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Ellen Brown is an attorney, founder of the Public Banking Institute, and author of twelve books including the best-selling WEB OF DEBT. In THE PUBLIC BANK SOLUTION, her latest book, she explores successful public banking models historically and globally. Her websites are http://EllenBrown.com, http://PublicBankSolution.com, and http://PublicBankingInstitute.org.
(35 comments) SHARE Thursday, September 18, 2008 It's the Derivatives, Stupid! Why Fannie, Freddie and AIG Had to Be Bailed Out
Why the extraordinary bailouts of Fannie, Freddie and AIG? The answer has less to do with the insurance business, housing, or foreign investors than with the greatest Ponzi scheme in history, one that is holding up the private global banking system. What had to be prevented at all costs was an "event of default" that could have collapsed a quadrillion dollar derivatives bubble, taking the global banking system down with it.
(26 comments) SHARE Thursday, January 22, 2009 Mysterious Prison Buses in the Desert
Prison buses are driving around empty in the Tucson area. Are Wackenhut and the DHS preparing for civil unrest?
(59 comments) SHARE Thursday, April 14, 2011 Libya: All About Oil, or All About Central Banking?
If the Gaddafi government goes down, it will be interesting to watch whether the new central bank joins the BIS, whether the nationalized oil industry gets sold off to investors, and whether education and health care continue to be free.
(109 comments) SHARE Monday, December 29, 2008 Borrowing from Peter to Pay Paul: The Wall Street Ponzi Scheme Called Fractional Reserve Banking
Bernie Madoff showed us how it was done, but his Ponzi scheme was small compared to one that has been perpetrated for hundreds of years by the banking system itself. What distinguishes the legal scheme known as "fractional reserve" lending from the illegal schemes of Madoff and his ilk is that the bankers' scheme is protected by government charter and backstopped with government funds.
(27 comments) SHARE Sunday, November 30, 2008 "Oops, We Meant $7 TRILLION!" What Hank and Ben Are Up to and How They Plan to Pay for It All
The $700 billion that was arm-twisted from Congress in October was just the camel's nose under the tent. The Paulson/Bernanke team is now prepared to pay $7.76 trillion to rescue the financial system. Prepared to pay how? Congress has not raised its debt ceiling to that level, and the Fed doesn't have the funds on its books . . .
(10 comments) SHARE Thursday, May 21, 2009 The Weimar Hyperinflation: Time to get out the wheelbarrows?
Worried commentators are predicting a massive hyperinflation of the sort suffered by Weimar Germany in 1923, but there is something puzzling in the data. The British government is already funding more of its budget by merely printing money than Weimar Germany did at the height of its hyperinflation, yet the pound is holding its own. Something else must have been going on in Weimar Germany . . . .
(41 comments) SHARE Sunday, March 13, 2016 Exposing the Libyan Agenda: A Closer Look at Hillary's Emails
Critics have long questioned why violent intervention was necessary in Libya. Hillary Clinton's recently published emails confirm that it was less about protecting the people from a dictator than about money, banking, and preventing African economic sovereignty.
(28 comments) SHARE Wednesday, December 30, 2015 A Crisis Worse than ISIS? Bail-Ins Begin
While the mainstream media focus on ISIS extremists, a threat that has gone virtually unreported is that your life savings could be wiped out in a massive derivatives collapse. Bank bail-ins have begun in Europe, and the infrastructure is in place in the US.
(15 comments) SHARE Friday, August 19, 2011 S&P and the Bilderbergers: All Part of the Plan?
The volatility in the market is unprecedented. Many economists have been pointing out that the panic after the S&P downgrade resembled the fear that swept financial markets after the collapse of Lehman Brothers in September 2008. But on Tuesday, August 9, the market gained more points from its low than it lost on Monday. Why? A tug of war seemed to be going on between two titanic forces . . . .
(6 comments) SHARE Wednesday, October 8, 2008 THE FED NOW OWNS THE WORLD'S LARGEST INSURANCE COMPANY -- BUT WHO OWNS THE FED?
The Federal Reserve has assumed sweeping new powers in the last year. These increasingly controversial encroachments on the public purse warrant a closer look at the central banking scheme itself. Who owns the Federal Reserve, who actually controls it, where does it get its money, and whose interests is it serving?
(15 comments) SHARE Saturday, May 19, 2012 The Revolution Will Not Be Televised: Quiet Drama in Philadelphia
Last week, the city of Philadelphia's school system announced that it expects to close 40 public schools next year, and 64 schools by 2017. The school district expects to lose 40% of its current enrollment, and thousands of experienced, qualified teachers.
But corporate media in other cities made no mention of these massive school closings -- nor of those in Chicago, Atlanta, or New York City.
(40 comments) SHARE Saturday, November 12, 2011 Time for an Economic Bill of Rights
Henry Ford said, "It is well enough that the people of the nation do not understand our banking and monetary system, for if they did, I believe there would be a revolution before tomorrow morning." We are beginning to understand, and Occupy Wall Street looks like the beginning of the revolution.
(27 comments) SHARE Tuesday, December 2, 2014 New G20 Rules: Cyprus-style Bail-ins to Hit Depositors AND Pensioners
On the weekend of November 16th, the G20 leaders whisked into Brisbane and whisked out again. It was all so fast, they may not have known what they were endorsing when they rubber-stamped the Financial Stability Board's latest dictat, which completely changes the rules of banking. Not only public and private depositors' funds, but also pension funds--via "bail-inable bonds"--are now targeted for confiscation.
(8 comments) SHARE Saturday, October 25, 2008 The not-so-invisible hand: How the plunge protection team killed the free market
October 24 marks the 79th anniversary of the October 1929 stock market crash. Many feared a repeat of this disaster on Friday, October 24, 2008; but remarkably, disaster was averted. How? Suspicious observers saw the hand of the Plunge Protection Team pulling strings behind the scenes . . .
(8 comments) SHARE Thursday, August 14, 2008 WAG THE DOG: HOW TO CONCEAL MASSIVE ECONOMIC COLLAPSE
The dollar and the Dow are up, gold and oil are down, when all economic indicators point the other way. What's going on? Manipulation . . .
(20 comments) SHARE Saturday, July 16, 2011 Why Banks Aren't Lending: The Silent Liquidity Squeeze
Details about the excess reserves of Federal Reserve Banks. Explains what factors seem to be causing a constriction of credit in spite there being excess reserves. Contrasts what is not working in FED policy with what is working with the Banking sector of North Dakota
(65 comments) SHARE Sunday, July 31, 2011 Forget Compromise: The Debt Ceiling Is Unconstitutional
The debt ceiling crisis can be averted by enforcing the Fourteenth Amendment, which mandates the government to pay its debts already incurred, including pensions. That means Social Security, which IS an "entitlement," in the original sense of the word. We're entitled to it because we've paid for it with taxes.
(17 comments) SHARE Monday, November 3, 2008 All Is Well in Stepfordville: More on the Pre-election Chicanery of the Plunge Protection Team
It was another surreal week on Wall Street, with the Dow Jones Industrial Average rising a thousand points while the economy continued to sink into its worst financial crisis since the Great Depression. More evidence of the Plunge Protection Team at work? The election was only days away . . .
(13 comments) SHARE Monday, October 27, 2014 Why Do Banks Want Our Deposits? Hint: It's Not to Make Loans.
Many authorities have said it: banks do not lend their deposits. They create the money they lend on their books. Which leaves us to wonder: If banks do not lend their depositors' money, why are they always scrambling to get it? Banks advertise to attract depositors, and they pay interest on the funds. What good are our deposits to the bank?
(31 comments) SHARE Sunday, August 7, 2011 The Market Has Spoken: Austerity Is Bad for Business
It used to be that when the Fed Chairman spoke, the market listened; but the Chairman has lost his mystique. Now when the market speaks, politicians listen. Hopefully they heard what the market just said: government cutbacks are bad for business. The government needs to spend more, not less. Fortunately, there are viable ways to do this while still balancing the budget.
(12 comments) SHARE Saturday, November 6, 2010 FORECLOSUREGATE COULD FORCE BANK NATIONALIZATION
For two years, politicians have danced around the nationalization issue, but ForeclosureGate may be the last straw. The megabanks are too big to fail, but they aren't too big to reorganize as federal institutions serving the public interest.
(8 comments) SHARE Monday, March 2, 2009 Cash-starved States Need to Play the Banking Game: North Dakota Shows How
Forty-six of fifty states are insolvent and could be filing Chapter 9 bankruptcy proceedings in the next two years. One of the four states that is not insolvent is an unlikely candidate for the distinction – North Dakota. What does the State of North Dakota have that other states don't? The answer seems to be: its own bank.
(24 comments) SHARE Sunday, July 3, 2016 Brexit and the Derivatives Time Bomb
Brexit could trigger a $500 trillion derivatives meltdown, by forcing the EU to allow insolvent member governments and banks to write down debt. Italy is in financial crisis and is already petitioning for that concession. How to avoid collapse of the massive derivatives house of cards? Alternatives are considered.
(8 comments) SHARE Monday, September 7, 2009 Economic 9-11: Did Lehman Brothers Fall or Was It Pushed?
The disastrous collapse of Lehman Brothers on 9-11-08 was the catalyst that changed the rules of the game for the big Wall Street financial players. The banks would henceforth be bailed out by the taxpayers, no matter what the cost. Was the Lehman bankruptcy the result of "market forces" or was it engineered? If the bank was pushed over the brink by invisible hands, whose hands were they and what goal was being served?
(16 comments) SHARE Saturday, October 9, 2010 FORECLOSUREGATE
By most reports, it would appear that the voluntary suspension of foreclosures is underway to review simple, careless procedural errors. Errors which the conscientious banks are hastening to correct. Even Gretchen Morgenson in the New York Times characterizes the problem as "flawed paperwork." But those errors go far deeper than mere sloppiness. They are concealing a massive fraud.
(25 comments) SHARE Saturday, February 21, 2009 Monetize This! A better way to fund the stimulus package
Funding the government's budget shortfall has usually been left to private lenders; but those loans are drying up, and servicing them is proving expensive. Both this interest burden and the need to continually attract new lenders could be avoided by tapping into the government's credit line at its own central bank . . . .
(31 comments) SHARE Saturday, March 28, 2009 Thinking Positively: How "Quantitative Easing" May Be Harnessed for the Public Good
Nervous pundits are predicting the end of American life as we know it, after Fed Chairman Bernanke announced that he would be dropping ANOTHER trillion dollars in helicopter money. But cautions aside, its new "quantitative easing" policy at least has the potential to serve the government and the people it represents.
(1 comments) SHARE Friday, June 18, 2010 DEFICIT TERRORISTS STRIKE IN BRITAIN -- USA NEXT?
Last week, Britain's new government said it would abandon the previous government's stimulus program and introduce the austerity measures required to pay down its estimated $1 trillion in debts. That means cutting public spending, laying off workers, reducing consumption, and increasing unemployment and bankruptcies. It also means shrinking the money supply, since virtually all "money" today originates as loans or debt.
(21 comments) SHARE Wednesday, May 20, 2015 Derailing Amtrak: Tracking the Latest Disaster in the Infrastructure Crisis
The dangerous underfunding of US infrastructure was underscored by a fatal train derailment on May 12th. The tragedy did not deter the House Appropriations Committee from voting to slash Amtrak funding the very next day. There are ways Congress could fund its massive infrastructure bill without raising taxes. But the conservative-controlled Congress seems to have other plans for the nation's profitable public assets.
(11 comments) SHARE Thursday, July 9, 2015 "Guerrilla Warfare Against a Hegemonic Power": The Challenge and Promise of Greece
Banks create money when they make loans. Greece could restore the liquidity desperately needed by its banks and its economy by nationalizing the banks and issuing digital loans backed by government guarantees to its ailing businesses. Greece could provide an inspiring model of sustainable prosperity for the world. But it is being strangled by a hegemonic power in a financial war that is being waged against us all.
