4um: Who Owns The Majority Of The Media? (Rense interviews Texe Marrs)

Title: Who Owns The Majority Of The Media? (Rense interviews Texe Marrs)
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Published: May 19, 2009
Author: rense
Post Date: 2009-05-19 13:03:38 by Itistoolate
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Jacob Schiff

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Jacob Henry Schiff, born Jacob Hirsch Schiff (January 10, 1847 – September 25, 1920) was a German-born New York City banker and philanthropist, who helped finance, among many other things, the Japanese military efforts against Tsarist Russia in the Russo-Japanese War.

From his base on Wall Street, he was the foremost Jewish leader in what became known as the "Schiff era," grappling with all major issues and problems of the day, including the plight of Russian Jews under the tsar, American and international anti-Semitism, care of needy Jewish immigrants, and the rise of Zionism. He also became the director of many important corporations, including the National City Bank of New York, Equitable Life Assurance Society, Wells Fargo & Company, and the Union Pacific Railroad. In many of his interests he was associated with E.H. Harriman.

COMMON KNOWLEDGE

History

Kuhn, Loeb & Co. was an investment bank located in New York City. It was founded in 1867, by Abraham Kuhn and Solomon Loeb. Kuhn and Loeb had created a successful merchandising business in Cincinnati, Ohio, when they decided to move east, to New York, to take advantage of the country's burgeoning economic expansion. Company records indicate that by the time Kuhn and Loeb established their partnership, they were able to capitalize it at $500,000. On January 1, 1875, Jacob Schiff (1847-1920), Solomon Loeb's son-in-law, joined the firm and began a remarkable reign as its leader, during which it grew to be the most prestigious investment bank in the United States, perhaps, second only, to J. Pierpont Morgan's, J.P. Morgan & Co.

Jacob Schiff

The firm grew to prominence during the railroad era in the United States. Much like the internet boom which struck America in the 1990s, Americans saw great hope and promise in the railroad era and investors saw great opportunities to profit. Kuhn, Loeb, like all investment banks, brought capital together with commercial opportunity. Its first meaningful entry into railroad financing was in 1877 when it raised funds for the Chicago and North Western Railroad, and several years later, in 1881, for the Pennsylvania Railroad and the Chicago, Milwaukee & St. Paul Railroad.

Schiff was instrumental in the reorganization of the Union Pacific in 1897, helping to place the firm on sound financial footing. In 1901, with Kuhn, Loeb's financial support, E. H. Harriman famously battled James Jerome Hill and J.P. Morgan to acquire control of the Northern Pacific Railroad.

The firm was long associated with many of America's emerging industrial giants, providing financial backing for Westinghouse and Western Union, as well as innovative consumer giants like the Polaroid Corporation. The firm also enjoyed respect as a trusted adviser overseas, providing services to numerous foreign governments, including the governments of Austria, Finland, Mexico and Venezuela.

It also acted as the leading investment house for John D. Rockefeller, through the guidance of his investment adviser, Frederick T. Gates. Rockefeller invested in many syndicates with the bank, including major stakes in the prominent railroad companies, as well as contributing to its consolidation of the Chicago meatpackers, which resulted in the formation of a leading trust. Overseas ventures that Rockefeller also got involved with included the bank's loans to the Chinese and Imperial Japanese governments.

The firm also joined a partnership with Rockefeller in 1911 to gain control of the Equitable Trust Company, which was later to merge and become the Chase Bank.^[1]

Famous partners of the firm included Otto Kahn, Paul Warburg, Felix Warburg, Mortimer Schiff, Benjamin Buttenwieser, Lewis Strauss, Sigmund Warburg, founder of S.G. Warburg.

Otto Kahn

In its early years, intermarriage among the German-Jewish elite was common. Consequently, the partners of Kuhn, Loeb were closely related by blood and marriage to the partners of J & W Seligman, Speyer & Co., Goldman, Sachs & Co., Lehman Brothers and other prominent German-Jewish firms. Prior to the Second World War, a particularly close relationship existed between the partners of Kuhn, Loeb and M. M. Warburg & Co. of Hamburg, Germany, through Paul and Felix, who were Kuhn, Loeb partners. Later on, following World War II, their cousin Sigmund Warburg, would briefly continue this relationship as a partner and Executive Director of the firm.

