The Federal Reserve Then and Now

Posted on Thursday, August 25, 2011, at 1:27 pm, by Dr. Allardyce Hurlbutt.

1934: “You can tell your banker friends to go to hell.”

  —  Marriner S. Eccles to Elbert G. Bennett upon being told that Wall Street would relent in its opposition to his appointment as chairman of the Federal Reserve if he would consent to the weakening of a New Deal banking bill; quoted in Sidney Hyman, Marriner S. Eccles, Private Entrepreneur and Public Servant (Stanford, 1976), 175. Eccles went on to be confirmed despite the bankers’ opposition. The headquarters building of the Federal Reserve in Washington, D.C., is named after him.

2011: “Wall Street is our Main Street — love ’em or hate ’em. They are important and we have to make sure we are doing everything we can to support them unless they are doing something indefensible.”

  —  Kathryn S. Wylde, member of the board of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, reproving New York State Attorney General Eric T. Schneiderman, for his unwelcome investigation of the mortgage securitization scandal; quoted in the New York Times, 22 August 2011. It is difficult to avoid the inference that Wylde regards blatant, widespread fraud by the banking industry as defensible.