Everything about Paul Volcker totally explained
Paul Adolph Volcker (born
September 5,
1927 in
Cape May, New Jersey), is an American
economist. He is best-known as the
Chairman of the Federal Reserve ("The Fed") under
United States Presidents
Jimmy Carter and
Ronald Reagan (from August 1979 to August 1987).
Education
Volcker grew up in
Teaneck, New Jersey, where he graduated from
Teaneck High School, and his father was the township's first
Municipal manager. Volcker's
undergraduate education was at
Princeton University; he graduated in 1949. He earned his
M.A. in
political economy from
Harvard University in 1951 and then attended the
London School of Economics from 1951 to 1952 as a
Rotary Foundation Ambassadorial Fellow.
He has received honorary degrees from several educational institutions including:
University of Notre Dame,
Princeton University,
Dartmouth College,
New York University,
Fairleigh Dickinson University,
Bryant College,
Adelphi University,
Lamar University,
Bates College (1989),
Northwestern University (2004),
Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (2005),
Brown University (2006), and
Georgetown University (2007).
Career
In 1952 he joined the staff of the
Federal Reserve Bank of New York as a full-time
economist. He left that position in 1957 to become a financial economist with the
Chase Manhattan Bank. In 1962 he joined the U.S.
Treasury Department as director of financial analysis, and in 1963 he became deputy under-secretary for monetary affairs. He returned to Chase Manhattan Bank as vice president and director of planning in 1965.
From 1969 to 1974 Mr. Volcker served as under-secretary of the
Treasury for international monetary affairs. He played an important role in the decisions surrounding the U.S. decision to suspend
gold convertibility in 1971, which resulted in the collapse of the
Bretton Woods system. In general he acted as a moderating influence on policy, advocating the pursuit of an international solution to monetary problems. After leaving the U.S. Treasury, he became president of the
Federal Reserve Bank of New York from 1975 to 1979, leaving to take up the chairmanship of the Federal Reserve in August 1979.
Chairman of the Federal Reserve
Paul Volcker, a Democrat, was appointed Chairman of the Federal Reserve in August 1979 by President
Jimmy Carter and reappointed in 1983 by President
Ronald Reagan. Volcker's Fed is widely credited with ending the
United States'
stagflation crisis of the 1970s by limiting the growth of the
money supply, abandoning the previous policy of targeting interest rates.
Inflation, which peaked at 13.5% in 1981, was successfully lowered to 3.2% by 1983.
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However, the change in policy contributed to the significant recession the U.S. economy experienced in the early 1980s, which included the highest unemployment levels since the
Great Depression, and Volcker's Fed also elicited the strongest political attacks and most wide-spread protests in the history of the Federal Reserve (unlike any protests experienced since 1922), due to the effects of the high interest rates on the construction and farming sectors, culminating in indebted farmers driving their tractors onto
C Street and blockading the
Eccles Building.
Post-Fed
In 1975 he'd become a senior fellow in the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs at
Princeton University. After leaving the Federal Reserve in 1987, he became chairman of the prominent New York investment banking firm,
J. Rothschild, Wolfensohn & Co., a corporate advisory and investment firm in New York, run by
James D. Wolfensohn, who was later to become president of the
World Bank.
He was appointed as a member of the
Hong Kong Chief Executive's Council of International Advisers in the years of 1998-2005.
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In
April 2004, the
United Nations assigned Volcker to research possible
corruption in the
Iraqi
Oil for Food program. In the report summarising its research, Volcker criticized
Kojo Annan, son of
UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan, and the
Swiss company
Cotecna Inspection SA, Kojo's employer, for trying to conceal their relationship. However, he concluded in his March 2005 report that “there is no evidence that the selection of Cotecna in 1998 was subject to improper influence of the Secretary General in the bidding or selection process”. Volcker was a director of the
United Nations Association of the United States of America between 2000 and 2004, prior to his being appointed to the
Independent Inquiry by Kofi Annan.
As of
October 2006, he's the current
Chairman of the
Board of Trustees of the influential
Washington-based financial advisory body, the
Group of Thirty, and is a member of the
Trilateral Commission. He has had a long association with the
Rockefeller family, not only with his positions at Chase Bank and the Trilateral Commission, but also through membership of the
Trust Committee of
Rockefeller Group, Inc. (RGI), which he joined in 1987. That entity managed, at one time, the
Rockefeller Center on behalf of the numerous members of the Rockefeller clan. He currently serves as Chairman of the Board of Trustees of the International House in Manhattan, NY. He was a founding member of the
Trilateral Commission.
On April 8, 2008, he was the featured speaker at "The Economic Club of New York" and spoke about the issues and causes of the 2008 US recession, and critiqued the 2008 US financial system and the 2008 Federal Reserve policies.
Personal Life
Volcker married Barbara Bahnson, the daughter of a physician, on
September 11,
1954; after suffering from lifelong diabetes, as well as rheumatoid arthritis, she died on
June 14,
1998. They had two children, Janice and James, who was born with cerebral palsy, and four grandchildren.
Volcker is also known for his impressive height of, standing exactly a foot taller than his wife when he first met her.
In January 2008, Volcker endorsed Democratic Presidential Candidate
Barack Obama for President.
Further Information
Get more info on 'Paul Volcker'.
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