The Rationale for State-Owned Banks

[N_E_1 for Tennis]

Reader Supported News | Perspective

By Lorenzo A. Canizares, Reader Supported News
10 July 2010


Michigan has an unemployment rate of 14 percent, and has been particularly hard hit by the economic downturn. Verg Bernero, Mayor of Lansing, the state's capital, and a leading Democratic candidate for governor, proposes to relieve the state's economic ills by opening a state-owned bank. He says the bank could protect consumers by making low-interest loans to those most in need, including students and small businesses; it could also help community banks by buying mortgages off their books and working with them to fund development projects.

Bernero's proposal should be seriously considered given the political state of the nation right now, since Republicans and Wall Street have combined forces to impede any possibility of the Obama administration fixing the economic problem created by their recklessness. Their strategy is to dictate by stalemate, the Party of "NO" using the filibuster! Consequently, Bernero's words ring even louder: "Hundreds of jobs-creating projects are still on hold because Michigan businesses and entrepreneurs cannot get bank financing. We can break the credit crunch and beat Wall Street at their own game by keeping our money right here in Michigan and investing it to retool our economy and create jobs."

Ellen Brown, a litigation attorney from Los Angeles turned researcher who has done superb work letting the nation know about the state of North Dakota's thriving economy, says, "Bernero joins a growing A list of candidates proposing this sensible solution to their state's fiscal ills. Local economies have collapsed because of the Wall Street credit freeze. To reinvigorate local business, Main Street needs a heavy infusion of credit, and publicly-owned banks could fill that need."

Where are we now? We have a severely depressed economy - and that depressed economy is inflicting long-term damage. The national unemployment rate is 9.5 percent as of July 2, 2010, or 15 million people. The rate jumps up to 16.6 percent if we count part-time workers that need full-time jobs and those who stopped looking. Plus 6.8 million have been out of work longer than six months. Nobel Prize economist Paul Krugman says, "Every year that goes by with extremely high unemployment increases the chance that many of the long-term unemployed will never come back to the work force, and become a permanent underclass. Every year that there are five times as many people seeking work as there is job openings means that hundreds of thousands of Americans graduating from school are denied the chance to get started on their working lives."


Rest of the story at:

http://readersupportednews.org/opinion/41-41/2398-the-rationale-for-state-owned-banks


Virg for Gov. !!!!!!!!