 |
| Jackson Lake Lodge lobby |
Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell is scheduled to speak at the end of this week at the annual global central bank conference in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, the Federal Reserve has confirmed. The conference will take place August 24 - 25, 2018
He will speak on monetary policy in a changing economy on Friday at the start of the conference. Fed chairs in the past, notes Reuters, have used speeches at the Kansas City Fed-sponsored conference to signal future U.S. central bank policy moves.
According to the KC Fed, attendees are selected based on each year’s topic with consideration for diversity in region, background and industry. In a typical year, about 120 people attend. But, the ghost of John D. Rockefeller Jr. no doubt always hovers over the conference.
The general breakdown of attendees according to the KC Fed is:
The conference actually takes place about 35 miles from downtown Jackson Hole at the Jackson Lake Lodge in the Grand Teton National Park. The area has a deep Rockefeller history. David Rockefeller even honeymooned there.
But the history starts long before his honeymoon. According to the New York Times. His father. John D. Rockefeller Jr., son of the founder of Standard Oil. first started acquiring land in the area in the 1920's. He was disturbed by the spreading development in the region and spent $1.5 million buying up ranches in the 1920's with the intention of turning them over to the national park.
As he made his purchases, according to the Times, Rockefeller kept his identity a secret, fearing that exposure would inflame ranchers and local residents who wanted the land for grazing and hunting and who would have opposed any park plans if they knew of them. He also wanted to avoid driving up the price of the land.
When his identity became public in 1930, it set off an uproar, the Times reports. Eventually, he threatened to sell the land on the open market if the federal government would not buy it.
In 1943, President Franklin D. Roosevelt established the area as a national monument. In 1949, . Rockefeller donated 33,000 acres, likely for a huge tax break, which became the heart of the park, and in 1950 the park and national monument were merged.
 |
| John D Rockefeller Jr (far left in picture) by the campfire in Grand Teton National Park (Photo: Rockefeller Archive Center) |
Here's the Denver Post with some background:
[In 1942,] a massive protest followed. At the height of World War II, Wyoming Sen. Edward Robertson declared it a “foul, sneaking Pearl Harbor blow.” A newspaper columnist compared Roosevelt’s action to Hitler’s annexation of Austria, according to the Wyoming Historical Society.
In May 1943, local ranchers – led by Academy Award-winning actor Wallace Beery, a summer resident of the area – drove 550 cattle across the monument, challenging the National Park Service to stop them. They were allowed to proceed, but the incident got national attention. Congress passed a law abolishing the monument, but Roosevelt vetoed it. The state of Wyoming filed a lawsuit challenging the president’s use of the Antiquities Act, but it was dismissed.John Jr., of course, had even more tangible Federal Reserve presence during the plotting at Jekyll Island to create the Fed. His father-in-law Nelson W. Aldrich played an influential role in the discussions on the island.
The ghost of Rockefeller seems ever present whenever the Fed is in an area. When David Rockefeller was president, chairman and chief executive of Chase Manhattan Bank (now part of JPMorgan Chase), its towering building in lower Manhattan was directly across the street from the New York Federal Reserve Bank. How convenient.
No comments:
Post a Comment