“Our choice is simple: either we break the alliances or they will break us.” This is the parting thought Nomi Prins leaves us with in her latest book, All the Presidents’ Bankers, which explores 100 years of relationships between presidents and the Big Six bankers.
Image credit: Stephanie Murti
In 2008 and 2009, people around the world witnessed firsthand what being broken by the banking system could mean as millions lost their homes, livelihoods, incomes, and way of life with little warning. They were all victims of an unscrupulous relationship between Presidents, Treasury Secretaries, and banking executives over generations that overlooked the needs of the people in order to amass huge profits for themselves.
According to Prins, the future ramifications for continuing to deregulate the banking industry could be even more severe — but there is a solution. By instating policies that reflect the interests of the people over the interests of the banks and dissolving the unscrupulous relationship between those in control of the money and those in control of the laws, we can promote economic empowerment on an individual level, rather than leaving it exclusively in the realm of the already wealthy elite.
On Tuesday, September 23rd at 6pm, author Nomi Prins, herself a former managing director for Goldman Sachs, will be joining The WIP at the Monterey Institute of International Studies in Irvine Auditorium to talk about these alliances and what they mean for the rest of us. Prins left the banking industry after becoming disillusioned with policies that were out of sync with the needs of the very people they claimed to serve and now spends her time advocating for fairer banking policies and greater economic empowerment for individuals.
A short reception and book signing will follow.
See you there!
Kirstin Kelley is a graduate assistant at The WIP who is completing her master’s degree in Nonproliferation and Terrorism Studies at the Monterey Institute of International Studies.