(21 comments) SHARE Saturday, May 14, 2016 "Print the Money": Trump's "Reckless" Proposal Echoes Franklin and Lincoln
"Print the money" has been called crazy talk, but it may be the only sane solution to a $19 trillion federal debt that has doubled in the last 10 years. The solution of Abraham Lincoln and the American colonists can still work today.
(22 comments) SHARE Friday, August 20, 2010 HOMEOWNERS' REBELLION: COULD 62 MILLION HOMES BE FORECLOSURE-PROOF?
Over 62 million mortgages are now held in the name of MERS, an electronic recording system. A California bankruptcy court, following landmark cases in other jurisdictions, recently held that this electronic shortcut makes it impossible for banks to establish their ownership of property titles--and therefore to foreclose on mortgaged properties. The result could be 62 million homes that are foreclosure-proof.
(8 comments) SHARE Thursday, January 26, 2012 America's Shadow Banking System, A Web of Financial Fraud
The Wall Street Journal reported on January 19th that the Obama Administration was pushing heavily to get the 50 state attorneys general to agree to a settlement with five major banks in the "robo-signing" scandal. The scandal involves employees signing names not their own, under titles they did not really have, attesting to the veracity of documents they had not really reviewed. Investigation reveals that it did not just ha
(15 comments) SHARE Wednesday, November 27, 2013 Monsanto, the TPP, and Global Food Dominance
Global food control has nearly been achieved, by reducing seed diversity with GMO (genetically modified) seeds that are distributed by only a few transnational corporations. But this agenda has been implemented at grave cost to our health; and if the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) passes, control over not just our food but our health, our environment and our financial system will be in the hands of transnational corporations.
(18 comments) SHARE Saturday, July 9, 2016 Monsanto, Bayer, and the Push for Corporate Cannabis
California's "Adult Use of Marijuana Act" (AUMA) is a voter initiative characterized as legalizing marijuana use. But critics warn that it will actually make access more difficult and expensive, squeeze home growers and small farmers out of the market, heighten criminal sanctions for violations, and open the door to patented, genetically modified (GMO) versions that must be purchased year after year.
(14 comments) SHARE Tuesday, June 7, 2011 THE GLOBAL DEBT CRISIS: HOW WE GOT IN IT AND HOW TO GET OUT
Contrary to popular belief, particularly amid the continuing financial crisis, most of our money today is not created by governments. It is created by private banks as loans. There are more sustainable ways to run a banking and credit system. It merely requires taxpayers to take back their money - and their power - from private banks.
(17 comments) SHARE Thursday, August 6, 2009 The Public Option In Banking: How We Can Beat Wall Street At Its Own Game
President Obama has repeated his call for a public option in health care, in order to create some competition for the insurance companies and keep them honest. We the people need to call for a public option in banking, in order to create some competition for the private banks and keep them honest.
(37 comments) SHARE Tuesday, October 8, 2013 Is Homeland Security Preparing for the Next Wall Street Collapse?
Reports are that the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is engaged in a massive, covert military buildup. Evidently somebody in government is expecting some serious civil unrest. The question is, why?
(10 comments) SHARE Wednesday, September 18, 2013 The Armageddon Looting Machine: The Looming Mass Destruction from Derivatives
Increased regulation and low interest rates are driving lending from the regulated commercial banking system into the unregulated shadow banking system. The shadow banks are propped up by a hidden government guarantee in the form of safe harbor status under the 2005 Bankruptcy Reform Act. The result is to create perverse incentives for the financial system to self-destruct.
(11 comments) SHARE Saturday, October 30, 2010 Time For A New Theory Of Money
By understanding that money is simply credit, we unleash it as a powerful tool for our communities.
(10 comments) SHARE Tuesday, February 21, 2012 How Greece Could Take Down Wall Street
The Houses of Morgan, Goldman and the other Big Five are justifiably worried right now, because an "event of default" declared on European sovereign debt could jeopardize their $32 trillion derivatives scheme.
(14 comments) SHARE Friday, December 19, 2008 GROUND ZERO ON WALL STREET: FED FUNDS AND T-BILLS HIT 0% INTEREST
The federal funds rate and the interest on 3-month Treasury bills both just hit ZERO percent. This means banks and the government are borrowing money for free. Yet demand for the T-bills was four times the available supply! Who is clamoring to buy the debt of the world's most insolvent debtor for no return at all, and why?
(18 comments) SHARE Saturday, December 20, 2014 Russian Roulette: Taxpayers Could Be on the Hook for Trillions in Oil Derivatives
The sudden dramatic collapse in the price of oil appears to be an act of geopolitical warfare against Russia. The result could be trillions of dollars in oil derivative losses; and the FDIC could be liable, following repeal of key portions of the Dodd-Frank Act last weekend. Whatever happened behind closed doors, we the people could again be stuck with the tab.
(19 comments) SHARE Saturday, July 21, 2012 Titanic Banks Hit LIBOR Iceberg: Will Lawsuits Sink the Ship?
At one time, calling the large multinational banks a "cartel" branded you as a conspiracy theorist. Today the banking giants are being called that and worse, not just in the major media but in court documents intended to prove the allegations as facts.
(2 comments) SHARE Friday, March 9, 2012 Public Sector Banks: From Black Sheep to Global Leaders
Public sector banking is a concept that is relatively unknown in the United States. Only one state--North Dakota--owns its own bank. North Dakota is also the only state to escape the credit crisis of 2008, sporting a budget surplus every year since; but skeptics write this off to coincidence or other factors. To determine whether government-owned banks are assets or liabilities, then, we need to look farther afield.
(17 comments) SHARE Tuesday, April 7, 2015 How America Became an Oligarchy
According to a new study from Princeton University, American democracy no longer exists. Rich, well-connected individuals now steer the direction of the country, regardless of -- or even against -- the will of the majority of voters. America's political system has transformed from a democracy into an oligarchy, where power is wielded by wealthy elites. How did this happen, and how can we take back our power?
(14 comments) SHARE Saturday, February 21, 2015 Swimming with the Sharks: Goldman Sachs, Schools, and Capital Appreciation Bonds
Remember when Goldman Sachs -- dubbed by Matt Taibbi the Vampire Squid-- sold derivatives to Greece so the government could conceal its debt, then bet against that debt, driving it up? It seems that the ubiquitous investment bank has also put the squeeze on California and its school districts.
(18 comments) SHARE Friday, December 9, 2011 Pulling Back the Curtain on the Wall Street Money Machine
On November 27, Bloomberg News reported the results of its successful case to force the Federal Reserve to reveal the lending details of its 2008-09 bank bailout. Bloomberg reported that by March 2009, the Fed had committed $7.77 trillion in below-market loans and guarantees to rescuing the financial system; and that these nearly interest-free loans came without strings attached.
(11 comments) SHARE Thursday, April 9, 2009 Revive Lincoln's Monetary Policy: An open letter to President Obama
The world was transfixed on that remarkable day in January when you gazed upon Abraham Lincoln's likeness at the Lincoln Memorial and searched for wisdom to navigate these difficult times. But you may not be aware of another form of slavery from which Lincoln tried to free his countrymen, one we are still battling today . . .
(13 comments) SHARE Thursday, June 18, 2009 The Retreat of the Shadow Lenders: Why Deflation and Not Inflation Is the Order of the Day
While contrarians are screaming "hyperinflation!", the money supply is actually shrinking. This is because most money today comes into existence as bank loans, and lending has shrunk substantially. That means the Fed needs to "monetize" debt just to fill the breach.
(18 comments) SHARE Friday, March 29, 2013 It Can Happen Here: The Confiscation Scheme Planned for US and UK Depositors
The government's debt is at least arguably the people's debt, since the government is there to provide services for the people. But when the banks get into trouble with their derivative schemes, they are not serving depositors, who are not getting a cut of the profits. Taking depositor funds is simply theft.
(40 comments) SHARE Friday, November 9, 2012 It's the Interest, Stupid! Why Bankers Rule the World
In the 2012 edition of Occupy Money released last week, Professor Margrit Kennedy writes that a stunning 35% to 40% of everything we buy goes to interest. This interest goes to bankers, financiers, and bondholders, who take a 35% to 40% cut of our GDP. That helps explain how wealth is systematically transferred from Main Street to Wall Street.
(8 comments) SHARE Wednesday, February 28, 2018 Funding Infrastructure: Why China Is Running Circles Around America
While American politicians argue endlessly about where to find the money, China has been forging full steam ahead with its mega-projects. Where do the banks get the money? Basically, they print it. Not directly. Not obviously. But as the Bank of England has acknowledged, banks do not merely recycle existing deposits but actually create the money they lend by writing it into their borrowers' deposit accounts...
(5 comments) SHARE Monday, September 19, 2016 Central Bank Digital Currencies: A Revolution in Banking?
Several central banks, including the Bank of England, the People's Bank of China, the Bank of Canada and the Federal Reserve, are exploring the concept of issuing their own digital currencies, using the blockchain technology developed for Bitcoin.Central Bank Digital Currencies could supplant the money now created by private banks through "fractional reserve" lending.
(7 comments) SHARE Wednesday, April 10, 2013 Winner Takes All: The Super-priority Status of Derivatives
Cyprus-style confiscation of depositor funds has been called the "new normal." Bail-in policies are appearing in multiple countries directing failing TBTF banks to convert the funds of "unsecured creditors" into capital, including depositors. Even state and local governments deposits may be at risk. Derivatives have "super-priority" status in bankruptcy,and Dodd Frank precludes further taxpayer bailouts.
(8 comments) SHARE Monday, January 24, 2011 WASHINGTON STATE JOINS MOVEMENT FOR PUBLIC BANKING
Bills were introduced on January 18 in both the House and Senate of the Washington State Legislature that add Washington to the growing number of states now actively moving to create public banking facilities.
(13 comments) SHARE Wednesday, January 7, 2015 EU Showdown: Greece Takes on the Vampire Squid
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 more."
(33 comments) SHARE Thursday, October 5, 2017 How to Fund a Universal Basic Income Without Increasing Taxes or Inflation
The policy of guaranteeing every citizen a universal basic income is gaining support around the world, as automation increasingly makes jobs obsolete. But can it be funded without raising taxes or triggering hyperinflation? In a panel I was on at the NexusEarth cryptocurrency conference in Aspen September 21-23rd, most participants said no. This is my rebuttal.
(30 comments) SHARE Saturday, March 23, 2013 The Battle of Cyprus: The Long-planned Deposit Confiscation Scheme
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."
(7 comments) SHARE Saturday, December 13, 2014 The Global Bankers' Coup: Bail-In and the Shadowy Financial Stability Board
On December 11,the US House passed a bill repealing the Dodd-Frank requirement that risky derivatives be pushed into big-bank subsidiaries, leaving our deposits and pensions exposed to massive derivatives losses. The recent drop in the price of oil could trigger a derivatives payout that could bankrupt the biggest banks. And if the G20's new "bail-in" rules are formalized, depositors and pensioners could be on the hook.
(32 comments) SHARE Saturday, January 10, 2009 Credit Where Credit Is Due: The Direct Approach to Fixing the Credit Crisis
Last fall, Congress committed an unprecedented $700 billion in taxpayer money to reversing the credit crisis, and the Federal Reserve has already fanned that into $8.5 trillion in loans and commitments. But the bank bailout has proven to be no more than a boondoggle for a handful of lucky Wall Street banks, without getting credit flowing again. What went wrong and what WILL get credit flowing again? . . .
(5 comments) SHARE Sunday, January 15, 2012 Occupy the Neighborhood: How Counties Can Use Land Banks and Eminent Domain
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.
