Rothschild Banking Family of France - Decline and Rise of Economic Power

Decline and Rise of Economic Power

By the end of the 19th century, the introduction of national taxation systems had ended the Rothschild's policy of operating with a single set of commercial account records resulting in the various houses gradually going their own separate ways. The system of the five brothers and their successor sons had all but disappeared by World War I. However, the estate tax relative to the bank and corporate assets was far more detrimental long-term because it restricted growth at a time when publicly owned banks were expanding rapidly with huge resources raised on capital markets. In the 1930s, their vast railroad holdings were nationalized and in 1940 the Nazis seized their bank. Then, after having the bank restored to them at the end of the war, in 1981 the bank Rothschild Freres was nationalized by the French socialist government of President François Mitterrand. The New York Times wrote that the Rothschilds "grossly misjudged the opportunities directly across the Atlantic" and quoted Evelyn Robert de Rothschild as saying that while the family had been in business for 200 years "we never seized the initiative in America and that was one of the mistakes my family made."

Read more about this topic:  Rothschild Banking Family Of France

Famous quotes containing the words decline, rise, economic and/or power:

    I heard a Californian student in Heidelberg say, in one of his calmest moods, that he would rather decline two drinks than one German adjective.
    Mark Twain [Samuel Langhorne Clemens] (1835–1910)

    Thou gav’st me life, but mortal; for that one
    Favour I’ll make full satisfaction:
    For my life mortal, rise from out thy hearse,
    And take a life immortal from my verse.
    Robert Herrick (1591–1674)

    A society which is clamoring for choice, which is filled with many articulate groups, each urging its own brand of salvation, its own variety of economic philosophy, will give each new generation no peace until all have chosen or gone under, unable to bear the conditions of choice. The stress is in our civilization.
    Margaret Mead (1901–1978)

    Great is Truth, and mighty above all things.
    Apocrypha. 1 Esdras, 4:41.

    Acclamation following the speech of the bodyguard of King Darius, who proclaimed the power of truth, “the strength, kingdom, power, and majesty of all ages.”