September 15, 2014 (Philadelphia) — Public bank advocates from the eastern U.S. will hold a one day conference in Philadelphia on October 18, to advance efforts to form public banks in U.S. cities and states.
A similar conference is being held for the western U.S. in Santa Fe, NM on September 27. Santa Fe recently became the first U.S. city to take formal steps to establish its own bank.
Conference participants are working in more than a dozen eastern cities and states to follow that lead, according to Mike Krauss, chairman of the Pennsylvania Project, which along with the Public Banking Institute and Banking on New Mexico has organized the conferences.
Krauss identified the Pennsylvania cities of Philadelphia, Reading and Pittsburgh, as well as Boston, Washington, D.C. Brunswick, GA and Chattanooga, TN and Vermont and New Jersey as among the eastern cities and states where elected officials are responding to the voters and expressing strong interest in the idea.
Advocates of public banks cite the model of the one hundred year old Bank of North Dakota, which is owned by the people of that state, as the model for what Krauss called “the antidote to the failure of the Wall Street, Federal Reserve private banking cartel, which has abandoned Main Street and is forcing our community banks out of business.”
Said Krauss, “The American people have endured almost six years of bankster induced austerity – savage budget cuts, reduced services, unemployment, home foreclosures, bankruptcies, failing schools, crushing student debt, higher taxes and more public debt.
“Like the hugely successful Bank of North Dakota, a Philadelphia or Pittsburgh or New Jersey or Vermont public bank can work with our community banks and credit unions and give cities, states and citizens an urgently needed new tool to help balance budgets, create jobs, reduce debt, revitalize neighborhoods, support small and sustainable business, repair crumbling infrastructure and provide very low cost student loans.”
The conference will be held Saturday, October 18 at the historic Friends Center at the corner of 15th and Cherry Streets in Philadelphia.
Registration is required. For information, those interested are asked to visit the Pennsylvania Project web site:www.publicbankingpa.org
— source ellenbrown.com