(33 comments) SHARE Saturday, May 8, 2010 STOCK MARKET COLLAPSE: MORE GOLDMAN MARKET RIGGING?
Goldman and Wall Street reign. Congress appears helpless to discipline the big banks, just as the European Central Bank appears helpless to prevent the collapse of the European Union. . . . Or are they?
(18 comments) SHARE Friday, October 14, 2011 THE PUBLIC OPTION IN BANKING: ANOTHER LOOK AT THE GERMAN MODEL
Publicly-owned banks were instrumental in funding Germany's "economic miracle" after the devastation of World War II. Although the German public banks have been targeted in the last decade for takedown by their private competitors, the model remains a viable alternative to the private profiteering being protested on Wall Street today.
(7 comments) SHARE Sunday, February 28, 2010 Attack of the GMOs: GMO Alfalfa Will Make Organic Dairy Impossible
The USDA and Secretary Vilsack, in collaboration with Monsanto, are about to lift a court-ordered ban on Monsanto's genetically modified (GM) "Roundup Ready" alfalfa. This GMO would have disastrous effects on US and global agriculture. Genetically engineered alfalfa would be the first perennial GM crop, and would result in a huge increase of toxic RoundUp in the environment.
(8 comments) SHARE Wednesday, December 23, 2009 Compulsory Private Health Insurance: Just Another Bailout for the Financial Sector?
Rather than making health care affordable, the current bills focus on how to force people either to buy health insurance if they don't have it, or to pay more for it if they do. The bills are another bailout for the financial sector at the expense of the squeezed middle class.
(14 comments) SHARE Monday, July 30, 2018 Trump Takes on the Fed
The president has criticized Federal Reserve policy for undermining his attempts to build the economy. The best way to make the central bank serve the needs of the economy is to make it a public utility.
(30 comments) SHARE Saturday, June 21, 2014 Buying Up the Planet: Out-of-control Central Banks on a Corporate Buying Spree
When the US Federal Reserve bought an 80% stake in American International Group in September 2008, the unprecedented $85 billion outlay was justified as necessary to bail out the world's largest insurance company. Today, however, central banks are on a global corporate buying spree not to bail out bankrupt corporations but simply as an investment, to compensate for the loss of bond income due to record-low interest rates.
(33 comments) SHARE Tuesday, June 23, 2009 BIG BROTHER IN BASEL: BIS FINANCIAL STABILITY BOARD UNDERMINES NATIONAL SOVEREIGNTY
The Report on Financial Regulatory Reform issued on June 17 includes a recommendation that the Financial Stability Board strengthen and institutionalize its mandate. The new global Big Brother is based in Switzerland in the Bank for International Settlements, a controversial institution that raises red flags among the wary . . .
(20 comments) SHARE Saturday, December 12, 2015 Reinventing Banking: From Russia to Iceland to Ecuador
Global developments in finance and geopolitics are prompting a rethinking of the structure of banking and of the nature of money itself. Among other interesting developments are those in Russia, Iceland, Ireland, the UK and Ecuador.
(8 comments) SHARE Thursday, July 23, 2009 How California Could Turn Its IOUs into Dollars
California has over $17 billion on deposit in banks that have refused to honor its IOUs, forcing legislators to accept crippling budget cuts. These austerity measures are unnecessary. If the state were to deposit its money in its own state-owned bank, it could have enough credit to solve its budget crisis with funds to spare.
(24 comments) SHARE Wednesday, March 25, 2015 California Water Wars: Another Form of Asset Stripping?
In California's epic drought, wars over water rights continue, while innovative alternatives for increasing the available water supply go untapped.
(36 comments) SHARE Sunday, July 27, 2014 You Can't Taper a Ponzi Scheme: Time to Reboot
As Max Keiser observes, "You can't taper a Ponzi scheme." You can only turn off the tap and let it collapse, or watch the parasite consume its food source and perish of its own accord.
The question being hotly debated in the blogosphere is, "What then?" Will economies collapse globally? Will life as we know it be a thing of the past?
(1 comments) SHARE Saturday, September 3, 2011 North Dakota's Economic "Miracle"-- It's Not Oil
Many states have oil, but North Dakota has something no other states have -- its own state-owned bank. States that deposit their revenues and invest their capital in large Wall Street banks are giving this economic opportunity away.
(37 comments) SHARE Sunday, June 21, 2015 "Sentence First, Verdict Afterwards": The Alice in Wonderland World of Fast-tracked Secret Trade Agreements
Fast-track authority is being sought in the Senate this week for the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), along with the Trade in Services Agreement (TiSA). The terms of the TPP and the TiSA are so secret that drafts of the negotiations are to remain classified for four years or five years. How can laws be enforced against people and governments who are not allowed to know what was negotiated?
SHARE Tuesday, September 6, 2022 How to green our parched farmlands and finance critical infrastructure
America achieved it's greatest ever infrastructure campaign in the midst of the Great Depression. We can do that again today and we can do it with the same machinery: off-budget financing through a government-owned national financial institution.
(17 comments) SHARE Monday, July 7, 2014 The Looming Foreclosure Crisis: As the Fed Runs Out of Bullets, Local Governments Are Stepping In
Mortgage debt overhang from the housing bust has meant lack of middle-class spending power and consumer demand, preventing the economy from growing. The problem might be fixed by a new approach from the Fed. But if the Fed won't act, counties will, as seen in the latest developments on eminent domain and litigation over MERS.
(7 comments) SHARE Thursday, August 23, 2012 Fixing the Mortgage Mess: The Game-changing Implications of Bain v. MERS
San Bernardino and other counties are drowning in debt from a crisis created when Wall Street's real estate securitization bubble burst. By using eminent domain, they can clean up the destruction of their land title records and 400 years of real property law. And by setting up their own banks, counties and other municipalities can use their own capital and revenues to generate credit for local purposes.
(18 comments) SHARE Friday, January 31, 2014 Enough Is Enough: Banksters Are Not Our Only Option
Mega-banks might be too big to fail. According to U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder, they might even be too big to prosecute. But they are not too big to abandon as depositories for government funds.
(12 comments) SHARE Thursday, April 10, 2008 Credit Default Swaps: Derivative Disaster Du Jour
When the smartest guys in the room designed their credit default swaps, they forgot to ask one thing – what if the parties on the other side of the bet don't have the money to pay up? . . .
(26 comments) SHARE Wednesday, December 27, 2017 Student Debt Slavery: Bankrolling Financiers on the Backs of the Young
Graduates leave college with a diploma and a massive debt on their backs, averaging more than $37,000 in 2016. The government's student loan portfolio now totals $1.37 trillion, making it the second highest consumer debt category, behind only mortgage debt. Student debt has risen nearly 164 percent in 25 years, while median wages have increased only 1.6 percent.
(9 comments) SHARE Tuesday, December 1, 2009 Lessons from the Japanese: Time to Stop Borrowing Money and Start Printing It
Japan may be the canary in the coal mine for the out-of-control deficit spending policies of the U.S. government. Japan is in a serious deflationary crisis because it borrowed money from banks that printed it rather than printing its own.
(6 comments) SHARE Friday, December 16, 2011 The Way to Occupy a Bank is to Own One
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.
(35 comments) SHARE Saturday, October 22, 2011 Qe4: Forgive Student Debt
Among the demands of the Wall Street protesters is student debt forgiveness--a debt "jubilee." Occupy Philly has a "Student Loan Jubilee Working Group," and other groups are studying the issue. Commentators say debt forgiveness is impossible. Who would foot the bill? But there is one deep pocket that could pull it off--the Federal Reserve. . . . I
(13 comments) SHARE Wednesday, April 27, 2011 CHENEY WAS RIGHT ABOUT ONE THING: DEFICITS DON'T MATTER
"Deficit terrorists" are gutting governments and forcing the privatization of public assets, all in the name of "deficit reduction." But deficits aren't actually a bad thing. In today's monetary scheme, in which most money comes from debt, debt and deficits are actually necessary to have a stable money supply. The public debt is the people's money.
(13 comments) SHARE Thursday, November 20, 2014 WSJ Reports: Bank of North Dakota Outperforms Wall Street
While 49 state treasuries were submerged in red ink after the 2008 financial crash, one state's bank outperformed all others and actually launched an economy-shifting new industry. So reports the Wall Street Journal this week, discussing the Bank of North Dakota (BND) and its striking success in the midst of a national financial collapse led by the major banks.
(10 comments) SHARE Saturday, February 15, 2014 Usurious Returns on Phantom Money: The Credit Card Gravy Train
The credit card business is now the most lucrative part of the banking industry, and it's not just from the interest. It's the hidden fees. Even when the balance is paid on time every month, credit card use imposes a huge hidden cost on users--hidden because the cost is deducted from what the merchant receives, then passed on to you in the form of higher prices. Public banks could return the profits to the people.
(7 comments) SHARE Friday, September 16, 2011 California Legislature Passes Bill to Study State-owned Bank
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. It could be the governor's chance to restore the state to its former glory. . . .
(66 comments) SHARE Wednesday, August 3, 2016 Can Jill Carry Bernie's Baton? A Look at the Green Candidate's Radical Funding Solution
Bernie Sanders supporters are flocking to Jill Stein, with donations to her campaign exploding nearly 1000% after he endorsed Hillary Clinton. Stein salutes Sanders for the progressive populist movement he began and says it is up to her to carry the baton. Can she do it? Critics say her radical policies will not hold up to scrutiny. But supporters say they are just the medicine the economy needs.
(12 comments) SHARE Sunday, September 11, 2011 War--The Fiscal Stimulus of Last Resort
Protesters have been trying to stop the military juggernaut ever since the end of World War II, yet the war machine is more powerful and influential than ever. Why? The veiled powers pulling the strings no doubt have their own dark agenda, but why has our much-trumpeted system of political democracy not been able to stop them?
The answer may involve our individualistic, laissez-faire brand of capitalism . . . .
(11 comments) SHARE Monday, April 14, 2014 The Global Banking Game Is Rigged, and the FDIC Is Suing
Taxpayers are paying billions of dollars for a swindle pulled off by the world's biggest banks, using a form of derivative called interest-rate swaps; and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation has now joined a chorus of litigants suing over it. . . It is not just that local governments, universities and pension funds made a bad bet on these swaps. The game itself was rigged, as explained below.
(4 comments) SHARE Thursday, December 17, 2009 EU/IMF Revolt: Greece, Iceland, Latvia May Lead the Way
Europe's small, debt-strapped countries could follow the lead of Argentina and simply walk away from their debts. That would shift the burden to the creditor countries, which could solve the problem merely by a change in accounting rules.
(5 comments) SHARE Saturday, November 20, 2010 WHAT'S REALLY BEHIND QE2?
The deficit hawks are circling, hovering over QE2, calling it just another inflationary bank bailout. But unlike QE1, QE2 is not about saving the banks. It's about funding the federal deficit without increasing the interest tab, something that may be necessary in this gridlocked political climate just to keep the government functioning.
(10 comments) SHARE Tuesday, August 27, 2013 The Leveraged Buyout of America
Giant bank holding companies now own airports, toll roads, and ports; control power plants; and store and hoard vast quantities of commodities of all sorts. They are systematically buying up or gaining control of the essential lifelines of the economy. How have they pulled this off, and where have they gotten the money?
(4 comments) SHARE Tuesday, March 4, 2014 The Stone that Brings Down Goliath? Richmond and Eminent Domain
Richmond, California, has gone where no city dared go before, threatening to take underwater mortgages by eminent domain and renegotiate them on behalf of beleaguered homeowners. Grassroots efforts to pursue eminent domain are also underway in a number of other cities around the country. If Richmond pulls it off successfully, others will rush to follow. The result s could be costly for some very large banks.
