Cross-post, "New York City’s Forgotten Public Bank Plan" by Andy Morrison
Here is an excellent article by Andy Morrison, associate director of the New Economy Project, on the historical challenges and future prospects of public banking in New York City —
“New York City’s Forgotten Public Bank Plan”
In 1975, Wall Street declared war on New York, sending the city into a fiscal crisis. A forgotten public banking proposal in the state assembly could have stopped it — and put both the city and the country on the path to socialized finance.
… Steingut and his allies weren’t trying to tear the system down. They simply realized just how exposed the city really was to Wall Street’s power. In pushing back, they didn’t invent a grand theory. They were, in fact, being pragmatic in treating public money like public infrastructure, instead of letting it be controlled by private institutions.
In 1975, at the height of the fiscal crisis, the New York State Assembly’s Office of Research and Analysis estimated that a public bank would save the city tens of millions of dollars a year in interest — not by replacing private lenders but by stabilizing rates, underwriting at cost, and cutting out Wall Street’s markup.
Read the full article here.
"For a moment, New York’s political leadership briefly considered the most profound challenge possible to financial power: reclaiming public credit and putting the ownership of capital itself on the path to socialization."
Hopefully they will consider it again.
Uplifting article, but in reality the difficulties in creating public banks whether at the city, county, or state level is real, because the Wall Street bankers and their allies will spend millions of dollars in propaganda campaigns about such a "socialist" concept, and perhaps more importantly, buy off politicians with enormous campaign contributions and "under the table payola" to the political prostitutes who will shelve any plans for public banking rather than vote on bills to create them in various legislative sectors of government, as the article reveals.
But, let's hope Mandami is successful as NYC's new mayor and makes it happen. If so, he will be America's Mayor, and it spread from coast to coast.
I think it was the writer, Victor Hugo who said "Nothing's more powerful than an idea whose time has come."