…it’s clear…that COUNTY governments can set up their own banks and use Eminent Domain as a tool to stop foreclosures.
Our sovereign currency and credit has been usurped for private gain instead of public good. Let’s take back control of our money from Wall Street and build prosperity on Main Street by creating state, county, and municipal public banks. Public tax monies should be leveraged by public officials, not speculators and swindlers. Check out the Public Banking Institute for more information.
Link to the video (part 1 of 2)here. Link to the video (part 2 of 2)here.
HB1840
Measure Title: RELATING TO STATE-OWNED BANK.
Report Title: Financial Institutions; State-owned Bank; Task Force
Description: Establishes a task force to review, investigate, and study the feasibility and cost of establishing a state-owned bank. Requires a report to the Legislature.
Introducer(s): OSHIRO, TSUJI
Status:
1/13/2012 Prefiled
1/18/2012 Introduced and Pass First Reading.
1/19/2012 Referred to ERB, CPC, FIN, referral sheet 2
1/20/2012 Bill scheduled to be heard by ERB on Tuesday, 01-24-12 8:30AM in House conference room 312.
Status of the Bill is here. Text of the Bill is here.
Jordan Schrader • theolympian.com • January 16, 2012
‘EMPOWERMENT’: Backers say move would cut ties with big banks; skeptics ask where money would come from
State government stores money at Bank of America, buys goods with U.S. Bank cards, and distributes welfare aid through JP Morgan Chase ATMs.
Supporters of cutting such ties to big banks say the first step is creating the state’s own bank.
The idea of a state bank – a favorite of the Occupy movement that sees it as an alternative to Wall Street – has strong support among the Democrats who control the state House. Speaker Frank Chopp called it a top priority last week in a speech opening this year’s session of the Legislature.
Washington state lawmakers are considering forming a state bank that would be able to make student loans, distribute welfare aid and help finance public works.
The idea is championed by state Rep. Bob Hasegawa, whose district from from Renton to south Seattle. He introduced a bill last week he says won’t run afoul of the state constitution’s prohibition against lending the state’s credit.
The Olympian reports the state bank idea is endorsed by House Speaker Frank Chopp of Seattle who calls it the Washington Investment Trust.
Other lawmakers say it would add to the state bureaucracy and compete with private banks. State Treasurer Jim McIntire says there already are a number of agencies that have similar goals.
Ellen Brown • globalresearch.ca • January 15, 2012
An electronic database called MERS has created defects in the chain of title to over half the homes in America. Counties have been cheated out of millions of dollars in recording fees, and their title records are in hopeless disarray. Meanwhile, foreclosed and abandoned homes are blighting neighborhoods. Straightening out the records and restoring the homes to occupancy is clearly in the public interest, and the burden is on local government to do it. But how? New legal developments are presenting some innovative alternatives.
…The neoliberal model that says banks can govern themselves has failed. It is up to county governments to restore the rule of law and repair the economic distress wrought behind the smokescreen of MERS. New tools at the county’s disposal—including eminent domain, land banks, and publicly-owned banks—can facilitate this local rebirth.
Alan Kline • americanbanker.com • December 28, 2011
The Washington Business Journal reported Wednesday that Del. Bob Marshall, a Republican, introduced legislation this week to study the viability of opening a bank that would be modeled after Bank of North Dakota, the only state-owned bank in the country. Marshall introduced a similar bill in 2010, but that bill failed to make it out of committee.
The idea of creating a state-owned bank has been gaining traction in a number of state legislatures of late. Lawmakers in California, Massachusetts, Oregon, Hawaii and several other states all introduced bills last year that sought to establish a state-owned bank or study the idea of creating one and it is expected that similar bills will be reintroduced early this year when state legislatures convene. (Virginia’s legislative session begins Jan. 11.)
In 2006, Congress passed the Postal Accountability and Enhancement Act (PAEA), which forced the USPS to put aside billions of dollars to pay for the health benefits of employees, many of whom hadn’t even been hired yet. Over a mere ten-year period, the USPS was required to pre-fund its future health care benefit payments to retirees for the next 75 years, something no other government or private corporation is required to do. As consumer advocate Ralph Nader observed, if PAEA had never been enacted, USPS would now be facing a $1.5 billion surplus.
