Cities to start their own banks. Here's why.

Yesterday (1/16/18) Phil Murphy was sworn in as governor of New Jersey. Murphy made public banking a centerpiece of his economic program. With assistance from the Public Banking Institute, Murphy modeled his ideas on the hugely successful state-owned Bank of North Dakota. http://fairnow.weebly.com/blog/goldman-sachs-trumped-by-public-bank

Cities across America are also exploring public banking. This slideshow gives you an overview. For more information, please use the FairNow.org contact form.

The URL for this slideshow is: https://fairnow.weebly.com/blog/cities-to-start-their-own-banks-heres-why

_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/

SLIDESHOW FOOTNOTES

SLIDE 2
  1.     "Alternative Service Delivery: Shared Services," Government Financial Officers Association, http://www.gfoa.org/alternative-service-delivery-shared-services
 
SLIDE 3
  2.     "No Small Fees: A Report by the Fix LA Coalition," Mar. 2014, http://d3n8a8pro7vhmx.cloudfront.net/seiu721/pages/1/attachments/original/1395715866/No_Small_Fees_A_Report_by_the_Fix_LA_Coalition.pdf. Report concludes that Los Angeles was forced to spend over $200 million a year on municipal banking and finance while lacking sufficient funds to fix potholes.
 
SLIDE 4
  3.     "Dirty Deals: How Wall Street’s Predatory Deals Hurt Taxpayers and What We Can Do About It," Roosevelt Institute, Nov. 2014, http://rooseveltinstitute.org/dirty-deals-how-wall-streets-predatory-deals-hurt-taxpayers-and-what-we-can-do-about-it. Paper by Saqib Bhatti inspired Commonomics USA's "Strengthening Municipal Finance" initiative.
 
SLIDE 5
  4.     “The Looting of Oakland: How Wall Street’s Predatory Practices Are Costing Oakland Communities Millions and What We Can Do About It”, p.3 (“How Wall Street is Gouging Oakland Taxpayers for$468 million”), ReFund & ReBuild Oakland Coalition, Jun. 2013, http://d3n8a8pro7vhmx.cloudfront.net/reinvestinoakland/pages/13/attachments/original/1372215628/The_Looting_of_Oakland-Wall_St_Predatory_Practices_June_2013.pdf
 
SLIDE 6
  5.     See note 3.
  6.    Ibid.
  7.    See note 4.
 
SLIDE 7
  8.    "Big banks meet robo-signing settlement obligations," CNBC, Mar. 2014, http://www.cnbc.com/2014/03/18/big-banks-meet-robo-signing-settlement-obligations.html
 
9.    "J.P. Morgan, Justice Department Reach $50 Million Robo-Signing Settlement," Wall Street Journal, Mar. 2015, http://www.wsj.com/articles/j-p-morgan-justice-department-reach-50-million-robosigning-settlement-1425399145
10.    "Overdraft Fees at Banks Hit a High, Despite Curbs," Wall Street Journal, Apr. 2014, http://www.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702304157204579475573602576630?mg=reno64-wsj&url=http%3A%2F%2Fonline.wsj.com%2Farticle%2FSB10001424052702304157204579475573602576630.html
11.    "Connecting the Dots: How Wall Street Brings Fringe Financing to Main Street," Dec. 2013, http://www.reinvestmentpartners.org/sites/reinvestmentpartners.org/files/Payday_Finance_RP_Final_0.pdf
12.     "REO to Rental in California: Wall Street Investments, Big Bank Financing, and Neighborhood Displacement," Jun. 2015, http://calreinvest.org/system/resources/W1siZiIsIjIwMTUvMDYvMjMvMDBfMDhfMzVfNTI3X1JFT190b19SZW50YWxfaW5fQ2FsaWZvcm5pYV9DUkNfSnVuZV8yMDE1Xy5wZGYiXV0/REO%20to%20Rental%20in%20California%20(CRC%20June%202015).pdf
13.     "Wells Fargo agrees to pay $175M settlement in pricing discrimination suit." Baltimore Sun, Dec. 2012, http://articles.baltimoresun.com/2012-07-12/news/bs-md-ci-wells-fargo-20120712_1_mike-heid-wells-fargo-home-mortgage-subprime-mortgages
14.     "Several banks have recently paid huge amounts to settle claims they participated in predatory lending schemes that left many minority borrowers in massive debt." Baltimore Sun, Mar. 2015, http://touch.baltimoresun.com/#section/-1/article/p2p-83088196/
 
