Public Banking Promoted in the Nation’s Capitol

An enthusiastic, diverse, overflow crowd attended the DC Public Banking Center’s forum, “Public Dollars/Public Bank in DC: Building Our Future,” held in downtown DC on October 21st. The Alliance’s Ruth Caplan introduced the panelists selected to represent a broad spectrum of voices.

Gar Alperovitz, author of What Then Must We Do? and co-chair of the Next System Project, opened the evening by talking about how public banking fits into the next American Revolution. He spoke about ecologically sustainable, community-oriented change and the socialization/democratization of wealth which he sees as bubbling up in this country today, not as some far away utopia.


Nomi Prins spoke from her years on Wall Street where she left her last position as a managing director at Goldman Sachs to speak truth to Wall Street power. From her most recent, All the Presidents’ Bankers to her earlier book,  Other People’s Money: The Corporate Mugging of America,  Prins has written about money power in America and is a strong advocate of public banking. You can watch her video here.

Horst Gischer,  came from German to talk about public banking in Germany as an academic studying monetary economics and public financial institutions.  The campaign looks forward to an ongoing relationship with Gischer. His remarks are here.



Jessica Gordon Nembhard, author of Collective Courage, shared the inspiring history of the African American cooperative movement from urban buying clubs to farmers coops and placed the campaign for public banking in this context.

Harold Meyerson, Washington Post columnist and editor-at-large of The American Prospect magazine, made the case for cities being the incubators for creative progressive change in the U.S. His presentation is here.

The evening ended with questions from the audience and a rousing call for people to get involved with many people coming forward to say they want to help. You can watch the Q & A session here.


This was a big leap forward for the DC campaign for a public bank, but there is still much hard work ahead.  The Alliance for Democracy is very pleased to be the fiscal sponsor for the DCPBC, part of our national campaign for public banking.

Thanks to Stephen L. Kolb for the video clips.

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What's wrong with privatization?

The audio from Tuesday's edition of "Corporation's and Democracy" is now up on our radio page. The show, as promised, features two takes on privatization, both from speakers at this year's Public Banking Institute national conference.

Steve and Annie's first guest, Darwin BondGraham, is a sociologist and journalist (and occasional "Corporations and Democracy" listener) who now covers political economy for print and web publications. He explains some of the history and thinking behind his conference talk, titled "Public-Private Partnerships--Highway to Ruin." He's followed by chief of staff of the National Association of Letter Carriers, Jim Sauber. There are lots of privatization pressures on the US Postal Service, but Jim discusses ways that the post office could add services that would benefit workers and the public alike.

Callers give their points of view, and Steve's look at the headlines features some good news on the fight against GMOs.

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Privatization is the topic on tomorrow's "Corporations and Democracy"

Tomorrow, June 11th, on our "Corporations and Democracy" radio show, Annie Esposito and Steve Scalmanini will discuss the treacherous trend of privatization with two speakers from last week's Conference on Public Banking, journalist and sociologist Darwin Bond-Graham, and the chief of staff of the National Association of Letter Carriers, Jim Sauber. Listen live starting at 1 p.m. Pacific Time on www.kzyx.org or over the airwaves at KZYX & Z, 90.7, 91.5, and 88.3 FM in Mendocino County, CA. We'll be taping and posting the show and will have it up on the Alliance for Democracy radio page after it airs.

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A case for public banking as the cure for cannibals

"Too big to fail" is also "too big to jail," but how does that practical immunity drive the buisness practices of our largest banks? Over the last decades we've seen the finance industry undermine the long-term economic vitality of much of the country's manufacturing base and its housing stock. Are private for-profit banks invariably parasitical? What might have been different in this country if instead of bailing out casino capitalists, the public sector had simply taken over failing banks, regardless of size? Why should we beware public-private partnerships in banking?

Here's some brief but powerful answers to those questions, all of which makes a strong argument for public banking. The presenter is Michael Hudson, a former financial analyst and now a professor of economics at the University of Missouri at Kansas City, appearing on The Real News Network last week.

AfD members are active with public banking working groups in Massachusetts and Washington DC. To keep up with these and other campaigns, subscribe to our e-news.

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Updating the end of year update!

Did you recently read our end-of-year 2012 report? It’s already time for an update! In the last few weeks...