The USPS is a profitable, self-funded venture that is not supported by the taxpayers. It is funded with postage stamps – one of the last vestiges of government-issued money. Stamps are fungible and can be traded at par, and they are backed, not by mere government “fiat,” but by labor. One stamp will buy the labor to transport your letter 3,000 miles.
…Banking in post offices is not new. Many countries, including Germany, France, Italy, Japan and New Zealand, have a long and successful history of it – and so does the United States.
Try to find a bank president that’s beloved by supporters of the Occupy Wall Street movement. It’s not impossible. You’ll just have to travel to North Dakota.
Meet Eric Hardmeyer, who bears the unlikely distinction of being perhaps the only banker in America who, in addition to being embraced by Wall Street protesters, has been exalted by the likes of Michael Moore, Mother Jones magazine, and the Progressive States Network, among other progressive stalwarts.
That’s because Hardmeyer heads the Bank of North Dakota (BND), the country’s only publicly-owned state bank. The institution, located ironically enough in a solidly red state, has become the darling of progressives who have become frustrated with corporate banks they say helped cause the financial crisis and resulting credit crunch.
Spurred by the recession, bank bailouts and the difficulty consumers are having getting loans, members of the Occupy movement and others are stepping up calls for a public banking option.
North Dakota currently has the nation’s only state-run bank. Supporters point out that the state is the only one to have had a budget surplus since the economic crisis began, and has an unemployment rate below 4%.
“People are becoming more aware that our existing banking system isn’t serving us,” said Ellen Brown, one of the founders of the Public Banking Institute, a non-profit formed in January to advocate for public banking.
Ellen Brown • HuffingtonPost.com • December 15, 2011
The campaign to “move your money” has gotten a groundswell of support. Having greater impact would be to “move our money” — move our local government revenues out of Wall Street banks into our own publicly-owned banks.
Occupy Wall Street has been both criticized and applauded for not endorsing any official platform. But there are unofficial platforms, including one titled the 99% Declaration that calls for a “National General Assembly” to convene on July 4, 2012 in Philadelphia. the 99% Declaration seeks everything from reining in the corporate state to ending the Fed to eliminating censorship of the Internet. But none of these demands seems to go to the heart of what prompted Occupiers to camp out on Wall Street in the first place — a corrupt banking system that serves the 1% at the expense of the 99%. To redress that, we need a banking system that serves the 99%.
David Weidner • marketwatch.com • December 1, 2011
…The second step consumers can take if they’re fed up with banks is supporting public banking. In a recent column, I noted how San Francisco’s Occupy movement is supporting a public bank for the city. Read related commentary on Occupy San Francisco and municipal banks .
But public banking, in which government assets are set aside for lending back into the community, is gaining traction nationally too. There are public banks or derivatives in North Dakota and Oklahoma. Three states — Maine, Montana and Arizona — have bills proposing state-owned banks in their legislative bodies. And nine more states are considering some form of public banking.
An organization called the Public Banking Institute was founded in January by Ellen Brown, a Los Angeles-based attorney, to lobby and focus national efforts.
If formed, these new banks would partner with local banks, offering to match loans dollar-to-dollar with them to local borrowers. While state banks generally aren’t retail banks, there’s no reason why they couldn’t offer retail services down the road, since they are effectively public credit unions.
The recent interest in state-owned banks has provoked challenges on grounds that they violate state constitutional prohibitions against lending the credit of the state. The argument is not valid, for several reasons:
(1) The U.S. Supreme Court has already considered it and rejected it.
(2) A number of states have owned banks historically, and many states have infrastructure banks today, which are specifically authorized by 23 U.S. Code Section 610.
(3) The argument misconstrues the nature of banking. All states deposit their revenues and invest their capital in banks. This does not mean they are “lending the credit of the state.” The bank lends its own credit. If a state can put its revenues and invest its capital in Bank of America or Chase Bank, it can put them in a state-owned bank.
