Kevin Zeese and Margaret Flowers • www.truth-out.org • April 10, 2013

Big finance – the too-big-to-jail banks that dominate the economy and government – is designed for financiers and does not benefit most people. That is why many are in rebellion against the looting class of Wall Street. But if we don’t like Wall Street finance, what would we replace it with? What would a finance system that served and protected the people look like?

It is time to put together a new kind of financial system. Since the crash of 2008, not only do fraud and high-risk investments continue with little regulation and lax enforcement, but policies that protect people have weakened. Experts predict that another collapse of the big banks is very possible. In our fragile economy, another crash could have devastating consequences.

The ideas we put forward in this series of articles are not final, but are a work in progress. In part I, we focus on approaches to regulation and breaking up the too-big-to-fail banks, as well as on the risk that derivatives pose to depositors. In part II, we will discuss the Federal Reserve, public banks, and ways to opt out of Wall Street now.

Read the entire article here.

www.bbc.co.uk • April 10, 2013

The Post Office is to offer current accounts in the UK, following a regulator’s claim that the market offers little choice for consumers.

The new account, provided by Bank of Ireland, will be available in some areas in the coming weeks before a wider launch next year.

Few details have been released about the characteristics of the current account at this stage.

In January, a regulator said the market was dominated by a few providers.

The Office of Fair Trading (OFT) said that Lloyds, RBS, Barclays and HSBC held 75% of the market.

This led to a “lack of dynamism” from the banks, it said, together with a lack of choice for customers, meaning they were unlikely to switch to a different bank.

The Post Office, which has 11,500 branches, already offers a range of financial products in a link with Bank of Ireland.

Some three million Post Office customers already use products such as savings accounts, mortgages and insurance policies.

Read the entire article here.

Ellen Brown • http://www.huffingtonpost.com • April 3, 2013

Confiscating the customer deposits in Cyprus banks, it seems, was not a one-off, desperate idea of a few eurozone troika officials scrambling to salvage their balance sheets. A joint paper by the U.S. Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) and the Bank of England dated December 10, 2012, shows that these plans have been long in the making; that they originated with the G20 Financial Stability Board in Basel, Switzerland (discussed earlier here); and that the result will be to deliver clear title to the banks of depositor funds. New Zealand has a similar directive, discussed earlier here.

Read the entire article here.

Trey Bundy and Shane Shifflett, California Watch • http://www.sfgate.com • January 31, 2013

The Napa Valley Unified School District had a quandary: The district needed a new high school in American Canyon, but taxpayers appeared unwilling to take the financial hit required to build it.

So in 2009, the district took out an unusual loan: $22 million with no payments due for 21 years. By 2049, when the debt is paid, it will have cost taxpayers $154 million - seven times the amount borrowed.

…This form of borrowing has created billions of dollars in debt for taxpayers and hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue for financial advisers and underwriters. Voters are usually unaware of the bonds’ high interest. At least one state, Michigan, has banned their use.

Read the entire article here.

PBI Newsletter, March 2013 • PublicBankingInstitute.org • March 29, 2013

The PBI (Public Banking Institute) March 2013 Newsletter is here!
Sign up for the Newsletter here.

Richard (RJ) Eskow • http://www.huffingtonpost.com • March 28, 2013

We all know the banking system is broken. It’s easy to become pessimistic in the face of corporate and political corruption, but the system can be changed. We’ve done it before, and we can do it again.

One pathway to genuine reform is “public banking”: the establishment of banks which are owned at operated by the government, and which serve people and small businesses directly. Here’s why public banking should be included in the agenda for deep and genuine financial reform.

Read the entire article here.

John H. Hotson • PCDForum Article #15 • June 1, 1996

An understanding of the true nature of money is essential for those seeking economic reforms toward the creation of sustainable societies…

…Governments got into this mess by violating four common sense rules regarding their fiscal and monetary policies. These rules are:

1. No sovereign government should ever, under any circumstances, give over democratic control of its money supply to bankers.

2. No sovereign government should ever, under any circumstances, borrow any money from any private bank.

3. No national, provincial, or local government should borrow foreign money to increase purchases abroad when there is excessive domestic unemployment.

4. Governments, like businesses, should distinguish between “capital” and “current” expenditures, and when it is prudent to do so, finance capital improvements with money the government has created for itself.

Read the entire article here.

Charles Bazlinton • www.youtube.com • May 20, 2011

“…Banks, in all countries at the moment, have been given the PRIVILEGE to creating the money supply, and allocate the money as they see fit.”

In the UK the Coalition Government has for some time been pleading the banks to lend to small and medium-sized businesses – with the aim of kick-starting economic growth. But it has not worked. In this video interview Professor Werner shows how this failure is particular to the UK due to the size of the banks. There is a mismatch. These huge centralised international banks are not suited for lending to local and regonal businesses. This means that small local businesses are throttled and the shape of the economy is skewed in favour of large firms. A Government committed to localism and the participation of all under its Big Society banner should heed Dr Werner’s clear agenda of what should be done now to provide Banking for the BIg Society.

Watch the video here.

Ellen Brown • www.counterpunch.org • March 22, 2013

On Tuesday, March 19, the national legislature of Cyprus overwhelmingly rejected a proposed levy on bank deposits as a condition for a European bailout. Reuters called it “a stunning setback for the 17-nation currency bloc,” but it was a stunning victory for democracy. As Reuters quoted one 65-year-old pensioner, “The voice of the people was heard.”

…The move was bold, but the battle isn’t over yet. The EU has now given Cyprus until Monday to raise the billions of euros it needs to clinch an international bailout or face the threatened collapse of its financial system and likely exit from the euro currency zone.

…The deal pushed by the “troika” – the EU, ECB and IMF – has been characterized as a one-off event devised as an emergency measure in this one extreme case. But the confiscation plan has long been in the making, and it isn’t limited to Cyprus.

Read the article here.

Deon Roberts • www.charlotteobserver.com • March 19, 2013

In a state that’s a hub for banking, an N.C. senator is sponsoring a bill that even she admits has little chance of passage. Her measure calls for a study of a potential state-owned bank.

Eleanor Kinnaird, a Chapel Hill Democrat who says she has “very little love for this industry,” is the primary – and so far only – sponsor for Senate Bill 150, which calls for the creation of a commission to study the impact of a state-owned bank that would receive deposits of state funds.

If Kinnaird is successful, North Carolina would become the second state to have a state-owned bank. The only state with one is North Dakota.

Kinnaird’s bill doesn’t call for the creation of a state-run bank – only a study on the issue – but if such a bank were created, public dollars that state agencies now deposit in privately run banks would be deposited into the state-run bank.

Read the article here.

Read the bill SB150 here.

Tim Porter • www.mpbn.net • December 10, 2012

Two lawmakers are re-introducing a bill this session to establish a Maine state bank. Rep. Diane Russell, of Portland, and fellow Democrat Bobbi Beavers, of South Berwick, are gathering support for their proposal – which envisages, not so much a retail bank where you or I can open an account, but more of a mini-central bank where state dollars are invested, rather being invested in Wall Street. This, they say, would make more credit available to small businesses.

Read the article here.

www.penbaypilot.com • March 10, 2013

On Thursday, March 14, at 5 p.m., Marc Armstrong will present a discussion on public banking at St. John Baptist Episcopal Church, 200 Main Street, in Thomaston.

The presentation, entitled “Why deposit public money in Wall Street banks, only to have to borrow it back?, ” will guide participants through a discussion making the case that public money (tax revenues, fees) should be placed in public institutions for the benefit of the public.

Event Date:
Thu, 03/14/2013 – 5:00pm

Event Location:
St. John Baptist Episcopal Church

Address:
200 Main Street
Thomaston, Maine

Contact Phone:
(207) 354-8734

Read the article here.

Chris Cook • www.heraldscotland.com • March 10, 2013

It lies at the heart of the world’s financial crisis and threatens to derail every solution we try … but the global debt problem won’t be solved by a traditional view of economics.

…THE clearing banks of course have their own power to create money, for the purposes of lending. They are responsible for most new money in the modern system, accounting for about 97% compared to 3% from the Bank of England.

