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Morton Chaplin of London. He was a director of Equitable Life
Insurance Company, Home Insurance Company, Guaranty Trust, and
Newport Trust.
The astounding idea that the Federal Reserve System of the United
States is actually operated from London will probably be rejected at
first hearing by most Americans. However, Minsky has become famous
for his theory of the "dominant frame". He states that in any particular
situation, there is a "dominant frame" to which everything in that
situation is related and through which it can be interpreted. The
"dominant frame" in the monetary policy decisions of the Federal
Reserve System is that these decisions are made by those who stand to
benefit most from them. At first glance, this would seem to be the
principal stockholders of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York.
However, we have seen that these stockholders all have a "London
Connection". The "London Connection" becomes more obvious as the
dominant power when we find in The
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60 Matthew Josephson, The Robber Barons, p. 409
67
Capital City61 that only seventeen firms are allowed to operate as
merchant bankers in the City of London, England’s financial district. All
of them must be approved by the Bank of England. In fact, most of the
Governors of the Bank of England come from the partners of these
seventeen firms. Clarke ranks the seventeen in order of their
capitalization. Number 2 is the Schroder Bank. Number 6 is Morgan
Grenfell, the London branch of the House of Morgan and actually its