The Great Debate On Banking Reform

"Eminent historian of economics Elmus Wicker examines the events which spurred a series of banking panics beginning in 1893-94, that led to the creation of the U.S. Federal Reserve Bank twenty years later. A serious lacuna exists in the literature on the origins of the Federal Reserve System. What is absent is a fair appraisal of the role Senator Nelson Aldrich, prominent Rhode Island senator, played. Carter Glass captured the acclaim while asserting that Aldrich be granted equal billing with Glass as "fathers" of the Federal Reserve System."--BOOK JACKET.

Offering new perspectives on the early years of the Federal Reserve system, this book evaluates the banking reform movement and its results. Professor West analyzes the system's first decade in the context of the thought of the period and of what preceded the Federal Reserve Act of 1913. Neither the Act itself nor the actions of the system it created, he maintains, can be understood without knowledge of the banking reform attempts. In this clearly written account of the American central bank, the author demonstrates the relationship between the evolution of monetary ideas and the evolution of an organizational structure. His book will be of great value to students and scholars of economic history, money and banking, institutional economics, and American history.

This book presents a series of proposals for banking reform in the United States, including the establishment of a central bank with limited power. Sprague, a leading economist of his time, argues for the necessity of such reforms in order to stabilize the banking system and prevent periodic financial crises. This book is essential reading for anyone interested in the history of banking in the United States and the ongoing debate over banking regulation and reform. This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important, and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work is in the "public domain in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant.

This work presents a comprehensive history and evaluation of the role of the 100 percent reserve plan in the banking legislation of the New Deal reform era from its inception in 1933 to its re-emergence in the current financial reform debate in the US.

A tour de force of historical reportage, America’s Bank illuminates the tumultuous era and remarkable personalities that spurred the unlikely birth of America’s modern central bank, the Federal Reserve. Today, the Fed is the bedrock of the financial landscape, yet the fight to create it was so protracted and divisive that it seems a small miracle that it was ever established. For nearly a century, America, alone among developed nations, refused to consider any central or organizing agency in its financial system. Americans’ mistrust of big government and of big banks—a legacy of the country’s Jeffersonian, small-government traditions—was so widespread that modernizing reform was deemed impossible. Each bank was left to stand on its own, with no central reserve or lender of last resort. The real-world consequences of this chaotic and provincial system were frequent financial panics, bank runs, money shortages, and depressions. By the first decade of the twentieth century, it had become plain that the outmoded banking system was ill equipped to finance America’s burgeoning industry. But political will for reform was lacking. It took an economic meltdown, a high-level tour of Europe, and—improbably—a conspiratorial effort by vilified captains of Wall Street to overcome popular resistance. Finally, in 1913, Congress conceived a federalist and quintessentially American solution to the conflict that had divided bankers, farmers, populists, and ordinary Americans, and enacted the landmark Federal Reserve Act. Roger Lowenstein—acclaimed financial journalist and bestselling author of When Genius Failed and The End of Wall Street—tells the drama-laden story of how America created the Federal Reserve, thereby taking its first steps onto the world stage as a global financial power. America’s Bank showcases Lowenstein at his very finest: illuminating complex financial and political issues with striking clarity, infusing the debates of our past with all the gripping immediacy of today, and painting unforgettable portraits of Gilded Age bankers, presidents, and politicians. Lowenstein focuses on the four men at the heart of the struggle to create the Federal Reserve. These were Paul Warburg, a refined, German-born financier, recently relocated to New York, who was horrified by the primitive condition of America’s finances; Rhode Island’s Nelson W. Aldrich, the reigning power broker in the U.S. Senate and an archetypal Gilded Age legislator; Carter Glass, the ambitious, if then little-known, Virginia congressman who chaired the House Banking Committee at a crucial moment of political transition; and President Woodrow Wilson, the academician-turned-progressive-politician who forced Glass to reconcile his deep-seated differences with bankers and accept the principle (anathema to southern Democrats) of federal control. Weaving together a raucous era in American politics with a storied financial crisis and intrigue at the highest levels of Washington and Wall Street, Lowenstein brings the beginnings of one of the country’s most crucial institutions to vivid and unforgettable life. Readers of this gripping historical narrative will wonder whether they’re reading about one hundred years ago or the still-seething conflicts that mark our discussions of banking and politics today.

Banking reform is the second key pillar of the Government's programme for reform of the financial sector to address the weaknesses exposed by the financial crisis of 2007-09. The first pillar of this programme, reform of financial services regulation, has been legislated in the Financial Services Act that received Royal Assent in December 2012 (2012 Ch. 21, 9780105421122). The Government is now legislating to reform the structure of the UK banking system, through the Financial Services (Banking Reform) Bill (HCB 130, session 2012-13, ISBN 9780215053794) which implements key recommendations of the Independent Commission on Banking, including ring-fencing retail deposits from wholesale banking activities and depositor preference. This document accompanies introduction of the Bill and includes the Government response to the first report of the Parliamentary Commission on Banking Standards (PCBS), which conducted pre-legislative scrutiny on the draft Bill. The response explains where the Government has amended the Bill and includes and impact assessment for the Bill, along with the opinion of the independent Regulatory Policy Committee

This book boldly challenges the conventional view that the state must play a dominant role in the monetary system.