Robert Rubin joins Citigroup just four months after leaving his position as Treasury Secretary, shortly after the November 1999 passage of the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act that repealed Glass-Steagall. Rubin’s move to Citigroup - the principal beneficiary of Glass-Steagall repeal - represents one of …
Robert RubinCitigroupSandy WeillGoldman SachsTreasury Departmentrevolving-doorcitigroupglass-steagallcorruptionregulatory-capture+2 more
In September 1998, the Federal Reserve Board granted Citicorp a temporary waiver allowing its merger with Travelers Group, effectively circumventing the Glass-Steagall Act and Bank Holding Company Act. This strategic regulatory maneuver created Citigroup, the first ‘universal bank’ since …
Federal ReserveAlan GreenspanCiticorpTravelers GroupSandy Weill+4 morefederal-reservecitigroupglass-steagall-violationregulatory-waiversystemic-corruption+3 more
Robert E. Rubin was sworn in as the 70th Secretary of the Treasury, bringing Wall Street directly into the highest levels of economic policymaking. Rubin had spent 26 years at Goldman Sachs, rising to co-chairman from 1990-1992, before joining the Clinton administration as director of the National …
Robert RubinBill ClintonGoldman Sachsrevolving-doorgoldman-sachstreasuryfinancial-deregulationregulatory-capture
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 NixonJohn ConnallyPaul VolckerArthur Burnseconomic-policyfinancial-deregulationinstitutional-captureneoliberalism
Investment trusts reached peak popularity and systemic danger by selling at premiums higher than underlying stock values while creating complex pyramids of cross-ownership and hidden leverage. These 1929 equivalents of closed-end mutual funds bought stock on margin with funds loaned not by banks but …
A new brokerage industry enabling margin stock purchases allowed ordinary investors to buy corporate equities with only 10 percent down, borrowing the rest with stocks serving as collateral for loans. By August 1929, brokers routinely lent small investors more than two-thirds of the face value of …
Federal ReserveGoldman SachsInvestment Trustsfinancial-deregulationspeculationsystematic-corruptionwealth-concentration
President Calvin Coolidge signs the McFadden Act, one of the most contested pieces of banking legislation in U.S. history, which recharters the twelve Federal Reserve District Banks into perpetuity but prohibits interstate branch banking for national banks. Named after Representative Louis Thomas …
Louis Thomas McFaddenCalvin CoolidgeU.S. CongressFederal Reservefinancial-deregulationbankingregulatory-capture
The Senate voted 26-to-20 on March 28, 1834, to censure President Andrew Jackson for unconstitutionally removing federal deposits from the Second Bank of the United States and placing them in state-chartered “pet banks.” The resolution, introduced by Henry Clay, declared that Jackson …
Andrew JacksonHenry ClayRoger TaneyWilliam DuaneU.S. Senateinstitutional-capturesystematic-corruptionfinancial-deregulationexecutive-overreachdemocratic-erosion