This British- and Russian-ancestry beauty married Ferdinand of Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen, destined to be King of Romania, in 1893. She was courted and proposed to by the future George V, but the Germanophobic Alexandra and Anglophobic Maria Alexandrovna broke up the proposed marriage. George went on to marry the thoroughly British Mary of Teck. Maria Alexandrovna than found Ferdinand whom Maria disliked and grew to despise. This royal gossip turned into policy and history during World War I when Marie, who dominated the marriage, took Romania into World War I with the Anglo-French alliance with American financial aid through one Carter Glass.
Carter Glass is part of recent history. As a result of the 1929 financial "industry" failure, he led the passage of the Banking Act of 1933, known as Glass-Steagall. Glass-Steagall ensured prosperity for decades to follow by limiting the mischief that wealthy financiers could wreak. Unfortunately, Glass-Steagall was voided in a bipartisan manner during the strongly pro-business Clinton Administration. The results of financial-sector wrongdoing are all around us, ranging from high chronic unemployment in the USA to high food prices in Jordan to high unemployment in Spain and Greece.