They, too, are the subject of a well-peddled myth, which is that deposits are first collected by banks and then spent or loaned into circulation on the basis of requiring a certain reserve level of deposits to be maintained. In fact, there is no constraint on UK credit/money creation of reserves: the constraint on modern money creation by private banks is the capital required to cover losses on loans. Private banks first lend or spend what are essentially “lookalikes” of central bank money and then fund their dated interest-bearing loans (assets) with dated interest-bearing deposits (liabilities).

Putting most money creation into the hands of organisations whose raison d’etre is to make money from lending (and more recently, from speculation) is behind much of what has gone wrong with the financial system. As with all historic bubbles, the profit motive drove excessive credit creation.

…FROM these observations, I reach two conclusions. First, the clearing banks cannot be trusted to freely create the credit which is modern money. If money is to be created by a middleman or intermediary then it should be either the central bank or the Treasury itself.

…MY second conclusion is that we must revisit the concept of the national debt itself and recognise it for the national equity it is in reality. We have only saddled ourselves with this debt delusion because we have forgotten what the true relationship actually is between public spending and taxation.

Read the article here.

Ellen Brown • www.commondreams.org • March 7, 2013

Comedian Beppe Grillo was surprised himself when his Five Star Movement got 8.7 million votes in the Italian general election of February 24-25th. His movement is now the biggest single party in the chamber of deputies, says The Guardian, which makes him “a kingmaker in a hung parliament.”

Grillo’s is the party of “no.” In a candidacy based on satire, he organized an annual “V Day Celebration,” the “V” standing for vaffanculo (“f—k off”). He rejects the status quo—all the existing parties and their monopoly control of politics, jobs, and financing—and seeks a referendum on all international treaties, including NATO membership, free trade agreements and the Euro.

…Steve Colatrella, who lives in Italy and also has an article in Counterpunch on the Grillo phenomenon, has a different take on the surprise win. He says Grillo does have a platform of positive proposals. Besides rejecting all the existing parties and treaties, Grillo’s program includes the following:

• unilateral default on the public debt;
• nationalization of the banks; and
• a guaranteed “citizenship” income of 1000 euros a month.

It is a platform that could actually work. Austerity has been tested for a decade in the Eurozone and has failed, while the proposals in Grillo’s plan have been tested in other countries and have succeeded.

Read the article here.

http://www.ncsl.org • January 16, 2013

State-Owned Financial Institutions 2012 Legislation

Last Updated: Jan. 16, 2013

NCSL Staff Contact: Heather Morton, 303.364.7700 (Denver)

With the struggling economy, state legislators are investigating state-owned banks, similar to the Bank of North Dakota, as a way to encourage economic development and generate revenue. This kind of institution is also known as a public or partnership bank. The Bank of North Dakota, formed in 1919 by the North Dakota Legislative Assembly, is the only state-owned bank operating in the United States. The legislation list below does not include information on infrastructure banks, as they are separate entites from state-owned banks.

In the 2012 legislative session, 20 bills and resolutions were pending in 15 states to study the issue or to create a state bank or investment trust.

Related NCSL Webpages:

NCSL LegisBrief: Are State-Owned Banks a Viable Option?
2011 Legislation
2010 Legislation

Read the webpage here.

Public Banking Institute • PublicBankingInstitute.org • February 11, 2013

How DO we improve the economic livelihoods of millions of people? Reclaim the “money power” with publicly-owned banks. A network of publicly-owned banks across the United States holds the promise of local abundance, sustainable productivity, and the democratization of our economy.

Join the world’s pioneering policy thinkers, interested and informed citizens, civic leaders, banking entrepreneurs, and innovators for PBI’s Public Banking Conference 2013: Funding the New Economy in San Rafael, CA, June 2-4.

Also, please note there is a special event on Sunday evening, June 2, open to the public, featuring our special guests, Matt Taibbi, Birgitta Jonsdottir, and Ellen Brown, 7-9:30pm. Tickets for this kick-off event will be sold separately.

Register here.

PBI News Alert • PublicBankingInstitute.org • February 8, 2013

How often do you get a chance to join with other creative minds discussing how best to redesign the banking systems of nations, in ways that would create new prosperity for millions and help to rebuild local economies? This year, just once.

Read the entire PBI News Alert here.

Anatole Kaletsky • blogs.reuters.com • Februrary 7, 2013

Wednesday night may have marked the “emperor’s new clothes” moment of the Great Recession, in which the world suddenly realizes its rulers are suffering from a delusion that doesn’t have to be humored. That delusion today is economic fatalism: the idea that nothing can be done to break the paralysis in the global economy and therefore that a “new normal” of mass unemployment and declining living standards is inevitable for years or decades to come.

That such economic fatalism is nonsensical is the key message of a truly historic speech delivered on Wednesday by Adair Turner, chairman of Britain’s Financial Services Authority and one of the most influential financial policymakers in the world. Turner argues that a virtually surefire method of stimulating economic activity exists today and that politicians and central bankers can no longer treat it as taboo: Newly created money should be handed out to the citizens or governments of countries that are mired in stagnation and such monetary financing of tax cuts or government spending should continue until economic activity revives.

Read the article here.

The Real News • TheRealNews @ youtube.com • October 11, 2011

Leo Panitch: The OWS movement should adopt the demand for banking in the public interest which challenges the system.

Read the article and transcript here.
See the video here.

Aljazeera.com • January 25, 2013

Iceland President Olafur Ragnar Grimsson tells Al Jazeera’s Stephen Cole that Europe should let banks that are ran “irresponsibly” go bankrupt. Speaking at the annual World Economic Forum in Davos, Grimsson also held his country as a model of economic recovery after its near-collapse four years ago. “We didn’t follow the traditional prevailing orthodoxies. And the end result four years later is that Iceland is enjoying progress and recovery.”

See the video here.

The Real News • TheRealNews @ youtube.com • January 26, 2013

The Napa Valley Unified School District had a quandary: The district needed a new high school in American Canyon, but taxpayers appeared unwilling to take the financial hit required to build it.

So in 2009, the district took out an unusual loan: $22 million with no payments due for 21 years. By 2049, when the debt is paid, it will have cost taxpayers $154 million – seven times the amount borrowed.

…In California, where rules governing the loans are among the loosest, more than 400 school districts and other agencies have racked up greater capital appreciation bond debt in the past six years than agencies in any other state.

They have borrowed $9 billion that will cost taxpayers $36 billion to repay over the next 40 years, according to data compiled by California Treasurer Bill Lockyer. He called it “debt for the next generation.”

Read the article here.

The Real News • TheRealNews @ youtube.com • January 26, 2013

Leo Panitch: Global capitalism needs massive banks, but big private banks have the power to prevent regulation and threaten more crisis; the solution is not breaking them up but making them public.

Read the article and transcript here.
See the video here.

CorbettReport • youtube.com • October 13, 2009

A veteran economic analyst and former Project Manager at the U.S. Treasury, Richard C. Cook joins us to discuss his “Cook Plan” to resuscitate the economy. We also discuss monetary reform and his new book We Hold These Truths: The Hope of Monetary Reform.

See the video here.

Richard C. Cook • youtube.com • April 21, 2011

First part of six:

See the video here.

http://www.presstv.ir • December 18, 2012

Employees of the Hellenic Post Bank (HPB) staged a walkout outside the Finance Ministry on Monday.

The new Greek coalition government initially announced plans to sell off national banks, such as HPB, in early September.

HPB is a state-controlled lender and currently has over 2,000 employees.

The protesters are united in their opposition to the government’s plan to privatize state banks and have urged Finance Minister Yannis Stournara to change his decision on the sale.

Read the entire article here.

Ellen Brown • http://huffingtonpost.com/ • January 15, 2013

…It’s all good fun — or is it? Most commentators have missed the real significance of the trillion-dollar coin. It is not just about political gamesmanship. For centuries, a secret battle has raged over who should create the nation’s money supply — governments or banks. Today, all that is left of the U.S. Treasury’s money-creating power is the ability to mint coins. If we the people want to reclaim that power so that we can pay our obligations when due, the Treasury will need to mint more than nickels and dimes. It will need to create some coins with very large numbers on them.