The firm's fortunes began to fade in the years following World War II. Wall Street was changing and shifting away from relationship banking. Kuhn, Loeb's world of gentlemen bankers was gradually being replaced by a more aggressive, transaction-oriented Wall Street, with underwriters entering the trenches and selling securities directly to the public, territory Kuhn, Loeb stubbornly refused to enter. When asked how many people worked at Kuhn, Loeb, one partner famously quipped, "about half". Such was life at Kuhn, Loeb, resting on its laurels, while Wall Street passed it by.

In 1977, facing a capital crisis, the firm succumbed and merged with Lehman Brothers, to form Lehman Brothers, Kuhn, Loeb Inc. Internationally, the merged firms were known as Kuhn Loeb Lehman Brothers Inc., in recognition of the fact that Kuhn Loeb's international reputation was superior to that of Lehman's.

The merger did not, however, prove to be the panacea to what ailed Kuhn, Loeb. Indeed, as detailed more closely in the Lehman Brothers history, a period of bitter internal strife ended in 1984 when the firm sold itself to Shearson/American Express, itself the product of a recent merger between American Express and Sandy Weill's, Shearson Loeb Rhodes. The combined firms, then dropped the Kuhn, Loeb name and became known as Shearson Lehman/American Express, ending Kuhn, Loeb's almost 120 years on Wall Street.

Later, the combined firm purchased disgraced E.F. Hutton, becoming Shearson Lehman Hutton. Ultimately, however, American Express could not make the pieces of its financial services supermarket work and the firm sold its retail brokerage operations to Primerica in 1993 and in 1994 spun off a beleaguered Lehman Brothers as Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc., in an initial public offering.

Although the Kuhn, Loeb name is likely lost forever, the firm's legacy is not. Former Kuhn, Loeb employees remain in senior positions throughout Wall Street and until recently, at Lehman Brothers. Vestiges of the firm survived in the form of Lehman Brothers' extensive fixed income capabilities, including many of their bond indices, such as the Government/Credit index. This index, originally birthed in 1973 by Kuhn, Loeb, as the Government/Corporate index was among the first generation of bond index data to measure the fixed income market. It is still the preeminent benchmark in its class.

ORGANISERS of the Edinburgh International Film Festival have been forced to return a donation from the Israeli embassy after director Ken Loach waded into the funding row and called for people to boycott the event on political grounds. The Scottish Palestine Solidarity Campaign (SPSC) threatened to picket screenings after the EIFF listed the Israeli embassy to the UK as one of its backers.

A donation – believed to be in the region of £300 – was to have been used to pay travel costs to the capital for Tali Shalom Ezer, a graduate of the film and television department at Tel Aviv University, who directed a short feature film, Surrogate.

SPSC, which campaigns in Scotland against Israel's attacks on Gaza, orchestrated a torrent of e-mail protests from people opposed to the move. But festival organisers refused to budge. EIFF managing director Ginnie Atkinson said not accepting support from one particular country "would set a dangerous precedent by politicising a cultural and artistic mission".

The SPSC then enlisted the support of Mr Loach, well known for his support of Palestinian human rights.

Mr Loach released a statement through the SPSC which read: "I'm sure many film-makers will be as horrified as I am to learn the Edinburgh International Film Festival is accepting money from Israel. The massacres and state terrorism in Gaza make this money unacceptable. With regret, I must urge all who might consider visiting the festival to show their support for the Palestinian nation and stay away."

The following day the EIFF – which has since been in talks with Mr Loach – did a U-turn. It said: "The EIFF are firm believers in free cultural exchange and do not wish to restrict film-makers' abilities to communicate artistically with international audiences on the basis that they come from a troubled regime.

"Although the festival is considered wholly cultural and apolitical, we consider the opinions of the film industry as a whole and, as such, accept that one film-maker's recent statement speaks on behalf of the film community, therefore we will be returning the funding issued by the Israeli embassy."

EIFF spokeswoman Emma McCorkell said yesterday she hoped Shalom Ezer would still attend the festival. Mr Loach did not respond to requests to contact The Scotsman yesterday. However, Ms McCorkell said he was "pleased".