THE DOLLAR BARONS

by Christopher Elias ‧ RELEASE DATE: Nov. 29, 1973

So long as there has been a banking system of one kind or another bankers have been permitted to operate in a private world of personal privilege."" Your ""friend"" at Chase Manhattan, you can be sure, is busy making all the ties that count for him, despite recent Supreme Court decisions separating banking from the businesses it finances. Elias -- who has already cut up Wall Street in Fleecing The Lambs -- declares that the money mammoths get their men into corporate directorships, speculate in the market (not only did banks refuse a loan to the Penn Central but they unloaded stock on the basis of inside information that the company was going down), set tie-in conditions on small and middling corporations in search of loans, supply the capital to sharking finance companies. Big fish service and protect the little fish (at a price, which the consumer bears); legislators, who often have the privileges and financial stakes that bankers arrogate for themselves, are reluctant watchdogs -- save for Congressmen such as Rep. Patman, the ""populist"" and ""fire-eater"" who wrote the introduction -- while the Federal Reserve and other public eyes, weighted by the interests, wink at what they really do not want to see. Can there be any doubt, Elias asks, that there should be a National Development Bank to make loans in the social interest, that trust departments should be separate from ordinary commercial operations, that the Fed should be accountable to Congress? Citing names and affiliations with the detail of an I.F. Stone, Elias reveals how banks are robbing us.

Pub Date: Nov. 29, 1973

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: -

Publisher: Macmillan

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 1973

Categories: NONFICTION