The Tower of Basel

[Dave Monroe]

The world's most exclusive club meets every other month at 7pm on
Sunday evening in a circular tower block whose tinted windows overlook
Basel railway station. Its members include some of the most powerful
men in the world. They are central bankers, who have come to
Switzerland to attend the Economic Consultative Committee of the Bank
for International Settlements, the bank for central banks.

Set up in 1930 by an international treaty, the BIS and its assets are
legally inviolable. The Swiss authorities have no jurisdiction over
the bank or its premises. The BIS has just 140 customers but made
tax-free profits of $1.17 billion in 2011-12.

Under Thomas McKittrick, the bank's American president, the BIS
continued operating throughout the Second World War. The BIS accepted
looted Nazi gold, conducted foreign exchange deals for the Reichsbank
and was used by both the Allies and the Axis powers as a secret
contact point to keep the channels of international finance open.

After 1945 the BIS—behind the scenes—for decades provided the
necessary technical and administrative support for the trans-European
currency project, from the first attempts to harmonize exchange rates
in the late 1940s to the launch of the Euro in 2002.

The bank is now at the centre of efforts to build a new global
financial and regulatory architecture. Yet despite its central role in
the history of the last century and during the current crisis, the BIS
remains largely unknown - until now.

Tower of Basel is the first unauthorised investigative history of the
world's most influential global financial institution. Based on
extensive archival research in Switzerland, Britain and the United
States, and in-depth interviews with key decision makers including
Paul Volcker, the former chairman of the US Federal Reserve, Mervyn
King, governor of the Bank of England and former senior BIS managers
and officials, Tower of Basel tells the story of the secretive
institution at the heart of the global banking network: the central
bankers' own bank.

http://www.adamlebor.com/books/tower_of_basel/

http://www.c-spanvideo.org/program/Basel

"Don't forget the real business of the War is buying and selling."

http://books.google.com/books?id=GGPm4I3BbxAC&pg=PT82#v=onepage&q&f=false