Between the Crash of 1929 and 2008, these bankers reigned over America as monarchical rather than democratically elected leaders. Through the Great Depression, World War II, the establishment of the World Bank and IMF, the Cold War, and the financial and military expansion of the United States, Wall Street and the White House collaborated to shape national policy. To this day these elite bankers drive our financial systems, even if the men who rise to the top of their firms and dominate politics in any given period are largely interchangeable.
The political and financial alliances between bankers and presidents and their cabinets defined, and continue to define, the policies and laws that drive the economy. The revolving doors between public and private service weren’t created in the 1980s, as many more recent works claim. They were always present.
