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All the Presidents' Bankers: The Hidden Alliances that Drive American Power Hardcover – April 8, 2014
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All the Presidents' Bankers is a groundbreaking narrative of how an elite group of men transformed the American economy and government, dictated foreign and domestic policy, and shaped world history.
Culled from original presidential archival documents, All the Presidents' Bankers delivers an explosive account of the hundred-year interdependence between the White House and Wall Street that transcends a simple analysis of money driving politicsor greed driving bankers.
Prins ushers us into the intimate world of exclusive clubs, vacation spots, and Ivy League universities that binds presidents and financiers. She unravels the multi-generational blood, intermarriage, and protégé relationships that have confined national influence to a privileged cluster of people. These families and individuals recycle their power through elected office and private channels in Washington, DC.
All the Presidents' Bankers sheds new light on pivotal historic eventssuch as why, after the Panic of 1907, America's dominant bankers convened to fashion the Federal Reserve System; how J. P. Morgan's ambitions motivated President Wilson during World War I; how Chase and National City Bank chairmen worked secretly with President Roosevelt to rescue capitalism during the Great Depression while J.P. Morgan Jr. invited Roosevelt's son yachting; and how American financiers collaborated with President Truman to construct the World Bank and IMF after World War II.
Prins divulges how, through the Cold War and Vietnam era, presidents and bankers pushed America's superpower status and expansion abroad, while promoting broadly democratic values and social welfare at home. But from the 1970s, Wall Street's rush to secure Middle East oil profits altered the nature of political-financial alliances. Bankers' profit motive trumped heritage and allegiance to public service, while presidents lost control over the economyas was dramatically evident in the financial crisis of 2008.
This unprecedented history of American power illuminates how the same financiers retained their authoritative position through history, swaying presidents regardless of party affiliation. All the Presidents' Bankers explores the alarming global repercussions of a system lacking barriers between public office and private power. Prins leaves us with an ominous choice: either we break the alliances of the power elite, or they will break us.
- Print length544 pages
- LanguageEnglish
- PublisherNation Books
- Publication dateApril 8, 2014
- Dimensions6 x 1.25 x 9 inches
- ISBN-10156858749X
- ISBN-13978-1568587493
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Editorial Reviews
Review
This book offers a time line analysis of Americans who granted or wielded tremendous power in unelected positions of public trust, on behalf of US presidents and cabinet secretaries, from the 1880s through 2013 [Prins] tackles hundreds of handwritten letters, archives, and documents necessary to research her subject; her findings provide insight into how US policy advisers juggled their allegiances between their employers, clients, and contacts in the White House, and the good of the nation.”CHOICE
"The relationship between Washington and Wall Street isn't really a revolving door. Its a merry-go-round. And, as Prins shows, the merriest of all are the bankers and financiers that get rich off the relationship, using their public offices and access to build private wealth and power. Disturbing and important." Robert B. Reich, Chancellor's Professor of Public Policy, University of California at Berkeley
All the Presidents' Bankers spins an enormous amount of research into a coherent, readable narrative. Even her frequent kvetches about the lifestyles of rich and famous bankers are entertaining .There is always room for criticism, and Ms. Prins does it rather well. Banking was her first career before taking up journalism. She can talk the talk and is knowledgeable about the many points where banking and public policy intersect...Give her credit for seeing through the façade of Dodd-Frank into the danger of another meltdown that lurks in our day of quasi-nationalized banking.”George Melloan, Wall Street Journal
A calm, authoritative elucidation of verifiable history”Financial Times
Even those who have read Secrets of the Temple, William Greider's massive and brilliant 1987 exposé of the Federal Reserve, will find Prins's book worth their time. She presents a new narrative, one that shows how the changing cast of six has shaped America's fortunes under presidents in both parties.”American Prospect
"Prins divides her justifiably long text into digestible one- to three-page segments and seamlessly incorporates dozens of prominent banker profiles. Her work is highly recommended both to general readers and to students of financial history."Library Journal
