Interview
with David Rockefeller |
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The
purpose of my two-hour, one-on-one interview with David Rockefeller,
the former chairman of Chase Manhattan Bank and the youngest
grandson of oil magnate, John D. Rockefeller, Jr., was to
learn his assessment of the new global free market economy
of the 1990s and beyond.
First,
Rockefeller said that despite his top-level connections, he
had not anticipated the fall of the Berlin Wall and the collapse
of the Soviet Union.
He also expressed deep concern about the banking crisis, which
he says is spreading worldwide. "The Japanese banks are
not having an easy time as they once had."
Finally, in his most surprising statement, he revealed he
considers himself a follower of the Austrian school of economics.
Friedrich Hayek had been his tutor at the London School of
Economics in the 1930s.
A plaque at Rockefeller Plaza displays some of David Rockefeller's
grandfather's beliefs:
"I believe that government is the servant of the people
and not their master...that the world owes no man a living,
but that it owes every man an opportunity to make a living...that
thrift is essential to well-ordered living and that economy
is a prime requisite of a sound financial structure, whether
in government, business or personal affairs...that character
-- not wealth or power or position -- is of supreme worth...that
right can and will triumph over might."
Amen!
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