James Wolfensohn

Who is he: Sir James Wolfensohn was the ninth president of the World Bank, serving from July 1, 1995 until June 30, 2005. Wolfensohn has lived a somewhat stateless but financially rewarding life working as an investment banker for Schroders Bank in London, Salomon Brothers in New York and eventually his own financial firm.

Along the way Wolfensohn gave up his Australian citizenship and became an American when necessary for career advancement and then late in life, thought better of the situation and became an Australian citizen again. Although Wolfensohn credits Harvard with opening doors for him, we believe it had far more to do with his earlier family association with the Rothschilds and later friendship with the Rockefellers.

Quoting Wolfensohn, "Going to Harvard was almost an accident but it was a wonderful accident." Doors opened – not just to the emerging investment banking industry but also to America's richest families." At Harvard, Wolfensohn became lifelong friends with the Rockefellers and this, along with Rothschild family connections and a brilliant financial mind, made him a leader in the Anglo-American financial establishment.

Wolfensohn's work as an investment banker and financial advisor working with governments, nations and selected international elites has made him a wealthy man. After leaving the World Bank, in 2005 Wolfensohn started Wolfensohn & Company, LLC, a private firm which caters to this same clientele. In 2006, Wolfensohn was named chairman of the International Advisory Board of Citigroup.

Background: James David Wolfensohn was born on December 1, 1933 in Sydney, Australia to Jewish immigrants from England, and was named after James Armand de Rothschild who shared his birthday and for whom his father had worked. Wolfensohn's father, Hyman, had moved to Australia in 1928 after he stopped working for Rothschild. It is interesting to note that James has talked about the financial insecurity of his family while growing up and no one knows why his father suddenly left the Rothschilds and moved from England to Australia. Yet his parents named him after Rothschild although quite poor. Still, it is apparent that once Wolfensohn grew up, the Rothschild benefits that were denied to Wolfensohn's father passed down to his son.

James Wolfensohn was educated in public school and then at the Sydney Boys High School. Interested in both music and sports, Wolfensohn was on the Australian Fencing Team at the 1956 Summer Olympics and an officer in the Royal Australian Air Force. At the college level Wolfensohn received a B.A. in arts and a law degree from the University of Sydney. Following this, Wolfensohn worked for a time at one of the leading Australian law firms and then was accepted into and received a M.B.A. from Harvard Business School, where he moved in the circles of the elite.

After a brief period, Wolfensohn returned to Australia and worked for several banks, including Darling & Co., and then was moved up to a director of their largest shareholder, the J. Henry Schroder & Co. investment bank. The Schroder banking empire was a key player in both World Wars and its financial manipulation of world events, which are profit opportunities for the Anglo-American Axis, has continued to the present day in the US. Bechtel Corporation, a Schroder subsidiary, was very involved in the US government and the Iraq Wars with the actions and responsibilities of people like George Schultz, Caspar Weinberger and possibly William Casey (although Bechtel does deny his involvement).

In 1979, Wolfensohn was involved in the first bailout of Chrysler, working closely with Paul Volcker, who later became Chairman of the Federal Reserve. Wolfensohn became a US citizen in 1980 and then started his first investment banking firm, James D. Wolfensohn Inc., where one of his partners was "Big" Paul Volcker. When Wolfensohn became President of the World Bank in 1995, Bankers Trust ended up with the firm.

The World Bank and the IMF are elite-controlled entities which loan mostly US taxpayer money to poor or defeated nations to fund projects which are not economically viable (or else the free-market would have already created these ventures). A few multinational companies controlled by certain wealthy families usually get the business and are paid to build the projects.Certain companies, like Halliburton and Bechtel, are almost always involved, while the bonds and debt necessary to help bankroll the projects are handled by the usual group of financial institutions. Then the projects go bankrupt and the same elites buy the projects for pennies on the dollar and then repeat the process.

Wolfensohn has been a loyal and successful player on the world financial stage and has received many awards as do all of those working at his high level, including an honorary knighthood of the Order of the British Empire, the Order of Australia and the Leo Baeck Medal for his humanitarian efforts in promoting tolerance and social justice, just to name a few. Today Wolfensohn enjoys music, the arts and has worked to rescue Carnegie Hall.

Of course, Wolfensohn still finds time to serve as an honorary trustee of the Brookings Institution, was a trustee of the Rockefeller Foundation and continues as a member of the Council on Foreign Relations. At times, Wolfensohn attends meetings of the Bilderberg Group, the Aspen Institute and the World Economic Forum.