To bail out the banks, the Federal Reserve, as head of the private banking system, issued over $2 trillion as “quantitative easing,” simply by creating the money on a computer screen. Congress, the White House, and the Treasury all rolled over and acquiesced. When it was proposed that the government bail itself out of its budget woes by minting a $1 trillion coin, the Federal Reserve said it would not accept the Treasury’s legal tender. And the White House again acquiesced, evidently embarrassed to have entertained this “ludicrous” alternative.

Somehow we have come to accept that it is less silly for the central bank to create money out of thin air and lend it at near zero interest to private commercial banks, to be re-lent to the public and the government at market interest rates, than for the government to simply create the money itself, debt- and interest-free.

Read the entire article here.

Christopher Matthews • http://business.time.com/ • January 15, 2013

The American Great Plains are known for their expansive farm lands, endless horizons, and — in recent history — staunchly conservative politics. So it may come as a surprise that only state-owned bank in the U.S. (an institution more widely associated with communist China than the Republican Party) can be found in ruby-red, rural North Dakota.

That’s right, The Bank of North Dakota (BND) — the largest bank in the state by deposits — was founded by legislative mandate in 1919, and has been a mainstay of the North Dakotan economy since that time, mostly through partnering with community banks to provide loans for local businesses. And advocates of public banking are holding up the BND as an example of what government-owned banks can do for an economy.

Read the entire article here.

Anthony J. Evans and Terrence Tse • http://econ.anthonyjevans.com • August 24, 2012

This page presents the results of a simulation conducted by students at ESCP Europe Business School. The aim was to uncover the amount of interlinked debt between Portugal, Ireland, Italy, Greece, Spain, Britain, France, and Germany; and then see what would happen if they attempted to cross cancel obligations.

The results were astounding:

• The countries can reduce their total debt by 64% through cross cancellation of interlinked debt, taking total debt from 40.47% of GDP to 14.58%
• Six countries – Ireland, Italy, Spain, Britain, France and Germany – can write off more than 50% of their outstanding debt Three countries
• Ireland, Italy, and Germany – can reduce their obligations such that they owe more than €1bn to only 2 other countries
• Ireland can reduce its debt from almost 130% of GDP to under 20% of GDP
• France can virtually eliminate its debt – reducing it to just 0.06% of GDP

For more information download the full report: The Great EU Debt Write Off (.pdf).

The idea is very simple – if Portugal owes Ireland €0.34bn of short term debt, and Ireland owes Portugal €0.17bn, we can write off Ireland’s obligations and leave Portugal with a reduced debt of €0.17bn. If you are both a debtor and a creditor you do not need money to settle claims. Rather than require additional funds to deal with choking debt, why not write it off?

Read the entire article here.
Get the report (.pdf) here.

Anthony J. Evans and Terrence Tse • http://econ.anthonyjevans.com • August 24, 2012

This page presents the results of a simulation conducted by students at ESCP Europe Business School. The aim was to uncover the amount of interlinked debt between Portugal, Ireland, Italy, Greece, Spain, Britain, France, and Germany; and then see what would happen if they attempted to cross cancel obligations.

The results were astounding:

• The countries can reduce their total debt by 64% through cross cancellation of interlinked debt, taking total debt from 40.47% of GDP to 14.58%
• Six countries – Ireland, Italy, Spain, Britain, France and Germany – can write off more than 50% of their outstanding debt Three countries
• Ireland, Italy, and Germany – can reduce their obligations such that they owe more than €1bn to only 2 other countries
• Ireland can reduce its debt from almost 130% of GDP to under 20% of GDP
• France can virtually eliminate its debt – reducing it to just 0.06% of GDP

For more information download the full report: The Great EU Debt Write Off (.pdf).

The idea is very simple – if Portugal owes Ireland €0.34bn of short term debt, and Ireland owes Portugal €0.17bn, we can write off Ireland’s obligations and leave Portugal with a reduced debt of €0.17bn. If you are both a debtor and a creditor you do not need money to settle claims. Rather than require additional funds to deal with choking debt, why not write it off?

Read the entire article here.
Get the report (.pdf) here.

Mike Krauss • http://www.opednews.com/ • January 11, 2013

In the decades after World War II, the American people built up the greatest and most broadly shared prosperity the world had ever seen. But for about the past forty years, the vast wealth of America has been steadily concentrated among a relative handful of our citizens.

This period of declining prosperity for the 99 percent has corresponded exactly with the decline of American unions. It does not take a rocket scientist to understand that strong unions are vital to a broadly prosperous and democratic America.

Read the entire article here.

Latviabrd @ yahoo.com • June 26, 2012

Latvian Crisis involving EBRD and Ernst & Young

The link to the video is here.

Dan White • http://www.independent.ie • December 16, 2012

WAY back in the autumn of 2008, the joke in financial circles was that the only difference between Ireland and Iceland was a letter and six months…

Meanwhile, we in Ireland did what we were told and repaid over €70bn of bank bonds at par. By doing so, even at the cost of bankrupting the State, the “experts” assured us that we would retain the confidence of the markets. Now, four years later, it is clear that, not for the first time, the “experts” have got it wrong. Catastrophically and utterly wrong…

Unlike Ireland, Iceland immediately nationalised its bust banks in the autumn of 2008 but refused to assume responsibility for their liabilities.

Read the entire article here.

PBI Newsletter, December 2012 • PublicBankingInstitute.org • December 18, 2012

The PBI (Public Banking Institute) December Newsletter is here!
Sign up for the Newsletter here.

Richard Gonzales • http://www.npr.org • December 7, 2012

More than 200 school districts across California are taking a second look at the high price of the debt they’ve taken on using risky financial arrangements. Collectively, the districts have borrowed billions in loans that defer payments for years — leaving many districts owing far more than they borrowed.

In 2010, officials at the West Contra Costa School District, just east of San Francisco, were in a bind. The district needed $2.5 million to help secure a federally subsidized $25 million loan to build a badly needed elementary school.

Charles Ramsey, president of the school board, says he needed that $2.5 million upfront, but the district didn’t have it.

Those bonds, known as CABs, are unlike typical bonds, where a school district is required to make immediate and regular payments. Instead, CABs allow districts to defer payments well into the future — by which time lots of interest has accrued.”We’d be foolish not to take advantage of getting $25 million” when the district had to spend just $2.5 million to get it, Ramsey says. “The only way we could do it was with a [capital appreciation bond].”

In the West Contra Costa Schools’ case, that $2.5 million bond will cost the district a whopping $34 million to repay.

Read the entire article here.

Rob Kall • http://www.opednews.com • December 6, 2012

Tonight I went to a local meeting of the Public Banking Institute with Ellen Brown as the featured speaker. First, I joined the local organizers of the meeting, Brown and the director of the institute, Mark Armstrong.

The lecture and the conversations before and after really helped me connect some dots that tie together single payer health care, Naomi Klein’s Shock doctrine, tea partiers, bankrupt cities, global bankers like the Rothschilds, the class war and the war of the top-down powers against the bottom up revolution.

First, some notes from Ellen Brown’s lecture:

A -public bank is not for the public- it’s created to serve in the public interest– but is a bank for bankers, not the public– no front offices, no advertising, no big staffs.

There’s only one state with a public bank– North Dakota– and it is the state that has done better than every other state in terms of making budget and low unemployment.

Public banks serve governments– cities, counties, municipalities, states and in other parts of the world, whole countries. They serve them by making interest-free loans to them and by earning far greater interest on money they have. And they have a lot of money– government employee pension funds, rainy day funds” which ordinarily earn a tiny amount compared to what they would earn if a bank was using them to earn interest.

Mike Krauss, chairman of the Pennsylvania Public Banking project told the group, “Our thrust is to decentralize credit and decentralize wealth holding– a decentralization of wealth will create a decentralization of political power.”

Read the entire article here.

Brad Plumer • http://www.washingtonpost.com • December 7, 2012

If President Obama wants to avoid an economic calamity next year, he could always show up at a press conference bearing two shiny platinum coins, worth… $1 trillion apiece.

