Another send-up of our financial system

The Bankers’ Bank | Foundation for Economic Education: "No one familiar with the origins of the Fed, or the other Progressive Era reforms, should be surprised. Those who have not studied the Progressive Era in any depth, however, are likely to believe those reforms were imposed by enlightened politicians to end abuses by big business. That is one of many fairy tales we learn in school. It’s not so, but it serves its purpose, which is to protect the left and right wings of the ruling party from the radical laissez-faire alternative. Those reforms, though of course cheered on by European-educated American intellectuals attracted to power and ambitious Progressive politicians, were in fact the brainchildren of the corporate elite. Its members disliked the vigorous market competition of the late nineteenth century because it cost them market share, and their efforts to stifle competition through mergers had failed miserably. So the elite turned to the state for protection. (See Roy Childs’s classic “Big Business and the Rise of American Statism” here.)"

'via Blog this'

Global Online Privacy