These arguments also apply to county-owned banks, city-owned banks and any other chartered banks owned by the people as public institutions.
For all the faults, though, protesters in the Bay Area, especially Occupy San Francisco, have something their East Coast neighbors don’t: a realistic plan aimed at the heart of banks. The idea could be expanded nationwide to send a message to a compromised Washington and the financial industry.
It’s called a municipal bank. Simply put, it would transfer the City of San Francisco’s bank accounts—about $2 billion now spread between such banks as Bank of America Corp., UnionBanCal Corp. and Wells Fargo & Co.—into a public bank. That bank would use small local banks to lend to the community.
The following must-see 60 Minutes segment further highlights the deteriorating economic conditions across the United States.
It turns out some families are losing their grip on the motels and discovering that the homesless shelters are full. Where do they go then? They try to keep up appearances by day and try to stay out of sight at night – holding on to one another in a hidden America, a place you wouldn’t notice unless you ran into the people we met in the moments before dawn.
Alison Vekshin • Businessweek.com • November 18, 2011
Eric Hardmeyer, chief executive officer of the Bank of North Dakota, said he’s heard from 30 to 40 states asking the same thing: How does the only state-owned bank in the U.S. work?
The financial institution, which opened in 1919 to help North Dakota farmers, has $5 billion in assets and contributed about $340 million in earnings to state coffers in the 12 years through mid-2009.
On November 3, 2011, Alan Minsky interviewed me on KPFK’s program, “Building a Powerful Movement in the United States” in preparation for an Occupy L.A. teach-in. To clarify my points I have edited and expanded my answers from the interview transcript.
Alan Minsky: I am joined now by Michael Hudson. He is a distinguished research professor of economics at the University of Missouri-Kansas City, and also is president of the Institute for the Study of Long Term Economic Trends. Welcome to the show, Michael.
Restore America’s past prosperity and rescue the future from the financial grabbers
Michael Hudson: …The idea throughout the nineteenth century was to create this kind of public option. There was a Post Office bank, and that could still be elaborated to provide banking services at cost or at a subsidized price. After all, in Russia and Japan the post office banks are the largest of all!
The logic for a public banking option is the same as for governments providing free roads: The aim is to minimize the cost of living and doing business. On my website, michael-hudson.com, I have posted an article just published in the American Journal of Economics and Sociology on Simon Patten. He was the first professor of economics at the Wharton Business School. He spelled out the logic of public infrastructure as a “fourth” factor of production (alongside, labor, capital and land). Its productivity is to be measured not by how much profit it makes, but by how much it lowers the economy’s price structure.
Patricia Sabatini • Pittsburgh post-gazette.com • November 18, 2011
The Public Banking Institute, a non-profit based in Sonoma, Calif., was launched in January to study and promote the idea of government-owned banks. Mike Krauss is a director of the institute and chairman of the Pennsylvania Project in charge of rallying support for a state-owned bank in Pennsylvania. He began his involvement with the institute through its president, Ellen Brown, who wrote a book, “The Web of Debt” about the banking industry. Mr. Krauss, 62, who works as a consultant in international logistics, talked with the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette this week about the institute’s efforts.
Q: How many other state-level organizations does the institute have like the one in Pennsylvania?
A: About 20 that are really active. Most are identified on the public banking website [www.publicbankinginstitute.org]. We’re not lobbying legislators right now. We are going to launch a public education campaign.
Ellen Brown, author of “The Web of Debt: The Shocking Truth About Our Money System and How We Can Break Free,” talking about our monetary and banking system at Occupy LA on November 5, 2011.
Ellen Brown author of “The Web of Debt: The Shocking Truth About Our Money System and How We Can Break Free” talking about the public banking system and the Bank of North Dakota on October 26, 2011 at Kan Hall, University of Washington, Seattle, WA.