SLIDE 8
15.     Several major banks and other Wall Street firms belong to the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), the nation's leading source of conservative and anti-democratic model legislation. After intense and prolonged public pressure, Bank of America and Wells Fargo announced they were cutting ties with ALEC, but this action has not been validated by independent observers. Source: http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/ALEC_Corporations.
             Further, major banks and Wall Street firms may be channeling support to ALEC indirectly through pro-big-business organizations such as the US Chamber of Commerce.
16.    "Banks and other financial firms like hedge funds and private equity firms. . .lobby to prevent progressive revenue solutions, denying public officials revenue they desperately need." "Dirty Deals," p. 4. See citation at note 3, above.
17.    "2014 Tax Cut Roundup," American Legislative Exchange Council, http://www.alec.org/publications/taxcutroundup
18.    "Keep the Water Running: Public Banking as an Alternative to Privatization," Mar. 2015, http://www.publicbankinginstitute.org/keeping_the_water_running_public_banking_as_an_alternative_to_privatization
19.     "Back to ALEC, Back to (Private) School," Huffington Post, Aug. 2015, http://www.huffingtonpost.com/rep-chris-taylor/back-to-alec-back-to-priv_b_8055540.html
20.     "How do these bills attack working people?," ALEC Exposed, The Center for Media and Democracy, http://www.alecexposed.org/wiki/Worker_Rights_and_Consumer_Rights
21.     "Working, but Needing Public Assistance Anyway," New York Times, Apr. 2015, http://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/13/business/economy/working-but-needing-public-assistance-anyway.html
22.     "ALEC-based restrictions on city-run Internet at risk after FCC ruling," Apr. 2015, http://www.publicintegrity.org/2015/04/29/17244/alec-based-restrictions-city-run-internet-risk-after-fcc-ruling
23.    "Texas Passes Ban on Fracking Bans (Yes, You Read that Right)," May 2015, http://ecowatch.com/2015/05/05/texas-ban-on-fracking-bans”
24.    "Lawmakers override veto of bill blocking local plastic bag bans, minimum wage increases," Columbia Daily Tribune, Sep. 2015, http://www.columbiatribune.com/news/politics/house-overrides-veto-of-bill-blocking-local-plastic-bag-bans/article_c8ba46e4-2ae0-5995-8248-3ec02b8e57a3.html. State legislature now prohibits cities and towns from enacting pro-environment bans on plastic grocery bags.
           Not mentioned in this article, but revealed by the Center for Public Integrity in an overview piece on state corruption: the Missouri lawmaker who spearheaded the legislation is a director of the Missouri Grocers Association. http://www.nationofchange.org/2015/11/11/only-three-states-score-higher-than-d-in-state-integrity-investigation-11-flunk
 
SLIDE 10
25.    "Dirty Deals," p. 1, see citation at note 3.
26.    Ibid.
27.    Ibid.
28.    "Bankers Rigging Municipal Contract Bids Admit to Cover-Up Lies," Bloomberg, Nov. 2010, http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2010-11-24/bankers-rigging-municipal-contract-bids-admit-to-lying-to-cover-up-tracks
29.    "The Scam Wall Street Learned from the Mafia," Rolling Stone, Jun. 2012, http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/the-scam-wall-street-learned-from-the-mafia-20120620
 
SLIDE 11
30.    "Nonpartisan League," Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nonpartisan_League
 
SLIDE 13
31.    "What is Public Banking?," Public Banking Institute, http://www.publicbankinginstitute.org/intro_to_public_banking
 
SLIDE 14
32.    "There are certain financial functions for which state and local governments currently rely on Wall Street that they could do themselves for significantly less money if they hired the right staff. For example, public pension funds could save millions in fees if they hired in-house staff to manage their investments. There are other financial services that cities could band together to provide each other." "Dirty Deals," p. 14, see citation at note 3.
 
SLIDE 16
33.    Ibid.
34.    "Bank of North Dakota: Frequently Asked Questions," http://banknd.nd.gov/contact_us/BND_FAQ_FINAL.pdf
35.    "WSJ Reports: BND Outperforms Wall Street," Public Banking Institute (PBI), Nov. 2014, http://www.publicbankinginstitute.org/bnd_outperforms_wall_street
        The Wall Street Journal ascribed BND's remarkable performance to North Dakota's recent oil boom. But as this article by PBI co-founder Ellen Brown points out, WSJ's spin is disingenuous and grossly misleading: BND consistently delivered high performance long before the oil boom.
             However, it is entirely predictable that the financial industry's newspaper of record would not explain BND's stunning success as resulting from the public policies of a state-owned bank, which benefit taxpayers and local business owners but not Wall Street. Revealing the truth might encourage public officials elsewhere to follow North Dakota's healthy example.
36. “Goldman Sachs trumped by public bank,” FairNow.org, Feb. 2017,. http://fairnow.weebly.com/blog/goldman-sachs-trumped-by-public-bank
37.    "Public Banks: Bank of North Dakota," Institute for Local Self-Reliance (ILSR), Jul. 2015, https://ilsr.org/rule/bank-of-north-dakota-2. This article by ILSR co-director Stacy Mitchell is one of the best single sources of information on the BND.
38.     "Killing Off Community Banks - Intended Consequence of Dodd-Frank?," Truthout, Oct. 2015, http://www.truth-out.org/news/item/33360-killing-off-community-banks-intended-consequence-of-dodd-frank. See final section, "Restoring Community Banking: The Model of North Dakota".
39.    Ibid.
40.     BND FAQ, see citation at note 30.
 
SLIDE 17
41.     "How Wall Street Devoured the Recovery," Huffington Post, Nov. 2013, http://www.huffingtonpost.com/les-leopold/how-wall-street-devoured_b_3960271.html
42.    “...the city reached out to neighboring cities to gauge their interest in co-financing the study. The council is considering a regional approach...,” “Oakland council to spend $75,000 for study into public bank,” East Bay Times, Sep. 2017, http://www.eastbaytimes.com/2017/09/28/oakland-to-spend-75k-for-public-bank-study
 
SLIDE 20
43.    Numerous organizations range from the National League of Cities and the US Conference of Mayors to the Government Financial Officers Association and other speciailzed groups, plus state and regional organizations of municipalities.
 
SLIDE 21
44.    "The market rate is what it is because a small number of large financial institutions dominate the municipal finance landscape and, over time, they have established industry norms that are driven by their profit motive. Cities and states need to do the same by establishing norms that are driven by their desire to save taxpayer money. They should adopt guidelines. . .with caps on fees and interest rates, prohibitions on predatory practices, transparency and disclosure requirements, and requirements that bankers exercise a fiduciary responsibility to taxpayers." "Dirty Deals," p. 14, see citation at note 3.
45.     "Furthermore, they should collectively refuse to do any business at all with any bank that refuses to abide by those guidelines. In this way participating cities and states would be able to use their collective economic leverage to negotiate fairer terms with Wall Street." "Dirty Deals," p. 14, see citation at note 3.