Before the Federal Reserve, there was one man who held the fate of the American economy in his hands: J.P. Morgan. This episode explores the unprecedented power of the world’s most dominant banker, a figure so influential he could halt financial panics and personally bail out the U.S. government. We examine the Panic of 1907, a severe financial crisis that saw the stock market collapse and banks fail across the country. With no central bank to stop the contagion, Wall Street and Washington turned to Morgan.
We take you inside the legendary late-night meeting at Morgan’s private library, where he locked the nation’s top financiers in a room and refused to let them leave until they agreed to pool their resources and save the economy. It was a display of private power superseding public authority, with one man dictating the terms of America’s survival. We analyze how Morgan’s actions, while saving the country from collapse, also highlighted the immense danger of placing the nation’s financial stability in the hands of a single, unelected individual.
His intervention directly led to the creation of the Federal Reserve System, as politicians realized the country could no longer afford to rely on the whims of one powerful banker. J.P. Morgan was both the savior and the catalyst, a man whose personal gravity was strong enough to bend the entire financial system. This is the story of his ultimate power play.
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