Photo by Ivana Cajina.
Victory in California! Gov. Gavin Newsom’s signature has made AB 857 — the historic, grassroots-generated, people-powered Public Banking Act — into law in California. The reverberations of this huge accomplishment will shake the ground nationwide. The California Public Banking Alliance has been masterful in educating legislators, drafting language, and generating massive statewide public support. The strong leadership of the bill’s co-authors, Assemblymembers Miguel Santiago and David Chiu, generated over 20 co-sponsors and support from several committee chairs. Their tremendous achievement clearly demonstrates the will of the people behind banks that serve the public interest. Congratulations to everyone involved.
The time has come for public banks to serve as a people-controlled alternative to the profit-dedicated Wall Street banks that have long since failed to serve the public. The Alliance posted on Facebook:
“WE JUST MADE HISTORY!!! Governor Gavin Newsom just signed #AB857 Public Banks into law, making it possible for California cities and counties to take control of our own future. AB 857 is a victory fueled 100% by people power … With no budget, no lobbyists, and no playbook, we made our case for public banking — and for the first law of its kind in the nation. … The future is here — and California is leading the way for the rest of the nation.”
The Most Revolutionary Act 
The new law allows California cities and counties to create their own banks (funded by tax revenue), providing their families and businesses an alternative to borrowing money from Wall Street banks. The Bank of North Dakota, founded in 1919, was the first state-owned bank in the US. Thanks to the Bank of North Dakota, it was the only state that didn’t suffer from budget deficits following the 2008 financial crash.
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Sounds good.
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You betcha, Sha”Tara. This battle, led mainly by Ellen Brown, has been going on for nearly 10 years. There have been Public Bank bills in at least 20 other states, but most of them died.
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What I meant was, I really don’t know what “public banks” entails, if it’s like the concept of credit unions which the corporate predators ate up for a light snack some years ago and people lost their savings.
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A public bank is one started by a city or state government. It holds tax revenues as deposits and uses them to provide low cost loans to families and small businesses. Here’s a good article explaining how the Bank of North Dakota, another public bank, works:
https://ilsr.org/rule/bank-of-north-dakota-2/
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OK, I see. I could have looked it up but I don’t trust much of what I look up. Now the trepidating part: do the same corporate/banksterist predators who ate up our savings and loans and who own all governments in our “democracies” automatically “own” these public banks if not in name, in actual fact? Will they not find a way to syphon the money out of these public trusts as they do of all other public trusts, from the natural environment to parks, to social services to … whatever takes their fancy to exploit for profit at no cost to themselves? How can we “trust” these things? How can we be sure they will not quickly become adjuncts of private banks through wheeling and dealing? Whenever there is any public money in trust somewhere the sharks have always been there to gobble it up and at no time has this been truer than since the Reagonomics trickle-down theory – which the same fools who wear MAGA hats praised in the 80’s. Let’s free enterprise, remember? The “rich” know what freedom means. The fools think it’s “free rewards” at the gas pump.
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I tend not to trust “reforms” much either, Sha’Tara. Unless we dismantle capitalism altogether, there’s always a risk they will be gobbled up by a corrupt ruling elite for their own personal benefit. I tend to agree with Mao, though, when he suggested that one of the best ways to build a revolutionary movement was to mobilize people to fight for temporary reforms. Especially in an era when people are so disconnected from the way government really works.
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It does sound good ! The California Public Banking Alliance has been busy educating about the distinct planned possibility, now a fact of life on paper. of getting away from Wall Street Banking … while Holywood steals the thunder on TV and Social Media pushing their Socialist agenda with the green new deal’ and other ‘far outs’ Good for them! Does this mean getting rid of the Federal Reserve? It sounds like a start.
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Good points, Mary Anne. The reforms I really want to see are to end the ability of private banks to create money (they create 98% of our money when they issue loans – that money gets conjured up out of thin air by pressing buttons on a computer) and to either abolish or nationalize (bring under government control) the Federal Reserve.
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