Posted on December 12, 2014 by Ellen Brown
On December 11, 2014, the US House passed a bill repealing the Dodd-Frank requirement that risky derivatives be pushed into big-bank subsidiaries, leaving our deposits and pensions exposed to massive derivatives losses. The bill was vigorously challenged by Senator Elizabeth Warren; but the tide turned when Jamie Dimon, CEO of JPMorganChase, stepped into the ring. Perhaps what prompted his intervention was the unanticipated $40 drop in the price of oil. As financial blogger Michael Snyder points out, that drop could trigger a derivatives payout that could bankrupt the biggest banks. And if the G20’s new “bail-in” rules are formalized, depositors and pensioners could be on the hook.
The new bail-in rules were discussed in my last post here. They are edicts of the Financial Stability Board (FSB), an unelected body of central bankers and finance ministers headquartered in the Bank for International Settlements in Basel, Switzerland. Where did the FSB get these sweeping powers, and is its mandate legally enforceable? Continue reading →
Filed under: Ellen Brown Articles/Commentary | Tagged: bail-in, Bank for International Settlements, derivatives, G20 Financial Stability Board, oil prices, public banking | 44 Comments »
Posted on December 1, 2014 by Ellen Brown
On the weekend of November 16th, the G20 leaders whisked into Brisbane, posed for their photo ops, approved some proposals, made a show of roundly disapproving of Russian President Vladimir Putin, and whisked out again. It was all so fast, they may not have known what they were endorsing when they rubber-stamped the Financial Stability Board’s “Adequacy of Loss-Absorbing Capacity of Global Systemically Important Banks in Resolution,” which completely changes the rules of banking. Continue reading →
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Posted on November 19, 2014 by Ellen Brown
While 49 state treasuries were submerged in red ink after the 2008 financial crash, one state’s bank outperformed all others and actually launched an economy-shifting new industry. So reports the Wall Street Journal this week, discussing the Bank of North Dakota (BND) and its striking success in the midst of a national financial collapse led by the major banks. Chester Dawson begins his November 16th article:
It is more profitable than Goldman Sachs Group Inc., has a better credit rating than J.P. Morgan Chase & Co. and hasn’t seen profit growth drop since 2003. Meet Bank of North Dakota, the U.S.’s lone state-owned bank, which has one branch, no automated teller machines and not a single investment banker.
Continue reading →
Filed under: Ellen Brown Articles/Commentary | Tagged: Bakken oil boom, Bank of North Dakota, public banking | 78 Comments »
Posted on October 26, 2014 by Ellen Brown
Many authorities have said it: banks do not lend their deposits. They create the money they lend on their books.
Robert B. Anderson, Treasury Secretary under Eisenhower, said it in 1959:
When a bank makes a loan, it simply adds to the borrower’s deposit account in the bank by the amount of the loan. The money is not taken from anyone else’s deposits; it was not previously paid in to the bank by anyone. It’s new money, created by the bank for the use of the borrower.
The Bank of England said it in the spring of 2014, writing in its quarterly bulletin:
The reality of how money is created today differs from the description found in some economics textbooks: Rather than banks receiving deposits when households save and then lending them out, bank lending creates deposits.
. . . Whenever a bank makes a loan, it simultaneously creates a matching deposit in the borrower’s bank account, thereby creating new money.
All of which leaves us to wonder: If banks do not lend their depositors’ money, why are they always scrambling to get it? Banks advertise to attract depositors, and they pay interest on the funds. What good are our deposits to the bank? Continue reading →
Filed under: Ellen Brown Articles/Commentary | Tagged: Bank of North Dakota, Basel III, public banking | 35 Comments »
Posted on October 22, 2014 by Ellen Brown
The Pennsylvania Project hosted the East Coast edition of the Public Banking Institute national conference in Philadelphia last Saturday. Thanks Pennsylvania team!
I thought I would post my power point presentation (the sixth I’ve done since July), since it has a more complete discussion of the pressing issue always on the minds of elected officials: “Where will we find the money to capitalize our new public bank?” The relevant slides are at 21-26, expanding on the plan suggested in my article of October 12th titled Building an Ark: How to Protect Public Revenues from the Next Meltdown. The power point is here:
Power point – Philadelphia – 10-18-14
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Posted on October 12, 2014 by Ellen Brown
Concerns are growing that we are heading for another banking crisis, one that could be far worse than in 2008. But this time, there will be no government bailouts. Instead, per the Dodd-Frank Act, bankrupt banks will be confiscating (or “bailing in”) their customers’ deposits.
That includes local government deposits. The fact that public funds are secured with collateral may not protect them, as explained earlier here. Derivative claims now get paid first in a bank bankruptcy; and derivative losses could be huge, wiping out the collateral for other claims.