(40 comments) SHARE Saturday, January 19, 2013 The Trillion Dollar Coin: Joke or Game Changer?
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. Today, all that is left of the US Treasury's money-creating power is the ability to mint coins.
(18 comments) SHARE Thursday, July 5, 2018 A Public Bank for Los Angeles? City Council Puts It to the Voters
Voters in Los Angeles will be the first in the country to weigh in on a public banking mandate, after the City Council agreed on June 29th to put a measure on the November ballot that would allow the city to form its own bank.
(15 comments) SHARE Thursday, July 17, 2014 Did the Other Shoe Just Drop? Big Banks Hit with Monster $250 Billion Lawsuit in Housing Crisis
For years, homeowners have been battling Wall Street in an attempt to recover some portion of their massive losses from the housing Ponzi scheme. But progress has been slow. Now the banks may have met their match. Investors led by BlackRock, the world's largest asset manager, and PIMCO, the world's largest bond-fund manager, have sued some of the world's largest banks for breach of fiduciary duty.
(3 comments) SHARE Saturday, October 14, 2017 How to Wipe Out Puerto Rico's Debt Without Hurting Bondholders
During his visit to hurricane-stricken Puerto Rico, President Donald Trump shocked the bond market when he told Geraldo Rivera of Fox News that he was going to wipe out the island's bond debt. How did he plan to pull this off? Here's one possibility.
(5 comments) SHARE Saturday, August 29, 2009 THE MERCURY MISCHIEF: As Obama Warns of Hazards, the FDA Approves Mercury Dental Fillings
The government seems to be speaking out of both sides of its mouth, as the President preaches one thing and the FDA does another. If we are going to have “smarter medicine that really works,†we need to get politics, lobbies and cronyism out of science.
(36 comments) SHARE Saturday, August 22, 2020 From Lockdown to Police State: The "Great Reset" Rolls Out
All this is such a radical curtailment of our civil liberties that we need to look closely at the evidence justifying it; and when we do, that evidence is weak.
(31 comments) SHARE Monday, January 18, 2016 The Citadel Is Breached: Congress Taps the Fed for Infrastructure Funding
In a landmark infrastructure bill passed in December, Congress finally penetrated the Fed's "independence" by tapping its reserves and bank dividends for infrastructure funding.
The bill was a start. But some experts, including Congressional candidate Tim Canova, say Congress should go further and authorize funds to be issued for infrastructure directly.
(18 comments) SHARE Monday, March 19, 2018 The War on the Post Office
The US Postal Service, under attack from a manufactured crisis designed to force its privatization, needs a new source of funding to survive. Postal banking could fill that need.
(15 comments) SHARE Friday, May 11, 2012 Social Security Checks Garnisheed for Student Debt
Congress cannot agree on $6 billion to save the students, yet they managed to agree in a matter of days in September 2008 to come up with $700 billion to save the banks; and the Federal Reserve found many trillions more. Estimates are that tuition could be provided free to students for a mere $30 billion annually.
(2 comments) SHARE Saturday, April 2, 2011 The World's Largest Publicly-owned Bank: How It Could Save Japan
The Japanese government can afford its enormous debt because it owns the bank that is its principal creditor. But competitors are attempting to force Japan Post Bank's privatization. If they succeed, they could propel the country into debt servitude along with other credit-strapped nations.
(29 comments) SHARE Tuesday, September 9, 2014 Preparing To Asset-strip Local Government? The Fed's Bizarre New Rules
In an inscrutable move that has alarmed state treasurers, the Federal Reserve just changed the liquidity requirements for the nation's largest banks. Municipal bonds have been eliminated from the list of high-quality liquid collateral. That means banks that are the largest holders of munis are liable to start dumping them in favor of the Treasuries and corporate bonds that do satisfy the requirement.
(18 comments) SHARE Saturday, July 4, 2015 A Revolutionary Pope Calls for Rethinking the Outdated Criteria That Rule the World
Pope Francis' revolutionary encyclical addresses not just climate change but the banking crisis. Interestingly, the solution to that crisis may have been modeled in the Middle Ages by Franciscan monks following the Saint from whom the Pope took his name.
(24 comments) SHARE Wednesday, January 27, 2016 The Populist Revolution: Bernie and Beyond
Contenders with their fingers on the popular pulse are surging ahead of their establishment rivals. Sanders has picked up the baton where Occupy Wall
Street left off, forcing his opponent Hillary Clinton to respond . . .
(8 comments) SHARE Thursday, October 16, 2008 The Real Debate: Crony Socialism or Economic Sovereignty?
The Presidential debates failed to address what is really wrong with the economy -- a credit freeze representing a failure of the banking scheme itself. Bailing out bankrupt banks won't fix the problem. The banking system itself needs to be overhauled.
(14 comments) SHARE Saturday, April 25, 2015 The Trans-Pacific Partnership and the Death of the Republic
The Senate Finance Committee has approved a bill to fast-track the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), a massive trade agreement that would override our republican form of government and hand judicial and legislative authority to a foreign three-person panel of corporate lawyers. The TPP would elevate the rights of investors -- also called the rights of "capital" -- above the rights of the citizens, which is unconstitutional.
(3 comments) SHARE Friday, August 6, 2010 WHAT A GOVERNMENT CAN DO WITH ITS OWN BANK: THE REMARKABLE MODEL OF THE COMMONWEALTH BANK OF AUSTRALIA
Virg Bernero, the mayor of Lansing, Michigan, just won the Democratic nomination for governor of his state, making a state-owned Bank of Michigan a real possibility. Bernero is one of at least a dozen candidates promoting that solution to the states' economic woes. It is an innovative idea, with little precedent in the United States. Fortunately other precedents are available from other countries . . .
(6 comments) SHARE Sunday, February 5, 2012 Why the AGs Must Not Settle: Robo-signing Is Just the Tip of the Iceberg
A foreclosure settlement between five major banks guilty of "robo-signing" and the attorneys general of the 50 states is pending for Monday, February 6 th ; but it is still not clear if all the AGs will sign.
(15 comments) SHARE Thursday, June 29, 2017 Sovereign Debt Jubilee, Japanese-style
Japan has found a way to write off nearly half its national debt without creating inflation. We could do that too.
(6 comments) SHARE Friday, September 5, 2008 Take a Load Off Fannie: Bailout or Nationalization for the Mortgage Giants?
The Treasury just sought and was granted an unlimited credit line to the GSEs, along with the authority to buy their stock, effectively nationalizing them; but this could mean $5 trillion more in liabilities for the federal government, causing it to lose its own triple-A rating. What to do? There is a solution that would salvage the mortgage giants and cost the taxpayers nothing . . .
(16 comments) SHARE Thursday, June 11, 2015 Fast-tracking TiSA: Stealth Block to Monetary Reform
The entire basis for maintaining our private extractive banking monopoly may have been thrown out the window. And that could help explain the desperate rush to "fast track" not only the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) and the Trans-Atlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP), but the Trade in Services Agreement (TiSA). TiSA would nip attempts to implement public banking and other monetary reforms in the bud.
(7 comments) SHARE Monday, April 2, 2012 Oh Canada! Imposing Austerity on the World's Most Resource-rich Country
Even the world's most resource-rich country has now been caught in the debt trap. Its once-proud government programs are being subjected to radical budget cuts--cuts that could have been avoided if the government had not quit borrowing from its own central bank in the 1970s.
(10 comments) SHARE Monday, November 4, 2013 Ireland: Ground Zero for the Austerity-driven Asset Grab
The Irish have a long history of being tyrannized, exploited, and oppressed. Today, Ireland is under a different sort of tyranny, one imposed by the banks and the troika--the EU, ECB and IMF. The oppressors have demanded austerity and more austerity, forcing the public to pick up the tab for bills incurred by profligate private bankers.
(32 comments) SHARE Thursday, December 20, 2012 Fiscal Cliff: Time to Call Their Bluff
The self-induced austerity crisis is a diversion from the real crises, including unemployment, the housing crisis, a bloated military, and unrepayable debt. Slashing services, selling off public assets, and raising taxes won't cure these ills. To maintain a sustainable and productive economy requires a visionary leap into the new. A new economy needs new methods of public financing.
(9 comments) SHARE Tuesday, April 30, 2013 Bail-out Is Out, Bail-in Is In: Time for Some Publicly-owned Banks
The crossing of the Rubicon into the confiscation of depositor funds was not a one-off emergency measure limited to Cyprus. Similar "bail-in" policies are now appearing in multiple countries. What triggered the new rules may have been a series of game-changing events including the refusal of Iceland to bail out its banks and their depositors
(17 comments) SHARE Thursday, July 25, 2019 The Cheapest Way to Save the Planet Grows Like a Weed
Hemp can help save our shrinking forests by eliminating the need to clear-cut them for paper pulp. One acre planted in hemp produces as much pulp as 4.1 acres of trees, according to the USDA; and unlike trees, hemp can be harvested two or three times a year. Hemp paper is also finer, stronger and lasts longer than wood-based paper. Benjamin Franklin's paper mill used hemp.
(4 comments) SHARE Saturday, October 30, 2010 HOW CHINA BUYS OUR DEBT WHILE BURYING ITS OWN
China may be as heavily in debt as we are. It just has a different way of keeping its books -- which makes a high-profile political ad sponsored by Citizens Against Government Waste, a fiscally conservative think tank, particularly ironic. . . .
(57 comments) SHARE Monday, June 12, 2017 Dear Mr. President, Be Careful What You Wish for: Higher Interest Rates Will Kill the Recovery
Higher interest rates will triple the interest on the federal debt to $830 billion annually by 2026, will hurt workers and young voters, and could bankrupt over 20% of US corporations, according to the IMF. The move is not necessary to counteract inflation and shows that the Fed is operating from the wrong model.
(19 comments) SHARE Thursday, January 16, 2014 California Dreamin': Why I Am Running for State Treasurer
I am running for California State Treasurer on a state bank platform, along with Laura Wells, who is running for Controller. We are throwing our bonnets in the ring for the opportunity to show the Governor or his successor that a state-owned bank can be our ticket to returning California to the abundance it once enjoyed.
(44 comments) SHARE Thursday, September 3, 2015 Quantitative Easing for People: The UK Labour Frontrunner's Controversial Proposal
Jeremy Corbyn, who is currently leading in the polls for UK Labour Party leadership, has included in his platform "quantitative easing for people." The proposal has critics crying hyperinflation and supporters saying it's about time.
(12 comments) SHARE Monday, April 11, 2016 The War on Savings: The Panama Papers, Bail-Ins, and the Push to Go Cashless
Exposing tax dodgers is a worthy endeavor, but the "limited hangout" of the Panama Papers may have less noble ends, dovetailing with the War on Cash and the imminent threat of massive bail-ins of depositor funds.
(2 comments) SHARE Wednesday, July 31, 2013 Green Light for City-owned San Francisco Bank
The question today is whether cities and counties can afford not to set up their own municipal banks, both to protect their money from confiscation and to take advantage of the very low interest rates and other perks available exclusively to the banking club.
(5 comments) SHARE Monday, July 13, 2009 Toward a Solution to the Debt Crisis in California: The State Could Walk Away and Create Its Own Credit Machine
Four Wall Street banks, which received $15-25 billion each from the taxpayers, have rejected California's IOUs because the State is supposedly a bad credit risk. The bailed out banks would seem to have a duty to lend a helping hand, but they say they don't want to delay an agreement on further austerity measures. State legislators are not bowing quickly to the pressure, but what is the alternative?
(9 comments) SHARE Friday, October 2, 2009 THE IMF CATAPULTS FROM SHUNNED AGENCY TO GLOBAL CENTRAL BANK
A year ago, nobody wanted to know the IMF. Last week, the G20 suddenly promoted it to global central banker and global collection agency for the banking industry. The end result will be to lock not only third world countries but the U.S. more firmly into debt to a global banking cartel.