On Saturday, Oct. 15, KPFA Weekend News reported that the City of San Francisco probably pays private banks, mostly Bank of America, as much as $100 million a year in banking service and municipal bond underwriting fees. That’s arguably $100 million a year’s worth of common cents that San Francisco stands to gain for small business loans, schools, parks, mass transit, health, and other human and neighborhood services.
On Oct. 15, KPFA reported that a municipal bank is finally on the table, and that Supervisor and mayoral candidate John Avalos has scheduled a public hearing at San Francisco City Hall for Oct. 24. Supervisor Avalos’s staff has since reconfirmed that the hearing will be held on Monday, Oct. 24, in the City Operations and Neighborhood Services Committee meeting in Room 250 at City Hall and that there will be time for public comment. The meeting is expected to begin at 10 a.m., the bank discussion at 10:30.
One of the demands floating around the Occupy Wall Street protest movement has been a call for a public banking option. In an October 8 interview on the Real News Network, Dr. Michael Hudson, a professor of economics at the University of Missouri-Kansas City, explains this demand:
“The demand isn’t simply to make a public bank but to treat the banks generally as a public utility, just as you treat electric companies as a public utility. The key about public utilities is their rate of return is guaranteed and the rules which they operate under are guaranteed. Just as there was pressure for a public option in health care, there should be a public option in banking. There should be a government bank that offers credit card rates without punitive 30 percent interest rates, without penalties, without raising the rate if you don’t pay your electric bill. This is how America got strong in the 19th and early 20th century, by essentially having public infrastructure, just like you’d have roads and bridges…The idea of public infrastructure was to lower the cost of living and to lower the cost of doing business. You’re not going to do that if you let Citibank write the rules.”[2]
Ellen Brown, the president of the non-profit Public Banking Institute writes, “We don’t hear much about a public banking option in the United States, but a number of countries already have a resilient public banking sector…the model remains a viable alternative to the private profiteering being protested on Wall Street today.”[3]
Daily Bell: For those new to this subject, what is Web of Debt’s main thesis?
Ellen Brown: The thesis is that the power to create money has been usurped by a private international banking cartel, which issues our money as debt and lends it back to us at interest. The cartel makes it appear that governments are creating our money, and governments get blamed when things go wrong; but they are actually just pawns of the cartel. We the people can get back our government and our republic only by reclaiming the power to create our own money. We can use the same credit system that private banks use, but administered as a public utility, monitored and overseen by public servants on the model of libraries and courts. To be a sustainable system, profits need to be returned to the community rather than siphoned off into private coffers.
AB 750 was vetoed today by Gov. Brown. Brown does not want a Blue Ribbon Commission – he wants the Assembly and Senate Banking and Finance Committees to study the formation of a state-owned bank on their own. The veto letter says that the matter is “within the jurisdiction and competence of the Assembly and Senate Banking Committees, and we should use our existing resources.”
Our sovereign currency and credit has been usurped for private gain instead of public good. Let’s take back control of our money from Wall Street and build prosperity on Main Street by creating state, county, and municipal public banks. Public tax monies should be leveraged by public officials, not speculators and swindlers. Check out http://www.publicbankinginstitute.org for more information.
A bill to form a blue-ribbon commission to study the feasibility of a state-owned bank for California has suddenly and unexpectedly cleared both houses of the California legislature and now awaits Governor Jerry Brown’s signature. Californians need to contact the Governor and urge him to sign this, the first successful public banking initiative in nearly 100 years.
Ellen Brown • CommonDreams.org • September 15, 2011
AB 750, California’s bill to study the feasibility of establishing a state-owned bank that would receive deposits of state funds, has passed both houses of the legislature and is now on the desk of Governor Jerry Brown awaiting his signature.
www.aroundthecapitol.com/Bills/AB_750 • September 8, 2011
Assembly Bill AB 750 was passed by the Senate Appropriations Committee on September 8, 2011, with the vote 24-15, in favor, and goes to the Assembly floor for concurrence tomorrow, September 9.
In this video we highlight the research and efforts of Ellen Brown, the author of “Web of Debt” and others at the Public Banking Institute. Ellen was a guest on our radio show, In Context which is archived at our website, www.incontextreport.com. For more information on the public banking institute see their website at http://PublicBankingInstitute.org.