A mere $100? Pshaw. Try $1 trillion. (Associated Press)

Okay, that sounds utterly insane. But ever since last year, some economists and legal scholars have suggested that the “platinum coin option” is one way to defuse a crisis if Congress can’t or won’t lift the debt ceiling soon. At least in theory….

Read the entire article here.

Ellen Brown • http://www.truthdig.com • December 7, 2012

The Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) and the Bank of Scotland have been pillars of Scotland’s economy and culture for over three centuries. So when the RBS was nationalized by the London-based UK government following the 2008 banking crisis, and the Bank of Scotland was acquired by the London-based Lloyds Bank, it came as a shock to the Scots. They no longer owned their oldest and most venerable banks.

Another surprise turn of events was the triumph of the Scottish National Party (SNP) in the 2011 Scottish parliamentary election. Scotland is still part of the United Kingdom, but it has had its own parliament since 1999, similar to U.S. states. The SNP has rallied around the call for independence from the UK since its founding in 1934, but it was a minority party until the 2011 victory, which gave it an overall majority in the Scottish Parliament.

Scottish independence is now on the table. A bill has been introduced to the Scottish Parliament with the intention of holding a referendum on the issue in 2014.

Read the entire article here.

Mike Krauss • http://www.phillyburbs.com • November 30, 2012

…While Americans view the economic contraction and recession as global, it isn’t. It is highly localized to the economies of the United States and Europe, which are most closely tied to the central bank cartel of Wall Street and Federal Reserve private banking system. But in many other nations, where on the average 40 percent of the market is in public banks, economies are growing.

These are the so called BRIC nations (Brazil, Russia, India and China), as well as Australia, New Zealand, Canada, Iceland, South Africa and Japan; and the healthiest economy in Europe, Germany, where public banks have existed for decades and provided much of the credit and investment for West Germany’s recovery from World War II. The public “Post Office Bank” in Japan played the same role there.

This is not to say that these nations have not felt the impact of declining exports to the sick economies of the U.S. and Europe. They have. But no one in China, or Brazil or India is talking austerity.

Just the failed central bankers and the 1 percent in the U.S. and Europe who caused the catastrophe….

Read the entire article here.

Ellen Brown • http://www.worldribaconference.org/ • November 26, 2012

Nov. 26-27, 2012
3rd Annual World Conference on Riba: The Multifaceted Global Crises of RIBA: Resilience, Response & Reform
Palace of Golden Horses
Mines Wellness City, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

Main Speakers:
1. Tun Dr. Mahathir Mohamed, Fourth Prime Minister of Malaysia
2. Ellen Hodgson Brown, Chairman/President of Public Banking Institute, USA
3. Bill Still, Best Selling Author and Award-Winning Documentary Writer/Director
4. Hugo Salinas- Price, President, Mexican Civic Association Pro Silver, A.C.
5. Imran Nazar Hosein, Renowned Author and Scholar in Islamic Eschatology
6. Tom J. Kennedy, Activist & Blogger, http://usuryfree.blogspot.com
7. Imam Afroz Ali, President , Al-Ghazzali Centre for Islamic Sciences & Human Development, Sydney.
8. Professor Dr. Ahamed Kameel Mydin Meera, Dean, IIUM Institute of Islamic Banking & Finance, Malaysia
9. Professor Dato dr. Hj. Mohd Ali Baharom, President, Malaysia National Cooperative Movement
10. YM Tunku Azwil Tunku Abdul Razak, Muslim Consumers Association of Malaysia
11. Dr. Zulkifli Hassan, Faculty of Shariah & Law, Islamic Science University of Malaysia

A .pdf version of ELlen Brown’s presentation is here.
A .ppt version of Ellen Brown’s presentation is here.

Ellen Brown • http://www.thersa.org • November 22, 2012

RSA (Royal Society for the encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce) Scotland hosted an event exploring the concept of a public bank for Scotland.
Thursday 22nd November 2012
Riddle’s Court, 322 Lawnmarket, Edinburgh

Ellen Brown, Chair and President of the Public Banking Institute in the USA discusses the history of public banking in the States, particularly in North Dakota which founded its public bank in 1919. Ralph Leishman FRSA presents how a public bank might develop and work with government in the Scottish context and banking environment, with substantial time available for questions and discussions with the speakers.

A .pdf version of the presentation is here.
A .ppt version of the presentation is here.

Marshall Swearingen • http://www.hcn.org • November 26, 2012

During Tea Party champion Joe Read’s first session in the Montana Legislature, in 2011, he drew widespread ridicule for introducing a bill that declared global warming “beneficial to the welfare and business climate of Montana.” With another anti-science bill, Rep. Read called for Montana’s government to overrule federal regulations on greenhouse gases. He also passed out 170 DVDs of The Secret of Oz, a low-budget video charging that the Federal Reserve system has been corrupted by corporate bankers, symbolized by the “Wicked Witches” in the original Wizard of Oz.

The DVDs were part of Read’s attempt to create the “Last Chance State Bank,” named for a gulch where gold was mined in the 1800s. The colorful name also cut to the urgency of Read’s banking concerns: Desperate to fix a broken fiscal system, he envisioned that the Last Chance State Bank would be run by Montana’s government.

None of those bills became law, but the bank measure attracted a surprising supporter — Rep. Sue Malek, a Democrat who represents Missoula, a college town. Malek herself sponsored a bill supporting the state-bank idea (which also went nowhere), and Read wholeheartedly supported it…

“You hear that giant sucking sound?” read a flier circulated by the Service Employees International Union in Oregon in 2011. “That’s Wall Street’s big banks sucking up all the public dollars out of Oregon. (The state) does billions of dollars of business with big banks like Bank of America, JPMorgan Chase, and Wells Fargo … And what do we have to show for it? 28,000 homes in foreclosure, 10.6% unemployment, and devastating cuts to vital services.”

Read the article here.

Eduardo Levy Yeyati, Alejandro Micco, & Ugo Panizza • http://www.brookings.edu • Spring 2007

A reappraisal of state-owned banks
Authors: Eduardo Levy Yeyati; Alejandro Micco; Ugo Panizza
Year: 2007
Published in: Economia : Journal of the Latin American and Caribbean Economic Association. – Washington, DC : Brookings Institution Press, ISSN 1529-7470, ZDB-ID 20698392. – Vol. 7.2006/07, 2, p. 209-247.

Abstract
We revisit the public banks debate, survey the theoretical arguments and test the robustness (and expand) the existing empirical evidence. While we find some support for the view that public banks do not allocate credit optimally, we also report indicative evidence that they exert a positive influence on private bank efficiency, and may contribute to reduce credit procyclicality. Ultimately, we find that the recent criticism to public banks has generally been based on inconclusive cross-country evidence. More specific bank-level research is still needed to substantiate a case for or against public banks in developing economies.

This paper is divided into three parts. The first part describes the evolution of state ownership of banks in Latin America and the rest of the world. The second part discusses the theoretical justification for the existence of public banks. The third part surveys the existing empirical evidence and presents some new results.

Read the entire paper here.
A .pdf version of the paper is here.