In a September 24th article titled “5 U.S. Banks Each Have More Than 40 Trillion Dollars In Exposure To Derivatives, Michael Snyder warns:
Trading in derivatives is basically just a form of legalized gambling, and the “too big to fail” banks have transformed Wall Street into the largest casino in the history of the planet. When this derivatives bubble bursts (and as surely as I am writing this it will), the pain that it will cause the global economy will be greater than words can describe.
Continue reading →
Filed under: Ellen Brown Articles/Commentary | Tagged: Bank of North Dakota, banking crisis, public banking | 22 Comments »
Posted on September 24, 2014 by Ellen Brown
Show #14: What’s the Alternative?
The broad-based economic destruction brought on by extractive private banking has gotten lots of people thinking hard about alternatives. The Scots came close to starting on a new path in recent weeks that could still materialize with some re-focusing on its banking options, while the possible recurrence of big bank failures has many Americans actively looking for alternatives. In this edition of “It’s Our Money” Ellen holds a
foundational conversation with globally-recognized economic theorist Christopher Cook about how a new world of monetary management could be realized for the benefit of all. Meanwhile, citizens are rallying their national public bank initiatives at the upcoming “Banking on New Mexico” symposium. Co-host Walt McRee speaks with project founder, author and diplomat Craig Barnes about what’s brewing in Santa Fe.
Filed under: Ellen Brown Articles/Commentary | Tagged: public banking, Scottish independence | 1 Comment »
Posted on September 17, 2014 by Ellen Brown
Scottish voters will go to the polls on September 18th to decide whether Scotland should become an independent country. As video blogger Ian R. Crane colorfully puts the issues and possibilities:
[T]he People of Scotland have an opportunity to extricate themselves from the socio-psychopathic global corporatists and the temple of outrageous and excessive abject materialism. However, it is not going to be an easy ride . . . .
If Alex Salmond and the SNP [Scottish National Party] are serious about keeping the Pound Stirling as the Currency of Scotland, there will be no independence. Likewise if Scotland embraces the Euro, Scotland will rapidly become a vassel state of the Euro-Federalists, who will asset strip the nation in the same way that, Greece, Ireland, Portugal and Spain have been stripped of their entire national wealth and much of their national identity.
Continue reading →
Filed under: Ellen Brown Articles/Commentary | Tagged: Bank of North Dakota, public banking, Scottish independence | 23 Comments »
Posted on September 8, 2014 by Ellen Brown
In an inscrutable move that has alarmed state treasurers, the Federal Reserve, along with the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation and the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, just changed the liquidity requirements for the nation’s largest banks. Municipal bonds, long considered safe liquid investments, have been eliminated from the list of high-quality liquid collateral. assets (HQLA). That means banks that are the largest holders of munis are liable to start dumping them in favor of the Treasuries and corporate bonds that do satisfy the requirement. Continue reading →
Filed under: Ellen Brown Articles/Commentary | Tagged: Basel III, Federal Reserve, municipal bonds, public banking | 34 Comments »
Posted on September 1, 2014 by Ellen Brown
You can always count on Americans to do the right thing, after they’ve tried everything else. —Winston Churchill
When an article appears in Foreign Affairs, the mouthpiece of the policy-setting Council on Foreign Relations, recommending that the Federal Reserve do a money drop directly on the 99%, you know the central bank must be down to its last bullet.
The September/October issue of Foreign Affairs features an article by Mark Blyth and Eric Lonergan titled “Print Less But Transfer More: Why Central Banks Should Give Money Directly To The People.” It’s the sort of thing normally heard only from money reformers and Social Credit enthusiasts far from the mainstream. What’s going on? Continue reading →
Filed under: Ellen Brown Articles/Commentary | Tagged: Federal Reserve, national dividend, public banking, quantitative easing | 86 Comments »
Posted on August 25, 2014 by Ellen Brown
If Argentina were in a high-stakes chess match, the country’s actions this week would be the equivalent of flipping over all the pieces on the board.
– David Dayen, Fiscal Times, August 22, 2014
Argentina is playing hardball with the vulture funds, which have been trying to force it into an involuntary bankruptcy. The vultures are demanding what amounts to a 600% return on bonds bought for pennies on the dollar, defeating a 2005 settlement in which 92% of creditors agreed to accept a 70% haircut on their bonds. A US court has backed the vulture funds; but last week, Argentina sidestepped its jurisdiction by transferring the trustee for payment from Bank of New York Mellon to its own central bank. That play, if approved by the Argentine Congress, will allow the country to continue making payments under its 2005 settlement, avoiding default on the majority of its bonds.
Argentina is already foreclosed from international capital markets, so it doesn’t have much to lose by thwarting the US court system. Similar bold moves by Ecuador and Iceland have left those countries in substantially better shape than Greece, which went along with the agendas of the international financiers. Continue reading →
Filed under: Ellen Brown Articles/Commentary | Tagged: Argentina, public banking, sovereign debt crisis | 35 Comments »
Posted on August 12, 2014 by Ellen Brown
Argentina has now taken the US to The Hague for blocking the country’s 2005 settlement with the bulk of its creditors. The issue underscores the need for an international mechanism for nations to go bankrupt. Better yet would be a sustainable global monetary scheme that avoids the need for sovereign bankruptcy.
