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Of course, the topography of global finance has changed dramatically since the heyday of the House of Rothschild. Today there are no family-owned global institutions of any significance. Huge publicly listed banks, asset managers, private equity firms, hedge funds, and insurance companies dominate and operate around the globe. Regulators are powerful and ubiquitous. But some things remain constant. Global finance is not for the fainthearted; it is too complex, too volatile, too dependent on uncontrollable political events within and among countries. Global finance also relies heavily on trust between the suppliers and consumers of money. Mayer Amschel Rothschild and his sons were the essence of trustworthiness. Garnering trust has many dimensions, one of which is accountability. If a banker is held responsible for his mistakes, then his customer has more confidence in him. The Rothschilds could not hide behind public corporations that today essentially shield top individuals from the legal liability of big mistakes, as we have seen in the failure of prosecutors to charge and convict senior financial officials in the global crisis of 2008β9. Unfortunately, few institutions today can command the confidence that the Rothschilds engendered and that is essential to a healthy global economy. Other
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Jeffrey E. Garten (From Silk to Silicon: The Story of Globalization Through Ten Extraordinary Lives)