Andréa Novais • http://thebrazilbusiness.com • April 10, 2012

1 – Banco Bradesco Financiamentos. Founded in 1943, in the city of Marília, São Paulo, Banco Bradesco is the second largest private bank in Brazil. It is currently headquartered in Osasco, SP, at Companhia Cidade de Deus. Over its almost 70 years of existence, Bradesco has acquired several financial institutions in Brazil, such as Banco do Estado do Maranhão, Banco Morada, Banco de Crédito Nacional (BCN), Banco do Estado do Ceará and Banco Boavista. In 2006, Bradesco took over the American Express credit card operations in Brazil. Official website: http://www.bradesco.com.br

2 – Caixa Econômica Federal. Founded in 1861, Caixa Econômica Federal is a public bank owned by the federal government and is the only working with FGTS, PIS and the payment of unemployment insurance. It is also where all benefits offered by the federal government, such as Bolsa Família, are paid. Its expertise is banking services, FGTS, PIS, unemployment insurance and other initiatives made by the federal government, such as Programa Minha Casa, Minha Vida. Official website: http://www.caixa.gov.br

3 – HSBC. HSBC is a commercial and an investment bank organized within four business groups: commercial banking; global banking and markets; personal financial services and global private banking. Present in 87 countries, HSBC is present in Brazil since 1997 and is headquarted in Curitiba, PR. Official website: http://www.hsbc.com.br

4 – Banco J Safra S/A. Banco Safra is one of the 10 major Brazilian banks, operating in all banking divisions, focusing on companies and upper-class customers. Established in 1955, it is headquartered in São Paulo. Official website: http://www.safra.com.br

5 – Banco Itaú. Since the acquisition of Unibanco, in 2008, Itaú saw its market value increase 120%, becoming one of the 10 major banks in the world and the largest financial conglomerate in Latin America. Headquartered in São Paulo, Itaú is a branch of Itaú Unibanco Holding SA. It has operations in Argentina, Chile, Paraguay, Uruguay, England, Luxembourg, Portugal, USA, Japan, China and United Arab Emirates. Its major focus is financial services, such as commercial and corporate banking, besides insurance, assets management and capitalization plans. Official website: http://www.itau.com.br

6 – Banco do Estado do Rio Grande do Sul S/A. Banco do Estado do Rio Grande do Sul (or simply Banrisul), is a state-owned bank focused on business in Southern Brazil. Present in 364 cities, most of them concentrated in Rio Grande do Sul state, Banrisul is headquartered in the city of Porto Alegre and its major focus are banking services. Official website: http://www.banrisul.com.br

7 – Banco PanAmericano S/A. Founded by Grupo Silvio Santos in 1969, PanAmericano has operated as a multi-service bank since 1991, having started its credit card operations in 1994. PanAmericano Seguros was incorporated to the bank in 1999. In 2009 Caixa Econômica Federal bought part of the bank’s shares and became the second largest shareholder of the institution. Official website: http://www.panamericano.com.br

8 – Banco Santander. Santander fisrt came to Brazil in 1982, but it was only in 1991 that Santander Investment operations have begun. The Brazilian operation is considered to be the most important one, being responsible for 25% of the bank profit. In 1997 Grupo Santander acquired Banco Geral do Comércio and in 1998 and the control of Banco Banespa. In 2008 it acquired the Latin American operation of ABN Amro Bank and became the third major bank in Brazil in terms of assets. Official website: http://www.santander.com.br

9 – Banco do Brasil. Banco do Brasil is the largest Brazilian and Latin American bank in terms of assets and third by market value. Headquartered in Brasília, Banco do Brasil was founded in 1808 and is the oldest active bank in Brazil. The bank is controlled by the Brazilian government and since 2000 it is one of the four most-profitable Brazilian banks, holding a strong leadership position in retail banking. Its major services are the issuance of boletos, ATM loans, automatic payments, and the account holder may apply for international Mastercard and Visa debit cards. Also, the bank has got offices I several locations throughout the world, such as Amsterdan, Buenos Aires, Dubai, La Paz, Miami, New York City, Santiago and others. Official website: http://www.bb.com.br

10 – Citibank. Citibank Brasil is headquartered in São Paulo and is a branch of Citigroup FNC, the largest multi-bank in the world. The bank came to Brazil in 1915 and is present in 21 of the 26 Brazilian states. Official website: http://www.citibank.com.br

Read the article here.

Alejandro Micco & Ugo Panizza • www.iadb.org • February 25, 2005

Public Banks in Latin America
Background paper prepared for the conference on Public Banks in Latin America: Myth and Reality Inter-American Development Bank (February 25, 2005)

Government ownership of banks is a major phenomenon worldwide. In 1995 the average percentage of state ownership in the banking industry around the world was about 41.6 percent (Figure 1). This share was even larger during the 1970s, when more than 50 percent of worldwide bank assets were controlled by the public sector. Ideological changes regarding the state’s role in the economy, as well as financial crises, led governments to privatize financial institutions. Megginson (2004) documents that worldwide, from 1987 to 2003 more than 250 banks were privatized, raising US$143 billion.

Read the entire report here.
The 2005 Conference details are here.

www.voeb.de • November 26, 2012

The Association of German Public Banks – Bundesverband Öffentlicher Banken Deutschlands, VÖB – is a leading industry association in the German banking industry. It was founded in 1916 and represents nowadays 62 member institutions including the regional banks (Landesbanken) as well as the development banks owned by the federal and state governments. The VÖB together with the four other top-level associations of the German banking industry comprise the German Banking Industry Committee, GBIC (Die Deutsche Kreditwirtschaft, DK).

Mission. The VÖB represents the joint business and general interests of its members in all matters relating to banking policy promotes cooperation between member banks and supports them in the fulfillment of their missions. The association represents and promotes the interests of its members through communication with lawmakers on the national and state level, national and international regulatory authorities, the media and the public. It is accredited with the German Bundestag, the European Parliament and the European Commission. The VÖB has maintained an office in Brussels since 1987. The association is also a member of the European Association of Public Banks (EAPB), which is located in Brussels.

Members. German financial institutes held directly or indirectly by the public sector either in whole or in part, or which perform special missions in or arising out of the public interest, can become regular members of the VÖB. Banks that already belong to another banking-industry association can apply for special membership.

Employer association. The VÖB is also an employer association. It represents the members of the collective-bargaining association of public banks in collective-bargaining negotiations for public banks and the private banking sector.

Ombudsman. The VÖB has been operating a customer complaint system since 1992; in May, 2001, the system was expanded to include an extrajudicial arbitration body and an ombudsman. On the European level, the VÖB ombudsman is a member of the Financial Complaint Service Network (FIN-NET), to which over 40 national arbitration bodies belong.

Deposit guarantee. The VÖB compensation scheme (statutory deposit guarantee) secures customer deposits as well as liabilities from securities transactions. The association’s Voluntary Guarantee Fund provides additional security for deposits.

Total assets. As of the end of 2011, the total assets of all VÖB member banks amounted to 1,991 billion euros. The market share of the VÖB member banks was thus 24 percent, as measured by the total assets of the entire German banking industry. The VÖB banks employ roundabout 80,000 persons.

Read more about the VÖB here.

http://www.eapb.eu • November 25, 2012

The European Association of Public Banks (EAPB) was founded on 4 May 2000. Members of the EAPB are financial institutions, funding agencies, public banks, associations of public banks and banks with similar interests and have to be domiciled in a Member State of the European Union (EU), in Switzerland, in a signatory state of the European Economic Area (EEA-Treaty) or in a state whose application for Membership of the European Union has been officially accepted.

The EAPB has members from various European countries and represents about 100 financial institutions. As a whole, they have a European market share of approximately 15%, a balance sheet total of about € 3.500 billion and they represent about 190.000 employees.

The EAPB is a member of the European Banking Industry Committee (EBIC) through which the seven main European banking associations represent their interests collectively towards the European institutions.

The EAPB covers topics such as

Banking and banking supervision law
Capital markets and securities law
Accounting and company law
Consumer affairs
Taxation
Payment systems
Money laundering and financial crime
Civil law
EU regional policy and structural funds
State aid and competition
EU enterprise policy
Services of general interest
Local finance

Read more about the EAPB here.
List of member banks of the EAPB here.
Description of member banks of the EAPB in 2011-2012 Annual Report here.

Alf Young • http://www.scotsman.com • November 24, 2012

AS THE debate over reform continues, one answer is to keep financial institutions in the public sector, writes Alf Young

Disturbing splits are emerging at the top of the Bank of England over how to reform our battered, post-crash banking system to ensure it doesn’t blow up again. In testimony this week to the parliamentary commission on banking standards, the Bank’s departing governor, Sir Mervyn King, called yet again for a more radical division of retail and investment banking actitivies than that envisaged by the Vickers Commission…

…A Los Angeles-based attorney, Ms Brown is the author of Web of Debt and president of the Public Banking Institute (PBI). Banking, she argues, is not a market good or service. It’s a vital part of societal infrastructure which properly belongs in the public sector. And by taking it back where it belongs, states could regain control of that very large slice (up to 40 per cent) of every public budget that currently goes on interest charged to finance investment programmes through the private sector. Deficit reduction could get an enormous boost, by cutting out the profit-driven middle man.

