Author Archives: Douglas Alde

Banking on Colorado Response to
Calabria: Colorado would be wise to reject state-owned banking

Earl Staelin, board member of Be The Change — USA, and a leader in its initiative to establish public banks in Colorado, Banking On Colorado, wrote an Op-Ed for the Denver Post, entitled Colorado needs a public bank, which appeared in the print edition of the Denver Post on Sunday, February 15, 2015. In response […]

Banking on Colorado: Bringing Our Money Home Conference Videos

Supported by a grant from the Denver Foundation, Be the Change — USA, along with the Rocky Mountain Employee Ownership Center and the Public Banking Institute, hosted a conference in Denver on Saturday, January 31, 2015, Banking on Colorado: Bringing Our Money Home. We present here videos from the entire event. Introductory Address – Nomi Prins: Wall Street and the Concentration of Wealth […]

Fractional Reserve Banking 101 and 102 — Tutorials from the Khan Academy

To understand how a public bank can operate and make money for a state, county, or municipality that owns it, it is important to understand how banking is done in the United States, as well as most countries around the world. Most banks use a model of banking called fractional reserve banking. This model allows […]

Public Banking In the News: How Public Banking is Winning the West

Public banking efforts are very active in the Western United States. Matt Stannard, who writes frequently about progressive economic issues, writes here about four of the more active public banking efforts in the western states: in Washington, New Mexico, Arizona, and Colorado. From the Occupy.com: How Public Banking is Winning the West BY MATT STANNARD […]

Ellen Brown — Why Public Banks Outperform Private Banks: Unfair Competition or a Better Mousetrap?

From the The Web of Debt Blog: Why Public Banks Outperform Private Banks: Unfair Competition or a Better Mousetrap? Posted on   February 10, 2015   by   Ellen Brown   at   ellenbrown.com Public banks in North Dakota, Germany and Switzerland have been shown to outperform their private counterparts. Under the TPP and TTIP, however, […]

Public Banking in the News — The Boulder Weekly: Banking on the environment

A public bank can benefit local governments and economies in many ways. There can be a clear benefit to local infrastructure and businesses through community banks, and, as this article makes clear, there can be great improvements to our environment through investment in renewable energy. From the Boulder Weekly Thursday, February 5, 2015 Banking on […]

Bill Introduced in Maine Legislature to Establish a State Public Bank

A bill to establish The Maine Street Bank was introduced in the Maine legislature on 13 January 2015. Titled An Act to Create a Public Bank, the bill proposes to create a public bank by 1 July 2017 for the state of Maine that is largely modeled after the nearly century old Bank of North […]

A Short History of Postal Banking – from Slate.com

Postal Banking provides an alternative to the usury that pay-day lenders are now practicing on the Americans that can least afford to pay the exorbitant interest rates these lenders are charging. The following article, pulled from the pages of slate.com, looks at the history of Postal Banking and how it can provide relief to these […]

A Post Office Bank — An Institution that Could Greatly Reduce the Usury of Predatory Lenders

A concept that is very closely related to a Public Bank is that of a Post Office Bank. They are both institutions that can help wrestle power away from the big Wall Street Banks and better support Main Street. Post Office Banks could be part of the transformation of our financial sector by providing services […]