All the Presidents' Bankers

The Hidden Alliances That Drive American Power

By: Nomi Prins

Narrated by: Marguerite Gavin

Culled from original presidential archival documents, All the Presidents' Bankers delivers an explosive account of the 100-year interdependence between the White House and Wall Street that transcends a simple analysis of money driving politics or greed driving bankers.

Nomi Prins ushers us into the intimate world of exclusive clubs, vacation spots, and Ivy League universities that binds presidents and financiers. She unravels the multi-generational blood, intermarriage, and protégé relationships that have confined national influence to a privileged cluster of people. This unprecedented history of American power illuminates how financiers have retained their authoritative position through history, swaying presidents regardless of party affiliation. It explores the alarming global repercussions of a system lacking barriers between public office and private power. Prins leaves us with an ominous choice: either we break the alliances of the power elite, or they will break us.

©2014 Nomi Prins (P)2014 Tantor

A history buff's review of banking in politics

Whether you love politics (or not) and whether you love banking (or not) don't you want to know how bankers have influenced Presidents (and history?

IThis book answers that question.
In an era when politics is broken, this gives part of the reason why.

Bankers: lacking follow up action

The book gave the reader history, but did not follow though with policy reforms to correct the problems! Current proposed reforms are not listed, nor any by the author!

Very Informative!

I like this informative documentary about the through lines of our banking system and the President!

The Most Important US History book.

What did you love best about All the Presidents' Bankers?

If you want to truly understand US History, from foreign policy to labor laws, the first place to start is the interactions between the power elite: Wall Street and the White House.

Instead, the vast herds of sheeple rely on mainstream media and mainstream books. Corporate media and corporate publishers will only teach you the political theater, where voters are spectators swallowed up by pre-defined "choices" that have zero impact on the fundamental Economic Politics/Power Structures.

So, one has to look outside. Nomi Prins is amazing at documenting the history of Wall Street. Also recommended:

Matt Taibbi - "Griftopia", "The Divide"... these are great introductions to Wall Street scams and inequality. Very easy and fun read for those that find nonfiction challenging!

David Graeber - "The Democracy Project", "Debt: The First 1000 Years"... Graeber elegantly combines history/anthropology with Economic Politics and philosophy.

Chris Hedges - "Death of the Liberal Class"... amazing war correspondent who starts to escape the political theater and examine Economic Politics/Power Structures.

Michael Hudson - probably the best Economist research professor, wrote the classic "Super Imperialism" in 1972.

Michael Perelman - "The Invention of Capitalism"

Ferdinand Lundberg - legendary journalist who wrote "America's Sixty Families" in 1937.

George Orwell - "Homage to Catalonia"... amazing piece of history, showing how all the status quo power structures (Capitalist Allies, Soviet Communism, and Fascism) were all against the workers revolt in the Spanish Civil War. There really isn't a Left or Right fundamentally: the divide is between Vertical Power Structures (Capitalism, Soviet Communism, Fascism) and Horizontal Power Structures (Democratic Socialism, Anarcho-Syndicalism).

Charles R. Geisst - "Wall Street: A History" - comprehensive analysis on the pinnacle of Capitalism: Wall Street.

Did you have an extreme reaction to this book? Did it make you laugh or cry?

It must be a symptom of a sick society when amazing critiques like this remain unread while the working class drowns itself in vapid entertainment, unaware or uncaring of fellow working class families in other countries being oppressed, or the destruction of the planet that we all share. We are better than this!

Any additional comments?

Please keep free thinking alive.

Important history

This book is so fascinating and has helped me so much to understand the big picture behind the bailouts of 2008 and the ever increasing power of multinational banks in general. What became clear to me is that the bankers couldn’t have amassed their power without the complicity of bought off members of Congress going back generations. Ironically, that realization made this a hopeful book for me because is acts of Congress granted freedoms for banker recklessness, Congress clearly has the power to take those freedoms away. By examining the mistakes that got us to this precarious place where bankers are more powerful than government- and have so effectively weaseled themselves into it - we can examine specific legislative changes to bring back. I highly recommend this book. I will likely listen to it at least twice