A Secret Meeting And The Birth Of The Federal Reserve | Planet Money | NPR

COVID-19 isn't the first natural disaster to shake the world economy, but today we're more prepared for it than ever.

In 1906, an earthquake in San Francisco started a chain of events that by 1907 had destroyed the US economy. Unemployment was up. The stock market was down. People started panicking. They were lining up overnight to pull their money out of healthy banks. This can be deadly for an economy: Healthy banks have to shut down, businesses can't get credit, they lay people off, and the economy gets worse.

At the time, the U.S. government had no way to deal with the panic. There was no institution that could step in to stop the run on healthy banks. So the job of stopping the panic fell to one man: J.P. Morgan (of JPMorgan fame).

------------------------------------------------------

Follow NPR elsewhere, too:

[ZEUSAIMIGHTY]

Where’s the part about stealing the wealth of the American people? I must have missed that.

[cwaldrip]

Somehow I don’t think the actual bankers were nearly this diverse. ;-)

[robertdowney]

Informative video, wish it would have included the next century of global human suffering caused by financial manipulation and perpetual debt slavery.

[lampblacktangency]

They forgot to mention the slew of powerful people opposed to centralized banking who perished in the Titanic, which was owned by J.P. Morgan.
Mr Morgan, who advertised his ship “unsinkable”, was supposed to board it, but decided at the last minute not to. Also, none of his precious stuff were loaded in the ship.

[thebigred]

Read "The Creature from Jekyll Island" for the real story, if you don't want the 2nd grade level analysis.

[Laotzu.Goldbug]

2:13 LMAO. Imagine thinking that a single one of the bankers looked anything like this.

[Jim.Simpson]

My tax dollars paid for this misinformation. 🤦‍♂️

[jocsanabdala]

The federal reserve is a grandchild of the Bank of England, which funded both sides of European conflicts for hundreds of years. For years prior to its conception, the Bank of England pressured the US to establish its own. The Bank of England had a big problem with the success, stability, and efficiency of the US non-gold-backed currency for many reasons. A central bank in the US would give the Bank of England the perfect means to manipulate American finance. Unfortunately, they got what they wanted😔

[Billy]

And that's how you create a debt based skavery system.

[TomSaviniFan]

Private bakers with so much influence over our governmenr economy, that meet in cloak and dagger like settings, ....I'm sure they always act ethically, right?

[jamesduclos]

A bank run wouldn't be any cause for concern if bankers didn't practice fractional-reserve banking!

[kitsuwaifune]

Bankers bailing themselves out you say? So there's no reason at all to have it then. Got it loud and clear.

[adamwalker]

What genuinely scares me is that enough people will happen across this video and, having an attention span blunted by social media, will take it at its word and not go any further.

We're doomed.

If I haven't lost you yet, go read The Creature From Jekyll Island.

[goodmorningfiatnam]

Moloch was the inspiration for the Federal Reserve.

[chisquared]

The Fed is toast. Evil private syndicate. But you knew this...

[claudiasimpson]

I can't take this clip seriously, when they showed Women and Blks as actors owning Banks. At that time that wasn't possible. Leave it to politically correct N.P.R !!!.

[LukeAurio]

Planet Money: So the Fed makes your money safer!
Ron Paul: **Glowers Intently**

[edwardk]

I wasn't sure if they were going to make it out to be pro or against the fed.

But then when the duck hunters were "diverse" and it was NPR. I knew they would never make them out to be villains. I knew that it was pro fed. And I was right.

[mrbienvenu]

Why did they have to do something about panics, because they loaned out too much of the depositors money because they were greedy.

[SaBastian_DeKrabbe]

Wow, that was a whole lot of misinformation. Thanks for leaving everything out