PBI’s Annual Public Banking Conference 2013, June 2-4, 2013, San Rafael, CA. Please join us!

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: Matt Taibbi, Public Banking Conference 2013, June 2-4, 2013, Promo code & more…

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.

A breakthrough speech on monetary policy…that governments should create money and distribute it directly to citizens.

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.

Should Banks be a Public Utility? Yes.

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.

Olafur Ragnar Grimsson Iceland President ‘Let banks go bankrupt’

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.

School districts pay dearly for bonds…A MAJOR reason for state-owned banks!

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.