John Chesto • blogs.wickedlocal.com/massmarkets • July 29, 2011
A commission charged by the Legislature to study whether the state should create its own bank has summarily dismissed the concept just three months after they began discussing it. David Cotney, the state’s banking commissioner and a co-chairman of this ad hoc panel, tells me that the commission voted 12-0, with two abstentions, on Tuesday against recommending the creation of a state-owned bank in Massachusetts.
Read entire article here. The MA commission webpage is here. The MA commission REPORT (Aug. 8, 2011) is here.
Public Banking Institute • PublicBankingInstitute.org • August 2011
Take action and spread the word! Print the attached PBI tri-fold brochure on arguments for a state-owned bank! View and download the tri-fold brochure here.
New Economy Working Group • NewEconomyWorkingGroup.org • July 2011
How to Liberate America from Wall Street Rule is a report of the New Economy Working Group produced in collaboration with the New Economy Network; it is an outcome of a series of conversations focused on building a policy agenda for transforming our money system. David Korten is the lead author; participating organizations include Business Alliance for Local Living Economies, Capital Institute, Democracy Collaborative, Green America, Institute for Policy Studies, Living Economies Forum, New Economy Network, New Rules Project, Institute for Local Self-Reliance, Public Banking Institute, RSF Social Finance, and YES! Magazine.
The report calls for building a money/banking/finance system of local financial institutions that are transparent, accountable, rooted in community and dedicated to funding activities that build community wealth and meet community needs. The proposed system will look quite similar to the one that existed in the United States before the wave of financial deregulation that began in the 1960s. The How to Liberate America from Wall Street Rule report briefly traces that history, outlines its devastating consequences, and presents an agenda for corrective action to change the system rules, structure, and culture.
ALTHOUGH many of the terms peculiar to global finance are alien to us the system is easily understood when explained in layman’s terms.
Money is not created by governments but by banks; they create and lend money to governments in much the same way as they give you a credit card. The credit available maxes; finance implodes, money supply runs short, governments stop spending and you’re out of a job. Very few governments run their own banks but those that do often have successful economies; living standards are better. On the other hand privatised banking cartels have been a disaster and because their system is deeply flawed the worst is yet to come.
The majority of state and county officials in the United States are staring at serious budget problems from which there is really no escape without significant action. Rising health care costs, employee pension fund losses, and revenue shortfalls are affecting budgets at every level of government. Notably, all of these problems were caused, both directly and indirectly, by speculation in the financial and banking sectors on Wall Street. Cutting pensions, eliminating health benefits, and slashing budgets are a diversion from the source of the troubles.
Tightening our belts and straightforward budget cutting are helpful in the short term but ineffective as long term solutions. Real solutions to our financial dilemma require us to redirect the public’s investments away from speculative Wall Street banks and their too-big-too-fail counterparts.
Escaping the Web of Debt • EthicalMarkets.tv • June 15, 2011
Transforming Finance” “Escaping the Web of Debt” interview of Ellen Brown, author of “Web of Debt,” with Hazel Henderson, founder of Ethical Markets Media, LLC and the creator and co-executive Producer of its TV series.
Kelly McCartney • Shareable.net / CommonDreams.org • June 12, 2011
In the wake of the financial crisis that the U.S. is still clawing its way out of, a handful of ideas have begun to surface that might actually shore up our still-floundering economy and, potentially, avert future devastation. (No, not the eminently gutless Dodd-Frank bill.) Rather, public banks — also known as state banks or partnership banks — provide a path for the people to harness some economic power of their own in order to build a broad-based, ground-level prosperity which is rooted in their community.
Louisiana House Bill HCR144 Introduced to Study the Creation of a State-owned Bank • June 9, 2011
Sponsor: Representative Schroder
BILL NUMBER: HCR144
Banks/Banking: Requests the state treasurer and the Office of Financial Institutions
to jointly study the creation of a state-owned bank
To urge and request the state treasurer and the Office of Financial Institutions to jointly study the feasibility of creating a state-owned bank and report any findings or recommendations to the legislature prior to the start of the 2012 Regular Session of the Legislature.
