>
> The pre-WW I ruling class agitated to created the Federal Reserve.
>It was maybe their formative experience.
>
> Doug
>
>^^^^^^
>CB; Didn't the Fed replace J.P. Morgan in carrying out some functions he had
>executed during a financial crisis ? (On his boat , he got a bunch of
>bankers to agree to something ? )
Yup. He bailed out the US government from a couple of financial crises by essentially gathering his cronies together and lending the Treasury some money. The ruling class realized that that wouldn't be a great approach over the long term - esp for a country with major international ambitions. James Livingston covers this in his excellent book on the emergence of the Fed; I lift some of it in Wall Street (still available for free download at <http://www.wallstreetthebook.com>.
Doug