(2 comments) SHARE Friday, December 24, 2010 AUSTERITY FAILS IN EUROLAND: TIME FOR SOME "DEFICIT EASING"
The Greek bailout was supposed to be an isolated case, a test of the EU's ability to quarantine an infected member, preventing it from spreading "debt contagion." But that was before Ireland failed . . . .
(13 comments) SHARE Saturday, April 4, 2020 Was the Fed Just Nationalized?
Wall Street and the stock market were driven onto life-support by a virus. It took only a few days for Congress to unanimously pass the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act, which will be doling out $2.2 trillion in crisis relief, most of it going to Corporate America with few strings attached.
(4 comments) SHARE Monday, March 7, 2011 How Wisconsin Could Turn Austerity into Prosperity -- Own a Bank
As states struggle to meet their budgets, public pensions are on the chopping block; but they needn't be. States can keep their pension funds intact and leverage them into many times that sum in loans, just as Wall Street banks do. They can do this by forming their own banks, following the lead of North Dakota, the only state either to have its own bank or to have a major budget surplus.
(50 comments) SHARE Wednesday, July 15, 2015 Grexit or Jubilee? How Greek Debt Can Be Annulled
The crushing Greek debt could be canceled the way it was made -- by sleight of hand. But saving the Greek people and their economy is evidently not in the game plan of the Eurocrats.
(5 comments) SHARE Wednesday, May 30, 2012 Out of the Mouths of Babes: Video of Twelve-Year-Old Money Reformer Tops a Million Views
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.
(23 comments) SHARE Wednesday, September 23, 2015 Time for the Nuclear Option: Raining Money on Main Street
Predictions are that we will soon be seeing the "nuclear option" -- central bank-created money injected directly into the real economy. All other options having failed, governments will be reduced to issuing money outright to cover budget deficits.
(3 comments) SHARE Monday, February 27, 2012 Move Our Money: New State Bank Bills Address Credit and Housing Crises
Seventeen states have now introduced bills for state-owned banks, and others are in the works. Hawaii's innovative state bank bill addresses the foreclosure mess. County-owned banks are being proposed that would tackle the housing crisis by exercising the right of eminent domain on abandoned and foreclosed properties.
(7 comments) SHARE Wednesday, March 25, 2020 Socialism at Its Finest after Fed's Bazooka Fails
In what is being called the worst financial crisis since 1929, the US stock market has lost a third of its value in the space of a month, wiping out all of its gains of the last three years. When the Federal Reserve tried to ride to the rescue, it only succeeded in making matters worse.
(7 comments) SHARE Saturday, July 2, 2011 How the Bailout Killed Local Lending -- And How Some States Hope to Bring It Back
The Wall Street bailout was supposed to keep credit flowing to Main Street, but it has wound up having the opposite effect. Local businesses have traditionally been the main engines for increasing employment, and they need bank credit for their working capital; but today credit to local businesses has collapsed nearly everywhere. That's why 14 states are now considering state-owned banks to get credit flowing again.
(5 comments) SHARE Thursday, June 23, 2011 THE MILITARY AS A JOBS PROGRAM: THERE ARE MORE EFFICIENT WAYS TO STIMULATE AN ECONOMY
The military is the nation's largest and most firmly entrenched entitlement program, one that takes half of every tax dollar. The reason massive military spending is considered the most "obvious" way to produce a fiscal stimulus is simply that it is the only form of direct government spending that gets a pass from the deficit hawks.
(7 comments) SHARE Thursday, January 25, 2018 How Uncle Sam Launders Marijuana Money
In a blatant example of "do as I say, not as I do," the US government is profiting handsomely by accepting marijuana cash in the payment of taxes while imposing huge penalties on banks for accepting it as deposits. Onerous reporting requirements are driving small local banks to sell out to Wall Street. Congress needs to harmonize federal with state law.
(8 comments) SHARE Wednesday, November 16, 2016 Trump's $1 Trillion Infrastructure Plan: Lincoln Had a Bolder Solution
Donald Trump was an outsider who boldly stormed the citadel of Washington DC and won. He has promised real change, but his infrastructure plan appears to be just more of the same -- privatizing public assets and delivering unearned profits to investors at the expense of the people. He needs to try something new; and for this he could look to Abraham Lincoln: just print the money.
(10 comments) SHARE Saturday, September 22, 2012 Why QE3 Won't Jumpstart the Economy -- and What Would
The economy could use a good dose of "aggregate demand"--new spending money in the pockets of consumers--but QE3 won't do it. Neither will it trigger the dreaded hyperinflation. In fact, it won't do much at all. There are better alternatives.
(5 comments) SHARE Sunday, May 27, 2018 Blackstone, BlackRock or a Public Bank? Putting California's Funds to Work
California has over $700 billion parked in private banks earning minimal interest, private equity funds that contributed to the affordable housing crisis, or shadow banks of the sort that caused the banking collapse of 2008. These funds, or some of them, could be transferred to an infrastructure bank that generated credit for the state -- while the funds remained safely on deposit in the bank.
(8 comments) SHARE Thursday, June 21, 2012 Why Congress Won't Touch Jamie Dimon: JPM Derivatives Prop Up US Debt
The national debt is growing at $1.5 trillion per year. Ultra-low interest rates MUST be maintained to prevent the debt from overwhelming the government budget. Near-zero rates also need to be maintained because even a moderate rise would cause multi-trillion dollar derivative losses for the banks, and would remove the banks' chief income stream, the arbitrage afforded by borrowing at 0% and investing at higher rates.
(11 comments) SHARE Wednesday, April 4, 2018 The Bayer-Monsanto Merger Is Bad News for the Planet
Global food control has nearly been achieved, by reducing seed diversity and establishing proprietary control with GMO seeds distributed by only a few transnational corporations, led by Monsanto; and by a massive, taxpayer-subsidized propaganda campaign in support of GMO seeds and neurotoxic pesticides.
(7 comments) SHARE Tuesday, February 23, 2010 Growing Number of Candidates Campaigning for State-owned Banks
While bank bailouts fatten Wall Street, states continue to battle the credit crisis. In the search for innovative solutions, some political candidates are proposing that states generate their own credit by setting up their own banks.
(24 comments) SHARE Wednesday, November 1, 2017 Regulation Is Killing Community Banks -- Public Banks Can Revive Them
Crushing regulations are driving small banks to sell out to the megabanks, a consolidation process that appears to be intentional. Publicly-owned banks can help avoid that trend and keep credit flowing in local economies.
(12 comments) SHARE Wednesday, March 11, 2015 The ECB's Noose Around Greece: How Central Banks Harness Governments
Remember when the infamous Goldman Sachs delivered a thinly-veiled threat to the Greek Parliament in December, warning them to elect a pro-austerity prime minister or risk having central bank liquidity cut off to their banks? It seems the European Central Bank (headed by Mario Draghi, former managing director of Goldman Sachs International) has now made good on the threat.
(6 comments) SHARE Wednesday, November 30, 2011 The European Central Bank Fiddles While Rome Burns
"To some people, the European Central Bank seems like a fire department that is letting the house burn down to teach the children not to play with matches." So wrote Jack Ewing in the New York Times last week . . . .
(17 comments) SHARE Sunday, November 5, 2017 The Public Bank Option -- Safer, Local and Half the Cost
Phil Murphy, a former banker with a double-digit lead in New Jersey's race for governor, has made a state-owned bank a centerpiece of his platform. If he wins on November 7, the nation's second state-owned bank in a century could follow.
(9 comments) SHARE Friday, December 9, 2016 "We'll Look at Everything": More Thoughts on Trump's $1 Trillion Infrastructure Plan
To stimulate the economy, create new jobs and generate new GDP requires an injection of new money. Borrowing from the bond markets or off-balance-sheet in public/private partnerships won't do it. If Congress won't issue money directly, it should borrow from banks, which create money on their books when they make loans.
(37 comments) SHARE Thursday, April 24, 2014 Wall Street Greed: Not Too Big for a California Jury
United States Attorney General Eric Holder has declared that the too-big-to-fail Wall Street banks are too big to prosecute. But an outraged California jury might have different ideas. . . The question is how to get Wall Street banks before a California jury. How about charging them with common law fraud and breach of contract? That's what the FDIC just did in its civil suit for damages for LIBOR manipulation . . .
(5 comments) SHARE Sunday, March 30, 2014 Bankers Win Both Ways: Now They Can Take Both Taxpayer and Depositor Money
On March 20, 2014, European Union officials reached an historic agreement to create a single agency to handle failing banks. Media attention has focused on the agreement involving the single resolution mechanism (SRM), a uniform system for closing failed banks. But the real story for taxpayers and depositors is the heightened threat to their pocketbooks of a deal that now authorizes both bailouts and "bail-ins."
(19 comments) SHARE Wednesday, November 6, 2019 Is the Run on the Dollar Due to Panic or Greed?
The whole repo rigmarole underscores the sleight of hand on which our money and banking systems are built, and why it is time to change them. The banks could not function without public support. They should be turned into public utilities, mandate interests of the people and the productive economy on which the public depends.
(23 comments) SHARE Sunday, July 5, 2020 When Profits and Politics Drive Science: The Hazards of Rushing a Vaccine at "Warp Speed"
More than 100 companies are competing to be first in the race to get a COVID-19 vaccine to market. It's a race against time, not because the death rate is climbing but because it is falling - to the point where there could soon be too few subjects to prove the effectiveness of the drug.
(24 comments) SHARE Wednesday, February 11, 2015 Why Public Banks Outperform Private Banks: Unfair Competition or a Better Mousetrap?
Public banks in North Dakota, Germany and Switzerland have been shown to outperform their private counterparts. Under the TPP and TTIP, however, publicly-owned banks on both sides of the oceans might wind up getting sued for unfair competition because they have advantages not available to private banks.
(4 comments) SHARE Friday, December 27, 2019 The Key to Solving the Climate Crisis Is Beneath Our Feet
Saving the planet from environmental destruction is not only achievable, but that by focusing on regenerative agriculture and tapping up the central bank for funding, the climate crisis can be addressed without raising taxes and while restoring our collective health.
(12 comments) SHARE Thursday, March 16, 2017 "Ryancare" Dead on Arrival: Time to Look Again at Single Payer
The new American Health Care Act has been unveiled, and critics are calling it more flawed even than the Obamacare it was meant to replace. The problem for both administrations is that they have been trying to fund a bloated, inefficient, and overpriced medical system with scarce taxpayer funds, without capping its costs. Single Payer has proven itself globally to be the most efficient solution.
(20 comments) SHARE Saturday, September 15, 2018 Central Banks Have Gone Rogue, Putting Us All at Risk
Central bankers are now aggressively playing the stock market. To say they are buying up the planet may be an exaggeration, but they could. They can create money at will, and they have declared their "independence" from government. They have become rogue players in a game of their own.
(22 comments) SHARE Monday, December 8, 2008 Sustainable Government: Banking for a "New" New Deal
Obama has started his version of Roosevelt's "fireside chats." He has said he plans to create 2.5 million new jobs by 2011 and kick-start the economy by building roads and bridges, modernizing schools, and creating technology and infrastructure for renewable energy. These are excellent ideas, but what will they be funded with - more government debt? There is another alternative . . .
(19 comments) SHARE Saturday, January 6, 2018 Student Debt Slavery: Time to Level the Playing Field
We need to free our students from the system of debt slavery that has financialized education, turning it from an investment in human capital into a tool for exploiting the young for the benefit of private investors. State-owned banks can make the loan process fair, equitable and affordable; but their creation will be fought by big bank lobbyists. An organized student movement could be an effective counter-lobby.
