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> the banking aristocrats

This...is not a thing. Banking hasn't been dominated by a hereditary class since the Great Depression.



Just loosely speaking. I’m not really talking about a family here. I’ll switch to “elites” then.


> not really talking about a family here. I’ll switch to “elites” then

An interesting aspect of American central banking is that it doesn’t tend to cross-pollinate with commercial or investment banking. Bernanke went to MIT before a career in academia and government [1]. Yelled worked in government her whole career [2]. Powell, uniquely, worked in the private sector as an attorney and investment banker, but hasn’t been in that world for 15 years [3].

Until 2025, the Fed was legitimately independent of commercial banks’ concerns. Until Trump, Wall Street couldn’t pick its regulators the way it can now.

[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ben_Bernanke

[2] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Janet_Yellen

[3] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jerome_Powell




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