WHEREAS, the banking industry is a vital component to the economy in the state of Louisiana; and
WHEREAS, the state of North Dakota has established a state-owned and state secured bank; and
WHEREAS, all state funds, as well as funds administered by state and local agencies are deposited with the Bank of North Dakota, creating a large deposit base; and
WHEREAS, in addition to paying a competitive interest rate to the state treasurer, the Bank of North Dakota also invests its money in loan programs to spur economic development within the state; and WHEREAS, the bank of North Dakota regularly turns over a portion of its profits to the state general fund; and
WHEREAS, over the past decade, the Bank of North Dakota has turned over approximately one-third of $1,000,000,000 to the state general fund; and
WHEREAS, despite the recent financial crisis, the Bank of North Dakota earned profits in 2008, with net earnings of approximately $57,000,000;
Last week, the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston (FRBB) released a report titled “The Bank of North Dakota: A Model for Massachusetts and Other States?” The report confirms that the Bank of North Dakota (BND) is a prudent, well-managed financial institution that serves in partnership with community banks as an effective economic backstop to credit contractions. The report also shows how the BND has evolved over the years to use its asset base to increasingly inject liquidity into its economy while maintaining conservative lending practices.
The report suggests, however, that forming a state-owned bank is probably not worth the effort in Massachusetts. We respectfully disagree. Below is the response of the Public Banking Institute to the report’s bulleted conclusions.
Read entire article here. Read at original source here.
Montana Legislature Introduces House Bill No. 643 Introduced to Create a State-owned Bank • 2011
Sponsor: J. Read
BILL NUMBER: House Bill No. 643
A BILL FOR AN ACT ENTITLED: “AN ACT CREATING A STATE BANK OF MONTANA AS A NEW AGENCY WITHIN STATE GOVERNMENT; PROVIDING DUTIES FOR THE STATE BANK; CREATING A STATE DEBT; EXEMPTING THE BANK PRESIDENT FROM THE STATE PAY CLASSIFICATION SYSTEM; REVISING DISTRIBUTION OF INTEREST INCOME ON COAL SEVERANCE TAX COLLECTIONS AND THE COAL SEVERANCE TAX TRUST FUND; REVISING DISTRIBUTION OF VOLUME CAP BONDS; REVISING DUTIES OF THE DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE, THE BOARD OF HOUSING, THE MONTANA FACILITY FINANCE AUTHORITY, THE GROWTH THROUGH AGRICULTURE PROGRAM, AND VARIOUS ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT PROGRAMS; PROVIDING FOR $15 MILLION IN REVENUE BONDS FOR STARTUP FINANCING; PROVIDING FOR A TRANSITION FROM GRANTS TO LOANS FOR THE TREASURE STATE ENDOWMENT FUND, THE TREASURE STATE WATER FUND, AND THE ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT FUND; PROVIDING A TRANSITION FOR THE BONDING AUTHORITY OF THE BOARD OF HOUSING AND THE MONTANA FACILITY FINANCE AUTHORITY; PROVIDING RULEMAKING AUTHORITY; PROVIDING A STATUTORY APPROPRIATION.
Louisiana House Bill HCR111 Introduced to Study the Creation of a State-owned Bank • June 7, 2010
Sponsor: M. Jackson
BILL NUMBER: HCR111
Banks/Banking: Requests the Office of Financial Institutions to study the creation of a state-owned bank
To urge and request the Office of Financial Institutions to study the feasibility of creating a state-owned bank and report any findings or recommendations to the legislature prior to the start of the 2011 Regular Session of the Legislature.
WHEREAS, the banking industry is a vital component to the economy in the state of Louisiana; and
WHEREAS, the state of North Dakota has established a state-owned and state secured bank; and
WHEREAS, additional states may also be exploring the idea of creating a state owned bank; and
WHEREAS, a state-owned bank could provide opportunities for additional revenue for the state of Louisiana.