"Nomi Prins has written a big book you just wish was bigger: page after page of killer stories of bank robbers who've owned the banksand owned the White House. Prins is a born story-teller. She turns the history of the moneyed class into a breathless, page-turning romancethe tawdry affairs of bankers and the presidents who love them. It's brilliant inside stuff on unforgettable, and unforgivable, scoundrels." Greg Palast, Investigative reporter for BBC Television and author of Billionaires & Ballot Bandits
"In this riveting, definitive history, Nomi Prins reveals how US policy has been largely dominated by a circle of the same banking and political dynasties. For more than a century, Presidents often acquiesced or participated as bankers subverted democracy, neglected the public interest, and stole power from the American people." Paul Craig Roberts, former Wall Street Journal editor and Assistant Secretary of the US Treasury
"Nomi Prins follows the money. She used to work on Wall Street. And now she has written a seminal history of America's bankers and their symbiotic relationship with all the presidents from Teddy Roosevelt through Barack Obama. It is an astonishing tale. All the Presidents' Bankers relies on the presidential archives to reveal how power works in this American democracy. Prins writes in the tradition of C. Wright Mills, Richard Rovere and William Greider. Her book is a stunning contribution to the history of the American Establishment." Kai Bird, Pulitzer Prize-winning biographer and author of The Good Spy: The Life and Death of Robert Ames
Nomi Prins takes us on a brisk, panoramic, and eye-opening tour of more than a century's interplay between America's government and its major banks exposing the remarkable dominance of six major banks, and for most of the period, the same families, over U.S. financial policy.” Charles R. Morris, author of The Trillion Dollar Meltdown
About the Author
Product details
- Publisher : Nation Books (April 8, 2014)
- Language : English
- Hardcover : 544 pages
- ISBN-10 : 156858749X
- ISBN-13 : 978-1568587493
- Item Weight : 0.035 ounces
- Dimensions : 6 x 1.25 x 9 inches
- Best Sellers Rank: #339,967 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #654 in Company Business Profiles (Books)
- #1,518 in U.S. Political Science
- #10,257 in United States History (Books)
- Customer Reviews:
About the author

Nomi Prins is a renowned author, journalist and speaker. Her new book, Collusion:How Central Bankers Rigged the World. Her last book, All the Presidents' Bankers: The Hidden Alliances that Drive American Power, was published on April 8, 2014. Her prior book, Black Tuesday, was a historical novel about the 1929 crash. Before that, she wrote the hard-hitting, It Takes a Pillage: Behind the Bonuses, Bailouts, and Backroom Deals from Washington to Wall Street. She is also the author of Other People's Money: The Corporate Mugging of America, which predicted the recent financial crisis, and was chosen as a Best Book of 2004 by The Economist, Barron's and The Library Journal, and Jacked: How "Conservatives" are Picking your Pocket (whether you voted for them or not.) She wrote the financial thriller, The Trail, under pseudonym, Natalia Prentice.
Before becoming an author, Nomi was a managing director at Goldman Sachs and a senior managing director at Bear Stearns. She has been a featured commentator on numerous TV programs including for: BBC, CNN, CNBC, MSNBC, CSPAN, Democracy Now, Fox and PBS. She has been featured on hundreds of radio shows including for CNNRadio, Marketplace, NPR, BBC, and Canadian Programming. She has been featured in international documentaries from the US, Norway, France, Germany and other places, alongside other prominent thought-leaders.
Her writing has appeared in The New York Times, Fortune, Newsday, Mother Jones, The Daily Beast, Newsweek, Slate, The Guardian, The Nation, LaVanguardia, and other publications.
Her website is http://www.nomiprins.com
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It is riveting. The writing style is elegant, the heavily documented recounting of the rise of the financial sector barons beginning with the late 1800's is simply compelling. The recounted "panic of 1907" is eerily similar to the mess that would ensue a century later.
We in effect have come to have a hereditary / intermarriage-of-the-clans lineage aristocracy quietly operating the levers of power, globally. Presidents and legislatures come and go, but this small group of people at the top of the heap have inordinate long-term power with no effective accountability. That they operate principally with the funds of ordinary bank depositors rather than their own risk capital is all the more galling owing to the fact that the vast majority of the public have no idea as to how they're getting played. "Privatization of profits, socialization of losses" may have become a cliche phrase, but it's true, and it jumps right off these pages.
I've been closely following FIRE sector machinations my entire adult life, beginning with the 60's Equity Funding Life scam. My most recent readings include "Capital in the 21st century," "The Seven Sins of Wall Street," "FlashBoys," and now THIS.
