The Pete Quiñones Show

The 'Robber Barons' Who Tried to Save America w/ Stormy Waters - Complete

Mar 9, 2026
Stormy Waters, managing partner at a venture capital firm and recurring commentator on history and politics, dives into early 20th-century industrialists, the Business Plot, and America First. Short segments explore Morgan diplomacy, elite philanthropy and eugenics, Lindbergh and isolationism, and how financiers, veterans, and institutions shaped a near‑miss of fascism in America.
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INSIGHT

Robber Barons Built Public Wealth

  • Stormy Waters argues the so-called robber barons (Morgan, Rockefeller, Ford) built national wealth and civic institutions and were motivated by duty, not pure greed.
  • He cites libraries, churches, Grand Central acoustics, and JP Morgan bailing out the U.S. in 1890 as examples of their civic-minded patronage.
INSIGHT

How Observations Of Europe Shaped US Fascist Plans

  • Stormy describes the Business Plot backstory: industrialists sent emissaries to observe fascist governments and attempted to replicate veterans-led power structures in the U.S.
  • He links Morgan & Morgan subsidiaries as intelligence nodes reporting on how Hitler consolidated power.
ANECDOTE

How JP Morgan Bailed Out The Country From His Yacht

  • Stormy retells JP Morgan’s 1890 bailout: Morgan leveraged nearly everything and coerced other bankers on his yacht to fund the rescue.
  • He threatened to short their stocks from sea until they contributed, closing the funding gap and preventing default.
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