Paul Volcker

Bear Stearns Collapse and Federal Reserve-Facilitated Fire Sale to JPMorgan with $29 Billion Taxpayer Guarantee Establishes 'Too Big to Fail' Precedent with Zero Criminal Prosecutions Despite Fraud-Driven Collapse

2008-03-16 00:00:00 +0000 UTC | Importance: 10/10

Bear Stearns, the fifth-largest investment bank in the United States with $400 billion in reported consolidated assets, collapsed in March 2008 after its liquidity pool plummeted from $18.1 billion on March 10 to just $2 billion on March 13. The firm had leveraged its capital up to 35 …

Bear Stearns JPMorgan Chase Federal Reserve Bank of New York Ben Bernanke Timothy Geithner +2 more financial-crisis regulatory-capture too-big-to-fail bailout accountability-crisis

Volcker Shock - Federal Reserve Raises Rates to 20%, Recession Begins

1979-10-06 00:00:00 +0000 UTC | Importance: 10/10

On October 6, 1979, Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker announced dramatic steps to combat inflation, fundamentally transforming monetary policy by switching from targeting interest rates to targeting the money supply. Appointed by President Jimmy Carter in August 1979 to replace William Miller, …

Paul Volcker Jimmy Carter economic-policy financial-crisis neoliberalism labor-suppression

Nixon Ends Gold Standard, Bretton Woods System Collapses

1971-08-15 00:00:00 +0000 UTC | Importance: 10/10

On August 15, 1971, President Richard Nixon announced his “New Economic Policy” in a televised address, unilaterally closing the gold window and ending the convertibility of U.S. dollars to gold at the fixed rate of $35 per ounce established under the Bretton Woods system. The …

Richard Nixon John Connally Paul Volcker Arthur Burns economic-policy financial-deregulation institutional-capture neoliberalism