Read the complete article here.

Kelly McCartney • http://www.csmonitor.com • November 22, 2012

In April 1997, a public bank was able to respond to a massive flood in Grand Forks, N.D., in ways that privately owned banks could not or, perhaps, would not. Could public banks help in other disasters, such as superstorm Sandy?

The Public Banking Institute blog cites a powerful example of how a public bank can help a city bounce back from a devastating natural disaster. As Hurricane Sandy recovery efforts unfold, there’s a lesson from history about the role of strong local financial institutions in increasing urban resilience.

In April of 1997, Grand Forks, North Dakota, was hit by record flooding and major fires that put the city’s future in jeopardy. One of the first economic responders was the Bank of North Dakota (BND), currently the only public bank in the United States.

What’s a public bank, you ask? Public banks are owned by citizens through their government. They have a public interest mission, are dedicated to funding local development, and plow profits back into the state treasury to fund social programs and cover deficits. Rather than competing with private banks, BND partners with them to meet the needs of North Dakotans. BND is one reason North Dakota has low unemployment and runs budget surpluses while most states are deeply in the red.

Read the complete article here.

Pam Martens • www.wallstreetonparade.com • November 15, 2012

…There’s one other positive to support the creation of public banks – competition to Wall Street. Reforming Wall Street cannot happen under the current compromised Congress; under the current campaign financing system; under the corrupt revolving door between Washington and Wall Street; under a system that rewarded the supervisory failures of the New York Fed by giving it greater oversight of Wall Street while continuing to allow Wall Street execs and their cronies to sit on its Board of Directors. The entire system is malignant and an insurmountable obstacle to the Nation’s economic recovery. We have watched for four years as Congress failed to reform Wall Street. The one thing that might actually stand a chance of reforming it is honest competition that provides an honest alternative.

Read the complete article here.

Populist Dialogues of Alliance for Democracy • PopulistDialogues at youtube.com • November 5, 2012

Guest Ellen Hodgson Brown, author of The Web of Debt and founder of the Public Banking Institute, discusses the advantages of public banking in the United States and around the world. She reviews how money is created, how the Federal Reserve was created, various types of public banks and how their are structured, why some nations have escaped the Great Recession, how America could save its postal service, how public banking institution could be used as a land bank to address the under-water property and foreclosure problems.

Watch the video of the interview here.

Craig Shirley • www.washingtonpost.com • November 9, 2012

From the article:
“…Wall Street is too fearsome and corrupt for anyone’s good. We should find a way to create 50 Wall Streets so that money can stay in the states, and corruption can be kept to a minimum and law enforcement to a maximum. In the era of the Internet — which empowers the individual — can there be any doubt that scrutiny of local Wall Streets would keep bankers and brokers on their toes?”

How about 50 state-owned banks…so that money can stay in the states? We already have a good start with one — the Bank of North Dakota!

Read Craig’s complete article here.

Ellen Brown • www.truth-out.org • November 8, 2012

Interest charges are a strongly regressive tax that the poor pay to the rich. A public banking system could realize savings up to 40 percent – allowing taxes to be cut, services increased and market stability created – with banks feeding the economy rather than feeding off it.

In the 2012 edition of Occupy Money released last week, Professor Margrit Kennedy writes that a stunning 35 percent to 40 percent of everything we buy goes to interest. This interest goes to bankers, financiers, and bondholders, who take a 35 percent to 40 percent cut of our GDP. That helps explain how wealth is systematically transferred from Main Street to Wall Street. The rich get progressively richer at the expense of the poor, not just because of “Wall Street greed,” but because of the inexorable mathematics of our private banking system…

Read the complete article here.

Jim Morrow & Ira Dember • www.skyvalleychronicle.com • November 3, 2012

(GRAND FORKS, N.D.) — As the nation watches the aftermath of the destructive Hurricane Sandy in New York and New Jersey, it may be instructive to compare another cleanup 15 years ago in North Dakota after another natural disaster – the massive flooding of the Red River and the fire in downtown Grand Forks.

Folks in Grand Forks, North Dakota will never forget April 1997, when record flooding of the Red River and major fires devastated the city.

They also won’t forget that it was Bank of North Dakota — the nation’s only bank owned by a state — that put people above profits.

The BND rushed to the rescue with financial flexibility and generosity of spirit in the public interest that no privately owned bank could match…

Read the complete article here.

PBI News Alert • PublicBankingInstitute.org • Nov 3, 2012

As we watch developments in New York and New Jersey on the heels of Hurricane Sandy, it is instructive to compare another cleanup 15 years ago in North Dakota after another natural disaster, the flooding of the Red River and the fire in downtown Grand Forks. Meanwhile in Washington State, the Treasurer resists a public bank because of the “risk” involved, as if the Wall Street banks are trustworthy partners! “Funding is different for BND from that of other commercial banks,” says Standard & Poors (see below). Because it is different, it’s past time to put public money into public banks — for the public good, as the Bank of North Dakota so clearly demonstrates during times of prosperity — and times of natural disasters.

Read the entire PBI News Alert here.

healthymoneysummit.com • November 1, 2012

During these three potent days at the Healthy Money Summit, you will learn about some of the most powerful transformations happening in our financial systems – from the personal to the global.

By participating in the no-cost, 3-day Healthy Money Summit, you can come away with:

• A healthier, more empowering relationship with money
• Greater knowledge on our financial systems-and how we can change them for the better
• Increased understanding of new and emerging economic models
• Practical tools to improve your personal finances
• Inspiring insights you can use to begin transforming your own community

More about the Telesummit and free registration here.

PBI Newsletter, October 2012 • PublicBankingInstitute.org • October 31, 2012

The PBI (Public Banking Institute) October Newsletter is here!
Sign up for the Newsletter here.

Willie Osterweil • shareable.net • October 30, 2012

Since the financial collapse began in 2008,Wall Street bankers’ claims to being the smartest guys in the room—hard-working innovators with billion dollar ideas and the will to execute them—have been proven all too right. When it comes to stealing the accumulated wealth of the American people, no group in living memory has proven to be so ceaselessly creative, so ruthlessly efficient at turning public wealth into private cash.

It’s not just the bailouts, though they are the most obvious example. The federal government, with its revolving-door that always opens on Wall Street, has failed to prosecute any but the most brazen and stupid crimes, giving implicit criminal immunity to the banks, while regularly passing wheelbarrows of friendly legislation (not to mention national tax-receipts) their way.

But at least in D.C it’s team work. When it comes to state, county and municipal governments, school boards and transit authorities, Wall Street prefers the straight con, emptying local coffers through purposely complex debt instruments and shoddy financial products. Not a few pensions went bust buying CDOs , the infamous securities created by slicing and dicing a pool of worthless mortgages to make them appear AAA safe.

But the financial innovators devised an even more direct technique for emptying the pockets of local governments. Selling “structured finance” products and “interest-rate swap” bonds, they’ve turned the nation’s vital infrastructure into a cash cow. In a fiery speech to Philadelphia City Council on October 23, Mike Krauss, director of the Public Banking Institute, denounced these Wall Street practices and offered a local solution that municipalities could take up to free themselves from these forms of fraud.

Read the entire article here.

PBI News Alert • PublicBankingInstitute.org • Oct 23, 2012

TESTIMONY OF THE PUBLIC BANKING INSTITUTE & THE PENNSYLVANIA PROJECT
TO PHILADELPHIA CITY COUNCIL
23 OCTOBER, 2012

Mr. Councilman Kenney, Members of City Council:

My name is Mike Krauss. I am a director of the nationally recognized Public Banking Institute, and chair of the Pennsylvania Project.

The Public Banking Institute and the Pennsylvania Project are not-for-profit and non-partisan public policy organizations, both engaged in campaigns of public education to achieve creation of public banks in the United States at the state, county and municipal level.

We are here today to challenge you to fight for the people of this city, and to JUST SAY NO to the “too-big-to-fail” banks that failed and are now gouging this city and its people of hundreds of millions of dollars in the interest rate swap swindle that is the subject of this hearing…

Read the entire PBI News Alert here.

