All the Presidents' Bankers
📅 Finished on: 2023-07-13
Big bankers have total control; they can speculate undisturbed knowing they are too big to fail
Recommended by a Hacker News comment referring to recent history and how politics and Wall Street are highly interconnected. Interesting for retracing American history, president by president.
The gist is that from Wilson onward the major banking giants (Morgan Chase, Bank of America, Goldman Sachs, etc.) maintained well-established ties with every president, offering their help when funds were requested, but at the same time, in most contemporary historical events, they pursued their own interests, enriching themselves enormously. This includes the major crises, such as 2008 and 1929, when excessive speculation led to enormous bubbles.
There’s a bit of everything. Still, it’s interesting to see how each president approached the issue.