Feb 17, 2015. Although Coloradans have been campaigning for public banks at the state and city levels since at least 2011, the movement has now taken off in full force. On January 31, the group Be the Change-USA sponsored a public banking conference with more than 120 attendees, moderated by Denver city officials and community …
Jan 30, 2015. In Maine, a hearing has been scheduled for next week to consider a bill creating a state public bank and authorizing counties and municipalities to create their own banks. L.D. 24, H.P. 23, An Act To Create a Public State Bank, sponsored by Diane M. Russell (D-Portland, pictured at left), will be …
Jan 29, 2015. Many people fear that secretive trade talks with corporate lobbyists may prohibit public rights to control common assets. The United States Congress is very close to granting President Obama the authority to “fast track” negotiations for the Trans-Pacific Partnership, a trade deal largely negotiated in secret that could have profound implications on …
Is the Trans-Pacific Partnership a Danger to Public Banks? Read More
Jan 28, 2015. In September 2014, a well-attended public banking conference in Santa Fe, New Mexico, which the Public Banking Institute helped to organize, ended with a call to action for the city to explore the feasibility of a public bank. Speakers at the conference included Mayor Javier Gonzales, Richard Wolff, Ellen Brown, Gwen Hallsmith, …
Jan 22, 2015. Alexis Goldstein’s excellent coverage of the culmination of Vermont’s struggle for a public bank raises a vital point about being in a movement. In Vermont, advocates didn’t get (haven’t yet gotten) the holy grail of a bonafide public bank. But the compromise they facilitated still constituted a win over big Wall Street …
Public Banking: It’s About the Movement, About the Demand Read More
Jan 21, 2015. While public banking advocates in the United States have been busy in New Mexico, Washington, Pennsylvania, Arizona, Vermont, and several other states, activists north of the border are doing their work as well. This Saturday, they will hold a free public seminar in Toronto to discuss money, economic justice, and the public bank …
Toronto to Host Public Banking Seminar at City Hall Saturday, January 24 Read More
Jan 20, 2015. By Ellen Brown Greece and the troika (the International Monetary Fund, the EU, and the European Central Bank) are in a dangerous game of chicken. The Greeks have been threatened with a “Cyprus-Style prolonged bank holiday” if they “vote wrong.” But they have been bullied for too long and are saying “no …
Dec 13, 2014. The elephant in the room is almost always an economic elephant. The unrest in Ferguson, Missouri following both the shooting of Michael Brown and the failure of a grand jury to indict the police officer who shot him was, in a large part, contextualized by Ferguson’s model of city financing. Now it …
Ferguson, Alienation, and City Budgets: Fleece the Poor, or Democratize Finance? Read More
Dec 10, 2014. As a direct result of Wall Street mismanagement and federal complacency, communities have lost the ability to finance local, sustainable growth and public services. This is a direct threat to democracy, because the chief conduit of democracy in American society is the ability of cities and towns to facilitate public participation, health, …
Nov 25, 2014. 31 year-old Amara Enyia holds a J.D. and PhD, has served as a lawyer, a public policy fellow in the Chicago city government, a municipal development consultant, and is currently executive director of the Austin Chamber of Commerce on Chicago’s West Side. And she’s not only a supporter of public banking, but …
Chicago Mayoral Candidate Amara Enyia Calls for Public Bank Read More
Nov 20, 2014. Public banks are, above all, tools of local control. The Bank of North Dakota allows that state to bypass Wall Street and finance local and state-wide projects without fear of paying exploitative interest rates, or of losing those interest payments to outside shareholders who wouldn’t re-invest them in local endeavors. Local media …
