Another look at J. P. Morgan

Last October JLM blogged about a piece on J. P. Morgan's role in quelling the panic of 1907, written by Jean Strouse and published in the Washington Post. Strouse has another piece in today's New York Times, jumping off from Warren Buffett's observation that the economy has fallen off a cliff.

Somehow the story of Morgan's nerve never gets old. I had to chuckle when I read the following:

His power in 1907 derived not from the size of his own fortune but from the trust placed in him by investors, other bankers and international statesman. After Morgan died in 1913, the newspapers reported his net worth as about $80 million — roughly $1.7 billion in today’s dollars. John D. Rockefeller, already worth a billion in 1913 dollars, is said to have read the figure, shaken his head, and remarked, “And to think he wasn’t even a rich man.”