More States May Create Public Banks

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by Ellen Brown

posted May 13, 2010

— tags: Public Banking, BP Oil Spill, The State Banking Revolution

Thumb Up Icon By 2011, only one state will have escaped the credit crunch that is pushing other states toward insolvency: North Dakota. North Dakota is also the only state that owns its own bank. The state has its own credit machine, making it independent of the Wall Street banking crisis that has infected the rest of the country.

: The new headquarters of the Bank of North Dakota in Bismarck.

Image courtesy www.banknd.nd.gov.

Now, several states are either studying the prospects of a state-owned bank or are considering legislation to make one possible.

Five states have bills pending—Massachusetts, Washington, Illinois, Michigan, and Virginia. In April, documentary filmmaker and Virginia resident Bill Still showed his new award-winning documentary on the topic, The Secret of Oz, to the Missouri House of Representatives. Rep. Allen Icet, a candidate for state auditor, proposed using the Virginia proposal as part of a study on a state bank in Missouri and said he would hold committee hearings this summer.

Also in mid-April, the Hawai‘i House approved a resolution asking the state to study the possibility of establishing a state-run bank there. State Rep. Marcus Oshiro, a Democrat who chairs the finance committee, called a state-run bank a “reasonable public option” to spur development and hold state funds.

Other state legislatures entertaining proposals for forming state-owned banks include New Mexico and Vermont. Candidates in eight states are running on a state-owned bank platform: three Democrats, two Greens, two Republicans, and one Independent.

—Ellen Brown is an attorney and the author of 11 books, including Web of Debt, webofdebt.com

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YES! Magazine encourages you to make free use of this article by taking these easy steps. Brown, E. (2010, May 11). More States May Create Public Banks. Retrieved February 08, 2012, from YES! Magazine Web site: http://www.yesmagazine.org/issues/water-solutions/more-states-may-create-public-banks. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons License

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Reader Comments

Public banks

Posted by Gary at May 18, 2010 11:01 AM

this is great news. Public banks could save state budgets and economies. Current crisis is caused by private finances which are wreaking havoc in the world

Public FED?

Posted by Paolo at May 19, 2010 04:06 AM

HI,
it is a good way.
But who is the owner of the the money?
The FED.
Who is the owner of FED?
The banks.
States need to be the money owner, this is the right way in my idea.
Sorry for little English
Best regards.

State Central Banks

Posted by Bob Taft at May 19, 2010 12:46 PM

While this is one of the greatest things that could ever happen to the states and the people, along with abolishing the privately-owned Federal Reserve scam, hundreds of state legislators will become extremely wealthy insuring that no more state-owned central banks are established.
America is going under, as a nation, thanks to the existing private debt-bank monopoly, and nothing will stop the collapse. Better luck next time.

States creating own banks

Posted by Jim Crozier at May 19, 2010 05:07 PM

Well I agree that state owned banks would help prevent crisis like the one in 2008 proper regulation is much more important.
Banks in Canada are privately held and forced to perform to a much higher level of responsible action. As such they are highly profitable. In fact the Canadian banking industry has suffered much less then banks else where in the G20 according to the people there who analyze the banks in the G20.

Public banks

Posted by J.R. Messias at May 21, 2010 06:53 AM

Brazil scapes from the international crisis because the public banks took the right decision to finance the production and the consume.

State Banks

Posted by Robert at May 21, 2010 02:16 PM

We got in this mess because of the moral hazard involved in one party leveraging another parties asset. Banks do this routinely with depositors money, and then expect the taxpayer to insure the risks that they take in doing this.

While I see state banks as a good start to the end of the dominion of the Federal banking cartel (the Federal Reserve being a private institution), there should be even more options. Why can't we have banks that have 100% reserves? Sure the fees would be higher, but the risks would be lower. At least there would be a choice in so far as the safety of deposits are concerned, and a choice in so far as the government insurance subsidy is concerned.

Not everyone want's to be a codependent of the state.