We never seem to learn.
I enjoyed "Flash Boys" (I've read all of Lewis' books), but it's unfortunate that Michael Lewis has managed to suck all of the oxygen out of the media air right when Nomi's book was released, because her book is way more important for gaining a broad and deep understanding of how the FIRE sector evolved, an understanding that is critical if we are to have any hope of pushing for badly needed, beneficent reforms. I don't think it's an overstatement to assert that a crony capitalist iron-fisted neo-feudalism draws nigh.
Kudos, Ms. Prins. I hope your book sells and sells and sells, and gets the major publishing awards it deserves.
__
UPDATE April 23rd.
I just finished this book. Had to take it slow, pretty much one chapter at a time to fully digest all of the history. Very little polemic opining, relatively speaking. That's a nice thing. Ms. Prins certainly has her opinions as to what's ethical or not, but she lets the history speak for itself
Were I on an ECON faculty somewhere, this book would be a core required text for "Modern History of U.S. Finance."
So, for more than a century, national politicians have essentially been highly useful "Bright, Shiny Things," distracting dupes in the service of the quiet exercise of unaccountable global power and ever-increasing acquisition of obscene wealth by a small handful of men. Men.
The broad public has zero clue as to the extent of their ongoing fleecing, how bad they're getting played. These guys seem to exude dismissive contempt for "the little people," which, to them, consists of at least "the 99%" (a fair number of whom likely count themselves as "financial sophisticates," while they too have been getting played right along with Joe lunchbucket).
Wish I could be more optimistic about the prospect for just, sustainable reform. If I didn't have kids and a grandson, it'd be easier to just stop giving a flip.
But, then, that wouldn't be fair to those with kids and grandkids.
Beautiful book. 5 stars+ Get it and read it closely.
Even more fascinating, Prins shows how U.S. bankers extended U.S. power and domination into Europe, Latin America, and other third world countries. World War II enabled the U.S. to be the top of the industrial world. But most of us don't think about the equally critical financial world. This book examines that area closely: the successful effort to establish the supremacy of the U.S. dollar, the formation of the IMF and the World Bank, and the U.S.'s success in pushing aside Great Britain, the world's former superpower.
Prins carefully analyzes the relationship of the IMF and the World Bank with powerful U.S. banks. For example, she shows that the IMF provides short-term financing to help stabilize currencies in developing countries. This provides enough stability to enable U.S. bank to provide more expensive, and much more profitable, debt to those countries. The World Bank, on the other hand, is transformed into a "securities vending machine for private banks." Bankers can then decide which bonds to sell which gives them incredible control over where the World Bank provides lending.
This book also provides an illuminating examination of the banking industry's long-term effort to get rid of Glass-Steagall regulations that were put in place during the Great Depression. The goal of these regulations had been to prevent the highly speculative and reckless lending and security issuance behavior that characterized the period before the 1929 crash. Prins examines how banks during the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s gradually chipped away at the various banking regulations. It culminates in the 1999 Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act that once again allows investment firms to combine with commercial banks. That put in place the conditions that allowed the banking industry to recklessly head toward the financial meltdown of 2007-8.
"All the Presidents' Bankers" takes its place among other superb books that examine the real drivers of U.S. economic power like Naomi Klein's "The Shock Doctrine". Prins, like all great non-fiction writers, proves that discovering how economic and political systems really run is far more fascinating that the nearest best-selling spy thriller.
Top reviews from other countries
"It Takes a Pillage" takes a lot of guts and courage from Nomi Prins. I admire her tenacity.
“In 1973, Rockefeller established the Trilateral Commission… an elite organisation that gave influential private-sector men ways to retain global power… and spread ‘democratic capitalism’ …which in practice means western financial control over international economies.”
The Trilateral Commission clearly constitutes a dark cauldron of manipulation with representatives at all Bilderberg Group meetings.
Prior to this, on page 255, she took a sideswipe at John McCloy’s handling of the inquiry into the assassination of John Kennedy.
This book makes compelling reading. I’d be very interested in hearing your opinions.
The corrupt and near incestuous relationship between finance and politics obviously compromises and undermines the integrity of the democratic process.
An assist is to read this book in conjunction with Oliver Reeds "Untold History of the United States.