Mary Fricker • RepoWatch.org • October 20, 2012

When Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson said in September 2008 that he needed nearly $1 trillion to fix the financial markets, I knew subprime mortgages alone could not have done that kind of damage. Didn’t banks pool those loans and sell slices of the pools to investors? Don’t investors make and lose billions of dollars on the financial markets every day? Why were their losses suddenly landing in the taxpayers’ laps? Something else had to be involved, something hidden, something I wasn’t aware of, something dangerous.

Here it is.

What follows are (1) a definition, (2) a short article for beginners and (3) a story with much more detail.

Thanks for your interest.

Mary Fricker
Editor, RepoWatch

Read the complete article here.

PBI News Alert • PublicBankingInstitute.org • Oct 20, 2012

If you live in the SF Bay Area and would like to learn more about public banking, please consider coming to PBI’s BBQ Oyster and Beer House Party this Sunday in San Rafael, from 4-6pm. Many public banking advocates will be there and will be able to provide you with information about the latest on public banking and the Public Banking Institute’s strategy for success. You’ll be able to meet with Ellen Brown, author of Web of Debt, who will provide everyone with an update on the material she is gathering for her soon-to-be-released book on public banking.

Please join us! If you wish to have the specific address, send an email to info@publicbankinginstitute.org and we’ll send you the invitation with the information you’ll need to attend. This is our first house party fundraiser, so please support public banking and enjoy the afternoon with other public banking advocates!

David Brodwin • http://www.usnews.com/opinion/blogs/economic-intelligence • September 27, 2012

North Dakota shines like a bright star in the dark night of America’s Great Recession. It stands out for two reasons: First, it led the United States in sustaining a strong economy and high employment through the last four years. Second, it is the only state in the union with a publicly-owned bank. Many believe the Bank of North Dakota played an important role in stabilizing the state’s economy, and they would like to replicate public banks nation-wide. It will be a tough fight, and an important one.

Read the complete article here.

PBI Newsletter, September 2012 • PublicBankingInstitute.org • September 27, 2012

The PBI (Public Banking Institute) September Newsletter is here!
Sign up for the Newsletter here.

Phase two has just started, please check the website.

What is 15MpaRato?

15MpaRato* is a citizen-led legal campaign to end the impunity of bankers, speculators and politicians. Although many other actions may be pursued, this citizen campaign is now focusing on the insolvency of Bankia and Spain’s consequent EU bail-out. The bailout proposed by the government – PPSOE and the Troika, is to sell out a whole country and its people, leaving it no rights, no voice and no bread just to preserve the privileges of a few.

No thanks. We do not need to be rescued. We are no longer for sale. We will rescue ourselves with the money bankers, speculators and politicians have stolen. The message is clear: Impunity is over. In the war of those above against the ones below, fear has changed sides.

The legal campaign:

The stock market debut of Bankia was full of irregularities, including the falsification of accounts and the fraudulent sale of preferred shares to the private individuals. 15MpaRato was able to find dozens of plaintiffs and witnesses in record time and raised 20.000€ through crowd-funding in only 24h. The campaign undertook criminal actions against the members of Bankia’s Board of Directors which are now officially charged and attend trial.

More information on on the legal campaign.

15MpaRato plays with words. 15M is the name given to the Spanish Indignado / Occupy movement (for it was May 15th that the movement burst out). 15MpaRato, means “indignados for long” and at the same time “indignados against Rato”. Rodrigo Rato was the CEO of Bankia when it went bankrupt and the one responsible for the manipulation of its accounts. He was also former IMF chief and one of the politicians responsible of the creation of the real state bubble as former Minister of Economy during the presidency of Aznar (1996-2004).

ES: http://15mparato.wordpress.com/reloaded-balance-y-proximos-pasos/
ES: http://15mparato.wordpress.com/segunda-fase-incorporacion-accionistas/

RODRIK BROSTEN • http://m.missoulian.com • September 6, 2012

Around 1915, the Nonpartisan League in North Dakota was established. Its platform called for a state-owned bank and state ownership of a grain elevator terminal and flour mill. Within a few years, it controlled the legislature and all state offices and its plan was put in place. But within two years, the party imploded, and in 1921, North Dakota held a special election and state wide officials were recalled, including the Republican governor, a first for the United States. But, on the same ballot, a proposition to shut down the bank failed and it went ahead. Today, the bank is profitable and respected, providing economic leadership to the state and value to the people; the mill and its flour is a source of pride state wide.

Why does North Dakota have the lowest unemployment rate (3.2 percent) and the fastest job growth rate in the country? Oil is certainly a factor. Alaska has roughly the same population and produces twice as much oil, yet unemployment is running at 7.3 percent. Montana, South Dakota and Wyoming have benefited from the boom in energy prices, with Montana and Wyoming extracting much more gas than North Dakota has. The Bakken oil field stretches across Montana as well as North Dakota, with the greatest Bakken oil production coming from Elm Coulee oil field in Montana. Yet Montana’s unemployment is 6.3 percent.

North Dakota is the only state to be in continuous budget surplus since the banking crisis of 2008. In fact, it recently reduced individual income taxes and property taxes by a combined $400 million. It also has the lowest foreclosure rate and the lowest credit card default rate in the country and it has had no bank failure in at least the last decade.

The secret is its own state-owned bank….

…So why does Montana not have a state-owned bank? A bill to study the concept was presented to the 2011 Legislature and as a candidate for the Montana House of Representatives, I look forward to working with others to see that another bill will appear in 2013 to go on to the next step.

Rodrik Brosten of Bigfork is a candidate for Montana House District 9.
Read the complete article here.

www.ncga.state.nc.us • May 31, 2012

Summary
AN ACT to ESTABLISH A JOINT LEGISLATIVE STUDY COMMISSION TO STUDY THE FEASIBILITY OF ESTABLISHING THE “NORTH CAROLINA INVESTMENT TRUST,” WHICH WOULD BE A STATE‑OWNED BANK RECEIVING DEPOSITS OF STATE FUNDS.

Sponsors
Senator Kinnaird

05/30/2012 Senate Filed
05/31/2012 Senate Held As Filed

Status of the Bill is here.
Text of the Bill is here.

legiscan.com • June 5, 2011

Summary
Directs the Legislative Commission to appoint a subcommittee to conduct an interim study concerning the establishment of a bank that is owned, controlled and operated by this State. (BDR S-870)

Sponsors
Sen Copening
Sen Breeden
Sen Leslie
Sen Manendo
Sen Ohrenschall
Sen Parks
Sen Pierce
Sen Schneider
Sen Wiener

June 5 2011 – Read third time. Lost. (Yeas: 10, Nays: 11.)

Status of the Bill is here.
Text of the Bill is here.

publicbankingtv • youtube.com • Sep 6, 2012

More videos posted of presentations from the Public Banking Institute‘s (PBI) first annual conference, Public Banking In America Conference, Philadelphia, April 27-28, here.

Below are videos of presentations by Thomas Greco, Rodney Shakespeare, and Ethan Allen.

“Once a nation parts with the control of its currency and credit, it matters not who makes that nation’s laws. Usury, once in control, will wreck any nation. Until the control of the issue of currency and credit is restored to government and recognized as its most conspicuous and sacred responsibility, all talk of the sovereignty of Parliament and of democracy is idle and futile.” -William Lyon Mackenzie King, 10th Prime Minister of Canada.

Constance Gustke • FoxBusiness.com • August 29, 2012

State-owned banks in the works

Only one bank, the Bank of North Dakota, is currently state-owned. But others could soon be on their way.

Another 18 states are considering proposals for variations on the Bismarck, N.D., bank’s model, according to the Public Banking Institute. If approved, this type of institution will differ from a traditional bank in one key way: Deposits will be backed by the state, not by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. However, few states have the budget surpluses that North Dakota boasts, making approval more problematic.

Conversely, state-chartered banks are jointly supervised by their state and either the FDIC or the Federal Reserve.

The main appeal of state-owned banks would be that they’re less apt to engage in risky activities. For example, the Bank of North Dakota, which opened in 1919, survived the banking collapse incredibly well, says Sam Munger, managing director of the Center for State Innovation at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Also, consumers could expect loan-friendly state banks that offer wide-ranging loans at more competitive rates, including student loans or mortgages. State-run banks also could give more loans to small businesses.