(4 comments) SHARE Tuesday, January 10, 2012 Saving the Post Office: The Models of Kiwibank and Japan Post
Claiming the Postal Service is bankrupt, critics are pushing legislation that would defuse the postal crisis by breaking the backs of the postal workers' unions and mandating widespread layoffs.
(13 comments) SHARE Wednesday, August 19, 2015 Trumping the Federal Debt Without Playing the Default Card
The government can reduce the debt by buying it -- and ripping it up. The debt can be bought either with debt-free U.S. Notes of the sort issued during the Civil War, or with U.S. dollars issued by the Federal Reserve--a kind of "quantitative easing" for the people.
(12 comments) SHARE Tuesday, March 10, 2020 The Fed's Baffling Response to the Coronavirus Explained
In an attempt to contain the damage, the Federal Reserve on March 3 slashed the fed funds rate from 1.5% to 1.0%, in its first emergency rate move and biggest one-time cut since the 2008 financial crisis. But rather than reassuring investors, the move fueled another panic sell-off.
(34 comments) SHARE Tuesday, July 26, 2016 Japan's "Helicopter Money" Play: Road to Hyperinflation or Cure for Debt Deflation?
Fifteen years after embarking on its largely ineffective quantitative easing program, Japan appears poised to try the form recommended by Ben Bernanke in his notorious "helicopter money" speech in 2002. The Japanese test case could finally resolve a longstanding dispute between monetarists and money reformers over the economic effects of government-issued money.
(3 comments) SHARE Tuesday, November 12, 2013 Public Banking in Costa Rica: A Remarkable Little-known Model
In Costa Rica, publicly-owned banks have been available for so long and work so well that people take for granted that any country that knows how to run an economy has a public banking option. Costa Ricans are amazed to hear there is only one public depository bank in the United States (the Bank of North Dakota), and few people have private access to it.
SHARE Saturday, June 14, 2008 What's the difference between Lehman Bros and Bear Stearns? Lehman's CEO is on board of NY Fed
Bear Stearns, far from being "rescued" by JPMorgan, was eaten alive. But Lehman Brothers, the next investment bank expected to fall, probably WILL be rescued by the Fed. What's the difference? The CEO of Lehman Brothers -- like that of JPMorgan and unlike that of Bear Stearns -- sits on the Board of the NY Fed . . . .
(12 comments) SHARE Friday, March 14, 2014 Warren's Post Office Proposal: Palast Aims at the Wrong Target
Investigative reporter Greg Palast is usually pretty good at peering behind the rhetoric and seeing what is really going on. But in tearing into Senator Elizabeth Warren's support of postal financial services, he has done a serious disservice to the underdogs -- both the underbanked and the US Postal Service itself.
(6 comments) SHARE Tuesday, May 3, 2016 Bank of North Dakota Soars Despite Oil Bust: A Blueprint for California?
Despite North Dakota's collapsing oil market, its state-owned bank continues to report record profits. This article looks at what California, with fifty times North Dakota's population, could do following that state's lead.
(39 comments) SHARE Saturday, February 9, 2019 The Venezuela Myth Keeping Us From Transforming Our Economy
Modern Monetary Theory (MMT) is getting significant media attention these days, after Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez said in an interview that it should "be a larger part of our conversation" when it comes to funding the Green New Deal. According to MMT, the government can spend what it needs without worrying about deficits.
(20 comments) SHARE Monday, February 25, 2013 How the Fed Could Fix the Economy--and Why It Hasn't
Quantitative easing (QE) is supposed to stimulate the economy by adding money to the money supply, increasing demand. But so far, it hasn't been working. Why not? Because as practiced for the last two decades, QE does not actually increase the circulating money supply. It merely cleans up the toxic balance sheets of banks.
(8 comments) SHARE Saturday, March 20, 2010 The Growing Movement for State-owned Banks
As the states' credit crisis deepens, four states have initiated bills for state-owned banks, and candidates in seven states have now included that solution in their platforms.
SHARE Thursday, March 4, 2010 IMF-STYLE AUSTERITY COMES TO AMERICA
In addition to mandatory private health insurance premiums, we may soon be hit with a "mandatory savings" tax and other belt-tightening measures urged by the President's new budget task force. These radical austerity measures are not only unnecessary but will actually make matters worse. The push for "fiscal responsibility" is based on bad economics.
(11 comments) SHARE Wednesday, May 11, 2011 INFLATION FEARS: REAL OR HYSTERIA?
Far from inflation being the problem, the money supply has shrunk and we are in a deflationary bind. The money supply needs to be pumped back up to generate jobs and productivity; and in the system we have today, that is done by issuing bonds, or debt.
(10 comments) SHARE Saturday, July 6, 2013 Think Your Money is Safe in an Insured Bank Account? Think Again.
The EU can mandate that governments arrange for deposit insurance, but if funding is inadequate to cover a systemic collapse, taxpayers will again be on the hook; and if they are unwilling or unable to cover the losses (as occurred in Cyprus and Iceland), we're back to the unprotected deposits and routine bank failures and bank runs of the 19th century.
(2 comments) SHARE Wednesday, September 25, 2019 Trump's Recipe for Economic Disaster
The U.S. doesn't need negative interest rates, because it doesn't have the EU's problems but it does have other problems unique to the U.S. dollar that could spell disaster if negative rates were enforced.
(6 comments) SHARE Friday, December 23, 2016 The Italian Banking Crisis: No Free Lunch -- Or Is There?
It has been called "a bigger risk than Brexit"-- the Italian banking crisis that could take down the eurozone. Handwringing officials say "there is no free lunch" and "no magic bullet." But UK Prof. Richard Werner says the magic bullet is just being ignored.
(9 comments) SHARE Saturday, November 19, 2011 Super Committee Deadlock: Heads They Win, Tails We Lose
Whether the super committee reaches agreement or not, the deficit hawks win. If they agree, either $1.2 trillion gets cut from the budget or taxes go up by that amount; and the committee co-chair has categorically stated taxes are not going up, so that means the budget will be cut.
(8 comments) SHARE Thursday, June 7, 2012 Greece and the Euro: Fifty Ways to Leave Your Lover
The treaties binding the 17 member nations are just a set of rules, entered into by mutual agreement; and rules can be bent or broken, especially in crises. The ECB (European Central Bank) broke a litany of rules to save the banks, and so did the Federal Reserve to save Wall Street in 2008.
SHARE Saturday, June 25, 2016 As the War on Weed Winds Down, Will Monsanto Be the Big Winner?
The war on cannabis that began in the 1930s seems to be coming to an end. Research shows that this natural plant, rather than posing a deadly danger to health, has a wide range of therapeutic benefits. But skeptics question the sudden push for legalization, which is largely funded by wealthy investors linked to Big Ag and Big Pharma.
(5 comments) SHARE Thursday, September 6, 2012 The Myth That Japan Is Broke: The World's Largest "Debtor" Is Now the World's Largest Creditor
Japan's debt-to-GDP ratio is nearly 230%, the worst of any major country in the world. Yet it remains the world's largest creditor, with net foreign assets of $3.19 trillion. In 2010, its GDP per capita was more than that of France, Germany, the U.K. and Italy. While China's economy is now larger than Japan's because of its population (1.3 billion vs 128 million), China's $5,414 GDP per capita is only 12% of Japan's $45,920.
(29 comments) SHARE Saturday, June 15, 2013 Elizabeth Warren's QE for Students: Populist Demagoguery or Economic Breakthrough?
On July 1, interest rates will double for millions of students -- from 3.4% to 6.8% -- unless Congress acts; and the legislative fixes on the table are largely just compromises. Only one proposal promises real relief -- Sen. Elizabeth Warren's "Bank on Students Loan Fairness Act." This bill has been dismissed out of hand as "shameless populist demagoguery" and "a cheap political gimmick," but is it?
(15 comments) SHARE Friday, July 31, 2015 The Greek Coup: Liquidity as a Weapon of Coercion
In the modern global banking system, all banks need a credit line with the central bank in order to be part of the payments system. Choking off that credit line was a form of blackmail the Greek government couldn't refuse.
(7 comments) SHARE Friday, March 23, 2012 Wall Street Confidence Trick: The Interest Rate Swaps that Are Bankrupting Local Governments
For more than a decade, banks and insurance companies convinced local governments, hospitals, universities and other non-profits that interest rate swaps would lower interest rates on bonds sold for public projects such as roads, bridges and schools. Interest rates fell to historically low levels. It was a deliberate, manipulated move by the Fed to save the banks from their own folly in precipitating the credit crisis of 2008.
(28 comments) SHARE Tuesday, August 20, 2013 Not Too Big to Jail: Why Eliot Spitzer Is Wall Street's Worst Nightmare
If we the people are to take back our power from Wall Street and the corporatocracy. We need a mass movement, coordinated action, and leaders who can organize it. Eliot Spitzer is one of the few people in a position to play that role who have the experience, vision and courage to carry it through.
(7 comments) SHARE Thursday, October 22, 2015 Killing Off Community Banks -- Intended Consequence of Dodd-Frank?
The Dodd-Frank regulations are so lethal to community banks that some say the intent was to force them to sell out to the megabanks. Community banks are rapidly disappearing -- except in North Dakota, where they are thriving.
(1 comments) SHARE Monday, January 25, 2010 Funding Public Health Care with a Publicly Owned Bank: How Canada Did It
The Massachusetts gubernatorial upset means the President may have to start over with his health care bill. The good news is that there's still a chance for the public option the voters thought they would be getting. How to fund it? The way Canada did -- with credit issued by the government's own central bank.
(9 comments) SHARE Monday, October 13, 2014 Building an Ark: How to Protect Public Revenues from the Next Meltdown
Concerns are growing that we are heading for another banking crisis, one that could be far worse than in 2008. But this time, there will be no government bailouts. Instead, per the Dodd-Frank Act, bankrupt banks will be confiscating (or "bailing in") their customers' deposits.
That includes local government deposits. The fact that public funds are secured with collateral may not protect them, as explained earlier here.
(2 comments) SHARE Monday, July 14, 2008 Let the Lawsuits Begin: Banks Brace for a Storm of Litigation
Lawsuits threaten the banks from all sides -- from state attorneys general, consumer class actions, and investor backlash. Shifting liability for the subprime debacle back to the banks could bankrupt even the biggest banks. But that might not be the end of the world . . .
SHARE Saturday, September 2, 2023 More Banks to Fail? Not in North Dakota
U.S. banks are again in the crosshairs. Standard and Poor's has downgraded five new middle-tier banks and put three others on negative outlook. This follows sweeping downgrades earlier in August by Moody's, which cut credit ratings on 10 banks and placed four of the 15 largest U.S. banks on review for possible downgrade. As with the banks going into"
(3 comments) SHARE Thursday, September 9, 2010 How to Reverse a Deflation: Helicopter Ben Needs to Drop Some Money on Main Street
The Fed is proposing another round of "quantitative easing," although the first round failed to reverse deflation. It failed because the money went into the coffers of banks, which failed to lend it on. To reverse deflation, the money needs to be funneled directly to state and local economies.
(10 comments) SHARE Tuesday, July 25, 2017 Saving Illinois: Getting More Bang for the State's Bucks
Illinois is teetering on bankruptcy and other states are not far behind, largely due to unfunded pension liabilities; but there are solutions. The Federal Reserve could do a round of "QE for Munis." Or the state could turn its sizable pension fund into a self-sustaining public bank.
(6 comments) SHARE Thursday, October 20, 2016 Funding California Schools: Proposition 51 Versus a State-owned Bank
School districts are notoriously short of funding -- so short that some California districts have succumbed to Capital Appreciation Bonds that will cost taxpayers as much is 10 to 15 times principal. By comparison, California's Prop. 51 looks like a good deal.However, there is a much cheaper way to fund this $9 billion school debt. By borrowing from its own state-chartered, state-owned bank, the state could save over $10
B.
