The Public Option in Banking

Ellen Hodgson Brown, J.D.

University of Washington, Seattle Kane Hall October 26, 2011, 7 pm

WHERE DOES MONEY COME FROM?

Contrary to popular belief, U.S. dollars are NOT issued by the federal government.

They are issued by the Federal Reserve and LENT to other banks and the government.

Not just the Federal Reserve but all banks create money with accounting entries. So said U.S. Treasury Secretary Robert B. Anderson in 1959: • “[W]hen a bank makes a loan, it simply adds to the borrower’s deposit account in the bank by the amount of the loan.

The money is not taken from anyone else’s deposit for the use of the borrower

;

it was not previously paid in to the bank by anyone. It’s new money, created by the bank

.”

Banks create money by “fractional reserve” lending.

Modern Money Mechanics

, p. 49: “With a uniform 10 percent reserve requirement, a $1 increase in reserves would support $10 of additional transaction accounts.” In effect, the deposits are double-counted.

100,000 Cumulative expansion in deposits on basis of 10,000 of new reserves and reserve requirement of 10%.

80,000 60,000 40,000 20,000 Initial deposits Expansion stages

This system goes back to the 17 th century goldsmiths-turned-bankers, who issued private banknotes supposedly backed by gold. They issued many times more notes than they had gold. At a 10% reserve requirement, 90% of the notes were “created out of thin air.” .

Today, nearly all of our money is created by banks when they make loans.

• M1 (blue) -- coins, dollar bills and checkbook money • M2 (purple) - money and “close substitutes”, including savings deposits and individual time deposits • M3 (pink) -- adds large time deposits and institutional money market funds

The snag is the interest. Banks create the principal but not the interest needed to pay back their loans. .

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New borrowers must continually be found to pay the interest, turning banking into an unsustainable pyramid scheme.

•www.answers.com

SUSTAINABLE BANKING: THE PUBLIC OPTION • There is another alternative, one that goes back to the American colonists. They used paper scrip – money issued by the government as receipts for goods and services delivered. The scrip was backed only by the credit of the community.

Boston colonial scrip, 1690

The best of these systems was in Benjamin Franklin’s colony of Pennsylvania. It owned its own bank.

Interest and profits returned to the government. Government prints $105 • • • During that period:

the colonists paid virtually no taxes, prices did not inflate, and there was no government debt.

Lends $100 @ 5% interest Spends $5 on budget, infrastructure $105 circulates in economy; comes back to government as principal and interest Government lends $100 @ 5% interest Spends $5 on budget, infrastructure

Why does a sovereign government need to borrow money? What happened to just printing it?

• The American colonial system worked until King George II forbade the colonists to produce new issues of paper money. Taxes had to be paid to England in gold. . . .

The result was a serious depression.The colonists rebelled, prompting the American Revolution.

The colonists won but had huge war debts.

• In 1791, Treasury Secretary Alexander Hamilton set up the First U.S. Bank to pay these debts. • Like the Bank of England, it was a privately-owned bank that would print banknotes “backed” by gold and lend them to the government.

The debts were paid and the economy thrived. But it was the beginning of a system of government funding by borrowing privately issued paper money at interest, when the government could have issued the money itself.

President Lincoln returned to the government issued money of the American colonists to avoid a crippling war debt during the Civil War. But this “Greenback” issuance ended after he was assassinated.

In 1913, the privately-owned Federal Reserve was authorized to issue its own Federal Reserve Notes and lend them to the government at interest, usurping the government’s own power to issue money.

Today, our money is debt.

Robert H. Hemphill, Credit Manager of the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta, wrote in 1934: “We are completely dependent on the commercial Banks.

Someone has to borrow every dollar we have in circulation, cash or credit

. If the Banks create ample synthetic money we are prosperous; if not, we starve.”

I The national debt just keeps growing, forming the money supply. No debt, no money. The problem is not the debt but the interest.

Federal debt 1940 to 2007 ($9T) Money supply 1959 to 2006 ($10T)

ALTERNATIVES FOR SUSTAINABLE BANKING • Interest-free banking.

• Interest-free complementary currency systems.

• Publicly-owned banks, where profits return to the public (the colonial Pennsylvania model).

HOW STATES COULD TAP INTO WALL STREET’S PERKS: OWN A BANK • With its own bank, the state could leverage its own capital and deposits into credit.

• The state bank could have access to Fed funds at 0.2%.

• The state bank could partner with local banks to help with capital requirements. • The state could keep the interest and profits, and guarantee cheap, ready credit for itself and the local economy.

Fourteen state legislatures have now introduced bills to establish state-owned banks or to study their feasibility: OR, MD, WA, HI, AZ, IL, MA, VA, LA, VT, ME, NM, MT, and CA.

These initiatives are all following the lead of North Dakota, the only state to have its own bank.

• ND is also the only state to have a major budget surplus in 2010. • ND has had its own bank since 1919, when farmers were losing their farms to the Wall Street bankers. • They organized, won an election, and passed legislation.

ONLY N. DAKOTA ESCAPED THE CREDIT CRISIS .

• In 2009, while other states floundered, North Dakota had its largest budget surplus ever. It was the only state to cut personal and business taxes during the recession. • ND has the lowest unemployment rate in the country, the lowest default rate, the most local banks per capita, and hasn’t lost a single bank to the credit crisis.

The Bank of North Dakota (BND) has a captive deposit base. • All state revenues are deposited in it by law.

• The deposits are guaranteed by the state.

• Note: It is not the state’s credit but the bank’s credit that is lent to borrowers.

What the BND does for ND: • Pays a dividend to the state of $30M/year. The BND had a return on equity in 2010 of 19%.

• Pays 5% on the state’s deposits. (Compare this, for example, to an average 2.5% received by WA State from its depository banks.) • Provides a direct credit line for the state, avoiding extortionate interest, fees and threats of downgrades.

• Partners with local banks to increase their capacity for local lending.

• Guarantees a stable, low interest rate for state and local government infrastructure projects.

Consider the possibilities . . .

Extrapolating from the BND model, just using government revenues - North Dakota : • Population 647,000 • Deposits $2.7B

• Deposits per capita – approx. $4000 • Loans $2.6B

Washington State : • Population 6,724,540 • At $4000/person, deposits = $27B • Potential loans = $26B

What could the state do with $26 billion in credit?

One of many possibilities: • It could buy $26 billion in muni bonds, generating interest at 5% of $1.34 billion .

• That would be enough to service an additional $26 billion in state debt. (The existing debt is $70 billion.)

The state could fund infrastructure projects interest-free. Cutting out interest cuts the average cost of public projects by 50%, making otherwise unsustainable projects sustainable.

A state-owned bank can raise state revenues without raising taxes, by:

• Returning an annual multi-million dollar dividend to the state. • Increasing the tax base by partnering with local banks to increase their loan capacity, fostering local business.

• Reducing state borrowing costs by providing interest free or low-interest loans to state and local government, when Wall Street is raising public borrowing costs.

As Buckminster Fuller said - “You never change things by fighting the existing reality. To change something, create a new model that makes the old model obsolete.”

For more information – http://PublicBankingInstitute.org

http://WebofDebt.com