Word: bankes
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Dates: during 1930-1939
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...franc, hoped it could pass on to the incoming "Popular Front" the unpleasant task of actual devaluation. Cried Finance Minister Marcel Régnier: "So long as I am Finance Minister there will be no measures restricting the gold standard. . . . We have ample reserves for our defense and the Bank of France possesses every means of action needed...
Principal action taken by the Bank of France last week was to boost the rediscount rate from 5% to 6%, the normal central banking method of inducing capi tal to remain in a country. But the flight from the franc continued...
...feature of the Popular Front program that stirred the most alarm was a vague proposal to nationalize the Bank of France. Founded in 1800 by Napoleon, the Bank of France is not only a sacred symbol of French capitalism; it is to an astonishing degree French capitalism itself. It is a private institution owned by more than 40,000 stockholders. Yet it holds all of France's enormous gold hoard except that privately stored in mattresses and old socks. The French Government owns not a centime of monetary metal. The Bank of France has the sole privilege of issuing...
...regents can, and often do, take care of onetime governors with soft jobs in their banks or corporations, notably the Compagnie Universelle du Canal Maritime de Suez, favorite sinecure for loyal politicians. Another thing that tends to weaken the resistance of governors is the fact that many of them have to borrow money to buy their 100 qualifying shares. In boom days 100 shares of Bank of France stock was worth, at present parity, more than $150,000 and last week, after a 50% decline in the past year, more than $30,000. The regents or their banks are only...
Whether Socialist Blum can break the power of the Bank of France is open to serious question. It is even questionable whether the average Frenchman wants to see it broken. What the discontented Frenchman really wants is to be cut into the game, and the Popular Front may be able to do that by reforming the charter to the extent that small stockholders get a voice in the Bank's management, and the Government some co-operation in its fiscal policies...