(22 comments) SHARE Sunday, May 21, 2017 If China Can Fund Infrastructure with Its Own Credit, So Can We
This week has been designated "National Infrastructure Week" The message: "It's time to rebuild." Ever since ASCE began issuing its "National Infrastructure Report Card" in 1998, the nation has gotten a dismal grade of D or D+. In the meantime, the estimated cost of fixing its infrastructure has gone up from $1.3 trillion to $4.6 trillion.
(2 comments) SHARE Saturday, May 26, 2012 Cooperative Banking, the Exciting Wave of the Future
Funding with low-interest loans from cooperatively owned banks leaves greater control of the company in the hands of employees who either own it or have much more say in its operation. Globally, the burgeoning movement for local, cooperatively owned and community-oriented banks is blazing the trail toward a new, sustainable form of banking.
(15 comments) SHARE Monday, May 19, 2014 Are Public Banks Unconstitutional? No. Are Private Banks? Maybe.
The movement to break away from Wall Street and form publicly-owned banks continues to gain momentum. But enthusiasts are deterred by claims that a state-owned bank would violate constitutional prohibitions against "lending the credit of the state."
(12 comments) SHARE Wednesday, October 28, 2015 How Obama Could Beat the Debt Ceiling and Go Out a Hero
One good gimmick deserves another. The debt ceiling could be eliminated for good, by restoring to the government its constitutional authority to create money. Article 1, Section 8, provides: "The Congress shall have the power to coin money [and] regulate the value thereof . . . ." The president could pay the government's bills by issuing some large denomination coins by executive order.
(2 comments) SHARE Sunday, May 29, 2011 INVITING CHAOS: playing chicken with the debt ceiling
A game of Russian roulette is being played with the national debt ceiling. Fire the wrong chamber of the gun, and the result could be the second Great Depression. We have been frightened into believing that government debt is a bad thing, but nearly all money today originates as debt. The public debt is the people's money, and today the people are coming up short.
(26 comments) SHARE Friday, January 27, 2017 How to Cut Infrastructure Costs in Half
Americans could save $1 trillion over 10 years by financing infrastructure through publicly-owned banks like the one that has long been operating in North Dakota.
(13 comments) SHARE Tuesday, September 24, 2013 What We Could Do with a Postal Savings Bank: Infrastructure that Doesn't Cost Taxpayers a Dime
The Postal Service Modernization Bills brought by Peter DeFazio and Bernie Sanders would allow the post office to recapitalize itself by diversifying its range of services to meet unmet public needs. Needs that the post office might diversify into include (1) funding the rebuilding of our crumbling national infrastructure; (2) servicing the massive market of the "unbanked" and "underbanked" who lack access
(9 comments) SHARE Thursday, October 15, 2009 Reviving the Local Economy with Publicly-owned Banks
The credit crunch is getting worse on Main Street, despite a Wall Street bailout now in the trillions of dollars. The Fed may have played all its cards, but state and local governments still hold a few aces. Some local politicians are looking into the feasibility of opening their own publicly-owned banks, providing them with their own credit machines.
(7 comments) SHARE Friday, April 2, 2010 CUTTING OUT THE MIDDLEMAN: The Government Is Now in the Banking Business
Under the student loan bill slipped into the health care bill, the federal government will be lending to students directly, saving billions of dollars and eliminating decades of corruption and exploitation.
(6 comments) SHARE Monday, May 24, 2021 Going From Mom-and-Pop Capitalism to Techno-Feudalism
In a matter of decades, the United States has gone from a largely benign form of capitalism to a neo-feudal form that has created an ever-widening gap in wealth and power.
(14 comments) SHARE Friday, January 10, 2020 The Fed Protects Gamblers at the Expense of the Economy
Solutions are available, but Congress itself has been captured by the financial markets, and it may take another economic collapse to motivate Congress to act.
(2 comments) SHARE Saturday, June 29, 2013 The Crime of Alleviating Poverty -- A Local Community Currency Battles the Central Bank of Kenya
Former Peace Corps volunteer Will Ruddick and several residents of Bangladesh, Kenya, face a potential seven years in prison after developing a cost-effective way to alleviate poverty in Africa's poorest slums. Their solution: a complementary currency issued and backed by the local community. The Central Bank of Kenya has now initiated charges of forgery.
(15 comments) SHARE Monday, December 23, 2013 100 Years Is Enough: Time to Make the Fed a Public Utility
December 23rd, 2013, marks the 100th anniversary of the Federal Reserve, warranting a review of its performance. Has it achieved the purposes for which it was designed?
The answer depends on whose purposes we are talking about. For the banks, the Fed has served quite well. For the laboring masses whose populist movement prompted it, not much has changed in a century.
(5 comments) SHARE Thursday, April 13, 2017 What a State-Owned Bank Can Do for New Jersey
Having a cheap and ready credit line with its own state-owned bank can do for New Jersey and other states what it does for North Dakota: reduce the need for wasteful rainy-day funds invested at minimal interest in out-of-state banks; allow the state to leverage its funds, expanding its current credit facilities without adding to the state's debt; cut infrastructure costs in half; and jumpstart the economy.
(14 comments) SHARE Monday, May 4, 2020 Crushing the States, Saving the Banks
Banks can now borrow effectively for free, without restrictions on the money's use. Following the playbook of the 2008-09 bailout, they can make the funds available to their Wall Street cronies to buy up distressed Main Street assets at fire sale prices, while continuing to lend to credit cardholders at 21%.
(12 comments) SHARE Thursday, October 4, 2012 QE Infinity: What's It All About, Mr. Bernanke?
QE3, the Federal Reserve's third round of quantitative easing, is so open-ended that it is being called QE Infinity. Doubts about its effectiveness are surfacing even on Wall Street.
(6 comments) SHARE Tuesday, August 6, 2013 The Detroit Bail-In Template: Fleecing Pensioners to Save the Banks
The Detroit bankruptcy is looking suspiciously like the bail-in template originated by the G20's Financial Stability Board in 2011, which exploded on the scene in Cyprus in 2013 and is now becoming the model globally.
(10 comments) SHARE Thursday, August 14, 2014 Cry for Argentina: Fiscal Mismanagement, Odious Debt or Pillage?
Argentina has now taken the US to The Hague for blocking the country's 2005 settlement with the bulk of its creditors. The issue underscores the need for an international mechanism for nations to go bankrupt. Better yet would be a sustainable global monetary scheme that avoids the need for sovereign bankruptcy.
(3 comments) SHARE Monday, July 11, 2011 Why QE2 Failed: The Money Went Offshore
Describes why Banks have not been lending and what they have been doing with all the QE1 & QE2 money which the FED provided them. Offers solutions to bringing down the national debt and fixing the economy.
(3 comments) SHARE Saturday, September 18, 2010 BASEL III: Tightening the Noose on Credit
If the big banks that brought you the current credit crisis can already meet the new requirements, what exactly does Basel III achieve, beyond shaking down their smaller competitors?
SHARE Sunday, July 25, 2010 Why "Sovereign Debt" is an Oxymoron
Last week, a Chinese rating agency downgraded U.S. debt from triple A and number one globally, to "double A with a negative outlook" and only thirteenth worldwide. The downgrade renewed fears that the sovereign debt crisis that began in Greece will soon reach America. That is the concern, but the U.S. is distinguished from Greece in that its debt is denominated in its own currency, over which it has sovereign control.
(3 comments) SHARE Wednesday, July 24, 2013 Collateral Damage: QE3 and the Shadow Banking System
Rather than expanding the money supply, quantitative easing (QE) has actually caused it to shrink by sucking up the collateral needed by the shadow banking system to create credit. The "failure" of QE has prompted the Bank for International Settlements to urge the Fed to shirk its mandate to pursue full employment, but the sort of QE that could fulfill that mandate has not yet been tried.
(1 comments) SHARE Thursday, August 7, 2008 Fannie and Freddie: Giving Away the Farm
Fannie and Freddie, two private for-profit mortgage giants, are being bailed out from their risky ventures with an $800 billion credit line from Congress. Meanwhile, Fannie and Freddie have sold off the mortgages to 10 percent of our real estate to foreign central banks and governments. Why are we letting our property be "nationalized" by other nations, and what can we do to reverse this alarming trend?
(2 comments) SHARE Sunday, December 8, 2013 Amend the Fed: We Need a Central Bank that Serves Main Street
The Federal Reserve Act was drafted by bankers to create a banker's bank that would serve their interests. It is their own private club, and its legal structure keeps all non-members out. A century after the Fed's creation, a sober look at its history leads to the conclusion that it is a privately controlled institution whose corporate owners use it to direct our entire economy for their own ends.
(12 comments) SHARE Thursday, February 14, 2013 How Congress Could Fix Its Budget Woes Permanently
As Congress struggles through one budget crisis after another, it is becoming increasingly evident that austerity doesn't work. We cannot possibly pay off a $16 trillion debt by tightening our belts, slashing public services, and raising taxes
(1 comments) SHARE Wednesday, June 10, 2009 Out of the Ashes of GM: The Phoenix of Renewable Energy
Prophetically, GM named one of its now-extinct brands the Firebird. Like the fabled Firebird, GM could be reborn as something else. We now own a car company. To finance its transformation into something better, we just need to own a bank.
(13 comments) SHARE Saturday, December 8, 2012 Exploring the Public Bank Option for Scotland
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.
(7 comments) SHARE Monday, April 20, 2020 A Universal Basic Income is Essential and Will Work
A government-mandated shutdown has left households more vulnerable than at any time since the Great Depression, a UBI seems the most direct and efficient way to get money to everyone who needs it. But critics argue that it will just trigger inflation and collapse the dollar.
(15 comments) SHARE Wednesday, March 20, 2019 The Secret to Funding a Green New Deal
To fund a project as massive as the Green New Deal, we need a mechanism that involves neither raising taxes nor adding to the federal debt; and such a mechanism is proposed in the U.S. Green New Deal itself -- a network of public banks. A network of public banks, including a central bank operated as a public utility, could similarly fund a U.S. Green New Deal.
(4 comments) SHARE Monday, July 2, 2012 Government by the Banks, for the Banks: The ESM Coup D'Etat in Europe
On Friday, June 29th, German Chancellor Angela Merkel acquiesced to changes to a permanent Eurozone bailout fund--"before the ink was dry," as critics complained. Besides easing the conditions under which bailouts would be given, the concessions included an agreement that
funds intended for indebted governments could be funneled directly to stressed banks.
(3 comments) SHARE Tuesday, June 8, 2010 Banks Profit from Near-zero Interest Rates: Another Reason for States to Own Their Own Banks
While individuals, businesses and governments suffer from a credit crisis created on Wall Street, the banks responsible for the crisis are tapping into nearly-interest-free credit lines and using the money to speculate or to make commercial loans at much higher rates. By forming their own banks, states too can tap into very low interest rates, and can buffer themselves from another Lehman-style credit collapse.
(8 comments) SHARE Wednesday, August 27, 2014 Colonization by Bankruptcy: The High-stakes Chess Match for Argentina
Argentina is playing hardball with the vulture funds, which have been trying to force it into an involuntary bankruptcy. The vultures are demanding what amounts to a 600% return on bonds bought for pennies on the dollar, defeating a 2005 settlement in which 92% of creditors agreed to accept a 70% haircut on their bonds. A US court has backed the vulture funds; but last week, Argentina sidestepped its jurisdiction . . .
(5 comments) SHARE Sunday, April 21, 2019 The public banking revolution is upon us
State infrastructure needs are huge, and the existing funding options -- raising taxes, cutting services and increasing debt levels -- have been exhausted. Newly-created credit directed into local communities by publicly-owned banks can provide the additional funding that local governments critically need.
