to come that are not necessarily beneficial to the 99% -- but only to the 1%.
For over half a century I have worked as an investment banker, and then written about Wall Street, highlighting the market upheavals of 1973-4, 1987, 1999-2000, and 2007-2008 and their ramifications for the American economy,the disparity of wealth in the nation and the continuing risks of another deep global financial crisis.
Previously I was National Editor and Senior Editor at Forbes Magazine, New York Bureau Chief of The Boston Globe and Wall Street correspondent of The Economist.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/robertlenzner/2011/11/06/thomas-jefferson-warned-the-nation-about-the-power-of-the-banks/?sh=1e8e20322b18
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