GOOD BANKING

North Dakota has the country’s only state bank. It is also the state with the lowest unemployment rate and highest job growth rate. The state is not near bankruptcy , there is no credit freeze stymieing job creators, and no cut backs to social services, higher education, state pensions, and the hiring of teachers, policemen, and firefighters. 

What’s going on?

            Well, in part, it’s the state bank. By law, all state money that comes from taxes and fees is deposited in the bank, which then issues low interest loans to students, farmers, and businesses. The bank buys government bonds to spur development and to shore-up infrastructure. With a state population of 600,000, last year it made $60 million in profit. Of this, it returned almost one half ($30 million) to the state for projects, disaster relief, and a rainy day savings account.

            Why can’t every state have a bank like this?

            Instead, banking in the remaining forty-nine states operates for profit. A state’s government deposits taxes and fees in a big commercial bank that’s usually headquartered in New York. These banks primary purpose is to generate profit for shareholders. To this end, the banks make risky investments in hopes of high returns. If a bet goes bad, the government (i.e. taxpayers) cover the loss, while the banks keep all profit. The state gets nothing back.

            Can someone tell me why we put up with this?

HOW THE BIG BANKS GOT CONTROL OF WASHINGTON

The creation of the Federal Reserve is an instructive story of how the Big Banks took over Washington. There were two central banks in the country’s history that were so destructive to the nation’s economy that both lasted only the length of their charter, which was twenty years. The third, known as the Federal Reserve, has lasted almost one hundred. In 1910, the big bankers knew how difficult it would be to convince Congress to pass a bill to establish a central bank. If the bankers were honest in their demands – to establish a private banking cartel that would control the printing of money, and get taxpayers to cover risky bank bets – the public would never accept it. The central bank had to appear as if it were something that it wasn’t. It wouldn’t even have the word ‘bank’ in its name. No bankers would be associated with the bill, so their connection to it would not be in evidence. The central bank’s true objectives would never be stated, and false objectives would be offered in their place. The banking PR machine went into full swing, singing the praises of a Federal Reserve. It would get politics out of financial policy. It would stabilize the banks and the economy. Still, there was enough dissent that the bill was not tabled until three days before Christmas, when most representatives were home for the holidays. The bill passed. And that is how the big banks, in one bill, seized power over a country’s democracy. As banking magnate Mayer Amschel Rothschild said, ‘Let me issue and control a nation’s money and I care not who writes its laws.’