• Our Defending Water in Maine campaign has held four “Stop the East/West Corridor” presenter trainings and raised the alert on using this eastern route to send tar-sands oil to the coast for export.
• Vice Co-chair Bonnie Preston presented a workshop at the Pennsylvania Women in Agriculture conference on using local ordinances to protect farm-to-table sales, traditional foodways and local economies from pro-corporate federal regulations, as successfully done in Maine.
• The Populist Dialogues team has produced new shows on wage theft and workers’ rights, access to public transit as a social justice issue, and money in Oregon politics.
• Co-chair Nancy Price met with other members of the Move to Amend executive committee to shape coalition policy for the upcoming year.
• Members continued to lay the groundwork for public banking in Washington DC and Massachusetts.
• In Portland, OR, chapter members and allies scheduled a hearing on a county resolution calling for our Congressional delegation to send a constitutional amendment to the states to end the twin doctrines of corporate personhood and money equals speech.
• In California, Mendocino chapter members and their allies are discussing an ambitious plan to qualify a state ballot initiative to end corporate personhood and money equals speech. Monterey County members are also laying the groundwork for a county-level resolution.

These are reasons to celebrate. An even better reason is that there's more good work coming in 2013. We hope you'll join with us. We also wish you and your communities a happy, peaceful, and fruitful New Year.

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Join Alliance for Democracy in 2013

As we build for 2013, we welcome your member support! Check out our 2012 report, and then please consider supporting the upcoming year's organizing by joining Alliance for Democracy. Members receive a subscription to our newsletter, Justice Rising, and the satisfaction of helping end corporate rule from the grassroots up.

If you can make a larger contribution, we'll thank you by sending you a dvd of one of the following Populist Dialogues programs. Select one dvd for a donation of $50, two for $100 or all three for $150. When you give online you'll be able to select the show you'd like. If you have questions, or want to learn more about sharing the show on your local community cable station, please contact us in the office--email or call 781-894-1179.

12-46: Escaping the Great Recession with Public Banking
Guest Ellen Hodgson Brown, author of The Web of Debt and founder of the Public Banking Institute,  discusses the advantages of public banking in the United States and around the world. She reviews how money is created, how the Federal Reserve was created, various types of public banks and how their are structured, why some nations have escaped the Great Recession, how America could save its postal service, and how public banking institution could be used as a land bank to address the under-water property and foreclosure problems. First broadcast 11-11-12

12-44: Capitalism of the Olympic Games
Jules Boykoff, associate professor of political science at Pacific University, discusses the recent London Summer Olympics in terms of what he calls Celebration Capitalism. He also talks about the origins of the International Olympic Committee, costs for host cities (both economic and political), who sponsors and benefits from the games, the opposition which develops, media response to that opposition, and the militarization of public spaces including the concept of “Total Policing.” First broadcast 10-28-12

12-41: TransPacific Partnership and "Free Trade"
Guest Elizabeth Swager is Asst Director of Oregon Fair Trade Campaign. She talks about her role in the enactment of Portland Oregon's sweat-free procurement ordinance, designed to protect foreign factory workers. She goes on to review past "free-trade agreements" (NAFTA, Panama, Columbia and South Korea) and their effects on American jobs losses, tax havens and challenges to laws and regulations as a result of investor protection clauses. The TransPacific Partnership is then discussed as a "NAFTA on steroids." This agreement is being negotiated in super secrecy, except for a leaked chapter, which give us a look at how corporate-driven the TPP is. The show includes a petition calling for transparency in the TPP negotiations. First broadcast date:  Oct. 7, 2012      

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"Populist Dialogues" sits down with Oregon Working Families Party on student debt, public banking and agriculture

This edition of "Populist Dialogues" features guest Sami Alloy, organizer with the Oregon Working Families Party (OWFP). Sami made a short video with last week's guests, B Media Collective, on the student debt problem which host David Delk screens during the show. The Oregon Working Families Party is addressing the problem of student debt with their "Pay It Forward" program, which Sami describes. Sami also discusses other party campaigns including the efforts to form an Oregon State Bank and county and municipal level public banks. Another party campaign involves assistance to small farmers via the hoped for creation of agi-bonds.

 

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Ellen Brown on "Populist Dialogues"

Ellen Hodgson Brown,
author of The Web of Debt

Ellen Hodgson Brown, founder of the Public Banking Institute and author of The Web of Debt, visited Portland, OR recently, and was a guest on the Portland chapter's "Populist Dialogues" show. The program is now online on the show's YouTube channel here.

In her talk with host David Delk, Ellen discusses the advantages of public banking in the United States and around the world. She reviews how money is created, how the Federal Reserve was created, various types of public banks and how they're structured, why some nations have escaped the Great Recession, how America could save its postal service, and how public banking institutions could be used as a land bank to address the under-water property and foreclosure problems.

While in Portland, Ellen did a presentation at the 1st Unitarian Church, attended by close to 100 people, despite short notice and Amy Goodman speaking elsewhere in town on the same night. That presentation was recorded by Portland AfD ally Jim Lockhart, and it is also available online here.

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