(3 comments) SHARE Wednesday, September 17, 2014 A Public Bank Option for Scotland
Scottish voters will go to the polls on September 18th to decide whether Scotland should become an independent country. A publicly-owned bank could help Scotland take control of its own economic destiny, by avoiding unnecessary debt to a private banking system that has become a burden to the economy rather than a pillar in its support.
(14 comments) SHARE Saturday, November 3, 2018 Trump's War on the Fed
Higher interest rates do not serve consumers, home-buyers, businesses or governments. They serve the banks that dominate the policy-setting FOMC. The president's critiques of the Fed, however controversial, have opened the door to a much-needed discourse on whether the fate of the economy should be in the hands of unelected bureaucrats marching to the drums of Wall Street.
(5 comments) SHARE Wednesday, June 26, 2019 Facebook May Pose a Greater Danger Than Wall Street
On June 18, Facebook unveiled a white paper outlining ambitious plans to create a new global cryptocurrency called Libra, to be launched in 2020. Facebook reportedly has high hopes that Libra will become the foundation for a new financial system free of control by Wall Street power brokers and central banks.
SHARE Monday, April 26, 2010 COMPUTERIZED FRONT RUNNING: ANOTHER GOLDMAN-DOMINATED FRAUD
While the SEC is busy investigating Goldman Sachs, it might want to look into another Goldman-dominated fraud: computerized front running using high-frequency trading programs.
(2 comments) SHARE Thursday, October 2, 2008 BAILOUT BEDLAM: ROBBING THE TAXPAYERS TO SAVE THE BANKS
The bank bailout bill would turn the banks' worst assets into good U.S. dollars. The figure was $700 billion a few days ago and has already climbed to $800 billion after the pork was added in. That's nearly the cost of two Iraq wars, but it still won't be enough, because the covered instruments eligible for conversion include the black hole of derivatives. Derivatives held by U.S. banks are now estimated at $180 trillion . . .
(4 comments) SHARE Wednesday, September 18, 2019 Central Bankers' Desperate Grab for Power
Central banks actually serve some useful functions. Better would be to nationalize the Fed, turning it into a true public utility, mandated to serve the interests of the economy and the voting public. It's our money, and we should be able to decide where it goes.
(28 comments) SHARE Saturday, February 23, 2019 QE Forever: The Fed's Dramatic About-face
The banks will get off the hook again and bite the taxpayer hand that feeds them. Congress should nationalize the Fed, the banks, or both, if they don't start sharing the wealth.
(32 comments) SHARE Tuesday, December 1, 2020 Why the Fed Needs Public Banks
The Fed's policy tools -- interest rate manipulation, quantitative easing, and "Special Purpose Vehicles" -- have all failed to revive local economies suffering from government-mandated shutdowns. The Fed must rely on private banks to inject credit into Main Street, and private banks are currently unable or unwilling to do it. The tools the Fed actually needs are public banks, which could and would do the job.
(9 comments) SHARE Tuesday, May 19, 2020 Another Bank Bailout Under Cover of a Virus
State and local governments with a mandate to serve the public interest deserve to be treated as well as private Wall Street banks that have repeatedly been found guilty of frauds on the public. How can states get parity with the banks? If Congress won't address that need, states can borrow interest-free at the Fed's discount window by forming their own publicly-owned banks.
(4 comments) SHARE Tuesday, November 10, 2009 MAKING WALL STREET PAY ITS FAIR SHARE
Wall Street's speculative traders have managed to trade in practically the only products left on the planet that are not subject to a sales tax. The fact that trades in “financial products†remain untaxed suggests a tidy way the public could recover some of its bailout money.
(7 comments) SHARE Monday, June 9, 2014 California's Top-Two Primary Eliminates Third-Party Rivals
The money is with the 1%, but the vote count is with the 99%. We can prevail, if we can get that great mass of disillusioned voters into the voting booths. And that is just the sort of game-changing event that Top Two is calculated to prevent.
(4 comments) SHARE Monday, November 2, 2009 Cut Wall Street Out! How States Can Finance Their Own Economic Recovery
President Obama's $787 billion stimulus plan has so far failed to halt the growth of unemployment. A total of 49 states and the District of Columbia have all reported net job losses. Only one state reports net job GAINS; and it has done it by generating its own credit, cutting Wall Street out.
(5 comments) SHARE Friday, December 24, 2021 The Real Antidote to Inflation
Stoking the Fire Without Burning Down the Barn - The Fed has options for countering the record inflation the U.S. is facing that are more productive and less risky than raising interest rates.
(1 comments) SHARE Thursday, July 15, 2010 HOW BROKERS BECAME BOOKIES: THE INSIDIOUS TRANSFORMATION OF MARKETS INTO CASINOS
Our forebears considered gambling to be immoral and made it a crime. Derivative trading was originally considered an illegal form of gambling. Perhaps it is time to reinstate the gambling laws, board up the derivatives casinos, and return the stock market to what it was designed to be: a means of funneling the capital of investors into productive businesses.
(6 comments) SHARE Tuesday, September 2, 2014 Even the Council on Foreign Relations Is Saying It: Time to Rain Money on Main Street
You can always count on Americans to do the right thing, after they've tried everything else. --Winston Churchill
When an article appears in Foreign Affairs, the mouthpiece of the policy-setting Council on Foreign Relations, recommending that the Federal Reserve do a money drop directly on the 99%, you know the central bank must be down to its last bullet.
(4 comments) SHARE Sunday, December 20, 2020 Tackling the Infrastructure and Unemployment Crises: The "American System" Solution
The National Infrastructure Bank of 2020 can rebuild crumbling infrastructure across America, pushing up long-term growth, not only without driving up taxes or the federal debt, but without hyper-inflating the money supply or generating financial asset bubbles.
(2 comments) SHARE Friday, July 2, 2010 Deficit Terrorism as Class Warfare -- and How We Can Even the Score
Wall Street banks have been saved from bankruptcy by governments that are now going bankrupt themselves; but the banks are not returning the favor. Instead, they are engaged in a class war, insisting that the squeezed middle class be even further squeezed to balance over-stressed government budgets. All the perks are going to Wall Street, while Main Street slips into debt slavery.
(5 comments) SHARE Sunday, September 28, 2008 Thanks But No Thanks: What Lincoln Would Have Said to Paulson's $700 Billion Ransom
Last week, Treasury Secretary Paulson pulled out his bazooka and held it to Congress's head. "Seven hundred billion dollars or your credit system will collapse!" President Lincoln was faced with a similar threat from the bankers. He said, "Thanks but no thanks; I'll issue my own."
(4 comments) SHARE Monday, May 23, 2022 A Reset That Serves the People
To the extent that prices are rising it is not from money printing but from lockdowns and supply chain disruptions and shortages, the same disruptions triggering price inflation globally.
(1 comments) SHARE Wednesday, October 3, 2018 Breaking with Wall Street: L.A. Puts It to the Voters
The numbers are there to support the case for a Los Angeles city-owned bank, but a critical ingredient in effecting revolutionary change is finding the political will. The L.A. City Council has it, and is taking the matter to the voters.
SHARE Thursday, June 26, 2008 THE SUBPRIME TRUMP CARD: STANDING UP TO THE BANKS
The majority of subprime homeowners may have a valid defense to foreclosure. A coalition of beleaguered homeowners armed with this defense could have significant clout with Congress.
(6 comments) SHARE Thursday, July 9, 2009 California Dreamin': How the State Can Beat Its Budget Woes
All eyes are on California as it attempts to solve its $26 billion budget crisis. State legislators are caught between the rock of tax ceilings and the hard place of debt limits. What to do? How about setting up a state-owned bank and using its state revenues as "reserves"? The bank could then do what any bank does: fan those reserves into many times their face value in loans.
SHARE Wednesday, April 30, 2008 Speculating in Hunger: Are Investors Contributing to the Global Food Crisis?
Investment newsletters are now featuring headlines like "How You Can Profit from the Global Food Crisis." The recommended investments will no doubt do very well in the global food crisis; but before you put your money down, you may want to explore whether you will be helping to alleviate the problem or actually contributing to it.
(1 comments) SHARE Thursday, May 24, 2012 Cooperative Banking in the Aquarian Age
Banking in an age of greed is fraught with usury, fraud, and gaming the system for private ends. But there is another way to do banking, the neighborly approach of George Bailey in the classic movie "It's a Wonderful Life." Rather than feeding off the community, banking can feed the community and local economy.
(7 comments) SHARE Thursday, September 6, 2007 Market Meltdown: The End of a 300 Year Ponzi Scheme
The market is collapsing because we have come to the end of a 300 year Ponzi scheme, dating back to the privatization of money creation in the seventeenth century. The only way out of this fix is the way we got into it: by retrieving the power to create money from a cartel of private bankers and returning it to the people themselves.
(10 comments) SHARE Monday, March 31, 2008 APRIL FOOLS: THE FOX TO GUARD THE BANKING HENHOUSE
The Federal Reserve, which has been credited with creating the current housing bubble and bust just as it created the credit bubble of the Roaring Twenties and the bust of 1929, is now to be given vast new powers to oversee regulation of the banking industry and promote "financial market stability." At least, that is the gist of a Treasury Department proposal to be presented to Congress on Monday, March 30, 2008 . . . .
(4 comments) SHARE Sunday, November 11, 2007 Letter To The United Nations: How To Cut Sustainable Energy Costs In Half
Development loans have become debt traps for Third World countries, as interest compounds annually on money created by banks with accounting entries. If governments or the United Nations would take over that function, advancing credit created with accounting entries themselves, the crippling expense of interest could be eliminated. Interest-free loans could help ease climate change and other global crises.
(10 comments) SHARE Saturday, November 10, 2007 Behind the Drums of War with Iran: Nuclear Weapons or Compound Interest?
Why the relentless push for war with Iran? The nuclear weapons explanation is suspect. The most important impetus for war may not be oil or the bomb but that Iran has managed to escape the heel of an international clique of private bankers. We may be involved in a war of banking schemes, with Iran's innovative interest-free banking model pitted against the compound interest trap that has captured most of the world in debt.
SHARE Monday, September 24, 2007 Bank Run or Stealth Bail-Out? The Global Credit Crisis Comes to Main Street
Our debt-based monetary system is basically a Ponzi scheme, and it has reached its mathematical limits. The choices are bank runs, as we just saw in England, or stealth hyperinflation to keep the bubble afloat. But there's a third option: returning the monetary scheme to something closer to the vision of our forefathers.
(4 comments) SHARE Friday, July 25, 2008 PUTTING THE "FEDERAL" BACK IN THE FEDERAL RESERVE
Where is the outrage? Remove the myth that the Federal Reserve, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac act by and for the people rather than being run for private gain, and we will soon see the outrage curiously missing today.
(11 comments) SHARE Monday, March 24, 2008 Another Way Around the Credit Crisis: Minnesota Bill Would Authorize State Banks to "Monetize" Productivity
While the Federal Reserve is lowering the interest rates charged to banks, the interest municipal governments must pay on bonds is skyrocketing, seriously impairing their ability to do public works including repairing bridges and roads. A bill scheduled to be heard before the Minnesota Senate Transportation Committee on March 25, 2008, could represent a major innovation in the way local government projects are funded.
(1 comments) SHARE Tuesday, May 4, 2010 Derivatives Come to the Movies
s if attacks from paparazzi and star-crazed fans weren't enough, Hollywood stars may soon have a literal price put on their heads by investors in the Cantor Exchange, a real-money trading platform where people can bet on the gross profits of upcoming movies.
(2 comments) SHARE Friday, January 11, 2008 Patrol Boats in the Straits of Hormuz: Another Gulf of Tonkin Incident?
Despite a recent National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) finding that Iran is not engaged in a nuclear weapons program, the push for war continues. The question is, why? The Project for a New American Century provides some clues . . .