The Keepers of Finance: U.S. Financial Leadership at the Crossroads

Financial leadership must not be confused with financial wealth, warns Jeremy Taylor in this compelling work–the most recent in his Quorum Books series. He sets up guideposts from history to point the way out of our current financial crisis and develops the concept of financial stewardship to show why private gain must be countered with public responsibility. In the course of U.S. history six leaders emerged to set the country on a balanced course–Alexander Hamilton, Andrew Jackson, Abraham Lincoln, Theodore Roosevelt, Carter Glass, and Franklin Roosevelt. By exercising leadership, they were able to achieve the primary goal of finance–balancing private and public interests. Based on their successes and on an analysis of recent history, Taylor recommends specific actions for rebuilding a financial system with a sense of public responsibility.

Taylor chronicles how the great financial leaders in U.S. history succeeded in moving the country forward by serving as intermediaries between contradictory economic forces. He then discusses the series of financial failures that began in the 1970s–lack of monetary discipline, disturbances in commercial financial institutions, and budgetary irresponsibility. He concludes by proposing specific measure based on a sense of public responsibility. These include replacing multiple oversight boards with designated agencies and replacing laissez-faire policies with enforcement of prudent management policies in the private sector.