“After the banking crash, people started looking at alternative models,” Munger says.

Read the complete article here.

Peter Seidman • PacificSun.com • August 20, 2012

The next time you hear someone say the Occupy Wall Street movement was interesting but is losing steam and that all its participants do is protest and demonstrate rather than take positive action, don’t believe it.

For the most part, the national media stopped covering Occupy Wall Street when images of protesters became too mundane to make the nightly news—not enough sensationalism.

Critics say the movement is doomed to a slow decline because its proponents have turned their backs on participation in the traditional political process. But looking at the corruption of the big banks and the rigged financial system that brought down the economy, a group of people in sympathy and synchronicity with the Occupy movement decided to push for a new way of doing financial business: use a public-banking model that can eviscerate the power of the few big financial institutions that now control a great deal of state and municipal wealth.

When Ellen Hodgson Brown came to Marin in December 2010, she delivered a presentation that described how California could create a state bank. Brown is the president and chairman of the Public Banking Institute (PBI). “Once you grasp the principle here” it seems like a natural solution to the economic crunch, she said at the meeting organized by Supervisor Susan Adams. “You have to understand that Wall Street is leveraging our money—and not to our benefit—lending it back to us. When you realize that we could do that in-house, keep it all local, leverage our money for our own purposes, when you understand that is the point here—why not do it?”

Read the complete article here.

PBI Newsletter, August 2012 • PublicBankingInstitute.org • August 27, 2012

The PBI (Public Banking Institute) August Newsletter is here!
Sign up for the Newsletter here.

David Brodwin • www.usnews.com/opinion/blogs/economic-intelligence • August 2, 2012

…Americans are taking matters into their own hands. A new movement called the “D.I.Y. economy” is emerging. But in this context “D.I.Y.” takes on a different meaning: It’s not about going to Home Depot to get the parts you need to fix your sink; it’s about driving economic development at the local level, with local leadership, guided by a more robust and sustainable vision.

…The Public Banking Institute encourages the formation of state banks, like the Bank of North Dakota, which for decades has effectively promoted and funded local development there. Crowdfunding, recently approved by Congress, is now being implemented by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.

Read the complete article here.

PBI Newsletter, July 2012 • PublicBankingInstitute.org • July 20, 2012

The PBI (Public Banking Institute) July Newsletter is here!
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PBI Newsletter, June 2012 • PublicBankingInstitute.org • June 22, 2012

The PBI (Public Banking Institute) June Newsletter is here!
Sign up for the Newsletter here.

Rick Rowden • www.foreignpolicy.com • July 3, 2012

At a time when most governments seem incapable of doing anything about unemployment, worsening economic inequality, and continuing financial instability, Argentina has adopted a set of striking new reforms that will enable its central bank to play a much more proactive role in addressing all of these problems. In fact, the reforms, adopted in March, may be the first shots fired in a quiet revolution in monetary policy. If successful, they could threaten to overturn 25 years of conservative central bank policies that have long been considered best practice by the IMF and central banks around the world.

Argentina’s new central bank president, Mercedes Marcó del Pont, said the reforms challenge the conservative axiom that central banks should play a very limited role in the economy. The bank is now rediscovering its sovereign capacity to formulate and implement economic policy, she explained, adding that some of the portraits on the bank’s hall of fame would be coming down — “beginning with Milton Friedman’s.”

Read the complete article here.

Marshall Swearingen • www.bozeman-magpie.com • July 8, 2012

DURING THE 2011 MONTANA legislature—perhaps the most bitterly partisan in recent state history—something curious happened. Rep. Joe Read, a Tea Party-backed Republican who was briefly famous on the Colbert Report for his House Bill 549 declaring global warming “beneficial to the welfare and business climate of Montana,” sponsored the lesser-known HB 643. The bill would authorize a state-run bank like the Bank of North Dakota.

What is curious—besides that a Tea Party Republican would support a “state-run” anything—is that a Democrat, Rep. Sue Malek of Missoula, sponsored a similar resolution. Rep. Read spoke wholeheartedly in its favor. The support, and opposition, for both bills was bipartisan.

Read the complete article here.

Seumas Milne • www.guardian.co.uk • July 3, 2012

The Barclays scandal has underlined the City’s unmuzzled power. But it also offers a chance to take democratic control.

…The rate-rigging scandal now offers a second opportunity to build the pressure for fundamental change. That’s hard to imagine being carried out by a coalition dominated by the City-funded Tories, but Labour has also yet to break fully with its pre-crisis economic model.

Tougher regulation or even a full separation of retail from investment banking will not be enough to shift the City into productive investment, or even prevent the kind of corrupt collusion that has now been exposed between Barclays and other banks. As a report by Manchester University’s Cresc research team argues this week, the size and complexity of the modern banking system makes it “near ungovernable”.

Only if the largest banks are broken up, the part-nationalised outfits turned into genuine public investment banks, and new socially owned and regional banks encouraged can finance be made to work for society, rather than the other way round. Private sector banking has spectacularly failed – and we need a democratic public solution.

Read the complete article here.

National Coordination for Bank Justice. All “too big to fail” banks are too big to exist. Working to organize locally to educate and pressure bank customers through pickets, creative actions and alternatives promotion to choose local banks or credit unions. Working to organize to pressure federal representatives to prosecute the banks. Working to shame and target the people who have power within the banks. We want all national banks out of our neighborhoods. We are working to organize locally to grow credit unions, small banks, state banks, time banks, street banks, barter fairs, the gift economy and the “really really free market.”

We are on the streets! We will collaborate on national days of action, sharing effective strategy, organizing trainings, developing research and sharing materials. We keep it grassroots and we don’t stop until the banks are closed and the credit unions are open.”

Public Banking Institute • PublicBankingInstitute.org • June 2012

Just in time for the National Occupy Gathering in Philadelphia, June 30 through July 4, 2012, take action and spread the word! Print the attached PBI tri-fold brochure on reclaiming the money power with publicly owned banks!

View and download the tri-fold brochure here.

PBI Newsletter, May 2012 • PublicBankingInstitute.org • May 30, 2012

The PBI (Public Banking Institute) November Newsletter is here!
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Ellen Brown • CommonDreams.org • May 30, 2012

The youtube video of 12 year old Victoria Grant speaking at the Public Banking in America conference last month has gone viral, topping a million views on various websites.

Monetary reform—the contention that governments, not banks, should create and lend a nation’s money—has rarely even made the news, so this is a first. Either the times they are a-changin’, or Victoria managed to frame the message in a way that was so simple and clear that even a child could understand it.

Basically, her message was that banks create money “out of thin air” and lend it to people and governments at interest. If governments borrowed from their own banks, they could keep the interest and save a lot of money for the taxpayers.

…In other words, 91% of the debt consists of compounded interest charges. Subtract those and the government would have a debt of only C$37 billion, very low and sustainable, just as it was before 1974.

Read the article here.

Daniel Tencer • Huffington Post Canada • May 15, 2012

Twelve-year-old Victoria Grant of Cambridge, Ontario, has become an overnight Internet sensation after a video of her giving a scathing criticism of Canada’s banking industry went viral.

Grant has been giving a rehearsed speech to audiences at conferences about how “the banks and the government have colluded to financially enslave the people of Canada.”

Her father has been posting the videos to YouTube. One such video, of an appearance by the youthful Grant at a Public Banking Institute conference in Philadelphia, got picked up by various blogs over the past few days.

…The core of the idea is that Canadian taxpayers are being ripped off by the banks and the government because elected officials are unnecessarily borrowing money from the private banks at commercial interest rates.

Until the 1970s, the government borrowed directly from the Bank of Canada, which is a Crown corporation and issues Canada’s currency. But in recent decades, it has been borrowing from private banks instead. Critics say that the government is unnecessarily paying extra in interest rates to cover private banks’ profit margins.

Read the article here.

Homeowners, former homeowners, and people who are fighting for a place to live are standing up to Wall Street greed by Occupying Homes. They are joined by the Occupy Wall Street movement and allies in their communities.

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