Argentina was the richest country in Latin America before decades of neoliberal and IMF-imposed economic policies drowned it in debt. A severe crisis in 2001 plunged it into the largest sovereign debt default in history. In 2005, it renegotiated its debt with most of its creditors at a 70% “haircut.” But the opportunist “vulture funds,” which had bought Argentine debt at distressed prices, held out for 100 cents on the dollar. Continue reading →
Filed under: Ellen Brown Articles/Commentary | Tagged: Argentina, odious debt, public banking, sovereign bankrutpcy | 35 Comments »
Posted on July 25, 2014 by Ellen Brown
One thing to be said for the women now heading the Federal Reserve and the IMF: compared to some of their predecessors, they are refreshingly honest. The Wall Street Journal reported on July 2nd:
Two of the world’s most powerful women of finance sat down for a lengthy discussion Wednesday on the future of monetary policy in a post-crisis world: U.S. Federal Reserve Chairwoman Janet Yellen and International Monetary Fund Managing Director Christine Lagarde. Before a veritable who’s-who in international economics packing the IMF’s largest conference hall, the two covered all the hottest topics in debate among the world’s central bankers, financiers and economists.
Among those hot topics was the runaway shadow banking system, defined by Investopedia as “The financial intermediaries involved in facilitating the creation of credit across the global financial system, but whose members are not subject to regulatory oversight. The shadow banking system also refers to unregulated activities by regulated institutions.” Examples given include hedge funds, derivatives and credit default swaps. Continue reading →
Filed under: Ellen Brown Articles/Commentary | Tagged: LaGarde, public banking, taper, Yellen | 30 Comments »
Posted on July 16, 2014 by Ellen Brown
For years, homeowners have been battling Wall Street in an attempt to recover some portion of their massive losses from the housing Ponzi scheme. But progress has been slow, as they have been outgunned and out-spent by the banking titans.
In June, however, the banks may have met their match, as some equally powerful titans strode onto the stage. Investors led by BlackRock, the world’s largest asset manager, and PIMCO, the world’s largest bond-fund manager, have sued some of the world’s largest banks for breach of fiduciary duty as trustees of their investment funds. The investors are seeking damages for losses surpassing $250 billion. That is the equivalent of one million homeowners with $250,000 in damages suing at one time. Continue reading →
Filed under: Ellen Brown Articles/Commentary | Tagged: Black Rock, housing crisis, PIMCO, public banking, USBank | 30 Comments »
Posted on July 6, 2014 by Ellen Brown
Mortgage debt overhang from the housing bust has meant lack of middle-class spending power and consumer demand, preventing the economy from growing. The problem might be fixed by a new approach from the Fed. But if the Fed won’t act, counties will, as seen in the latest developments on eminent domain and litigation over MERS.
Former Assistant Treasury Secretary Paul Craig Roberts wrote on June 25th that real US GDP growth for the first quarter of 2014 was a negative 2.9%, off by 5.5% from the positive 2.6% predicted by economists. If the second quarter also shows a decline, the US will officially be in recession. That means not only fiscal policy (government deficit spending) but monetary policy (unprecedented quantitative easing) will have failed. The Federal Reserve is out of bullets.
Or is it? Perhaps it is just aiming at the wrong target. Continue reading →
Filed under: Ellen Brown Articles/Commentary | Tagged: eminent domain, HOLC, MERS, public banking, quantitative easing, underwater mortgage crisis | 12 Comments »
Posted on July 3, 2014 by ErnieM
A flood of foreclosures in neighborhoods, cities and towns can cause everyone’s real estate equity to plunge. Some towns would like to step-in to protect their communities, but they can’t get the mortgage notes written down to affordable levels for contractual reasons. The solution: use eminent domain to claim the properties for the municipality, then renegotiate them on behalf of struggling homeowners. Ellen talks with the pre-eminent legal mind behind the emerging eminent domain stratagem, Cornell professor Robert Hockett, whose idea has been catching on in towns across America, including some of the biggest.
Read more here.
Filed under: Ellen Brown Articles/Commentary | Tagged: eminent domain, underwater morgages | 8 Comments »
Posted on June 28, 2014 by Ellen Brown
Ann Pettifor has written an excellent rebuttal to the full reserve banking solution proposed by Martin Wolf and Positive Money, who are in most ways her allies. Her entree is the Bank of England’s recent acknowledgment that banks create the money they lend. She writes:
Because I am a vocal critic of the private finance sector, many assume that I would agree with Wolf and Positive Money on nationalising money creation. Not so. I have no objection to the nationalisation of banks. But nationalising banks is a different proposition from nationalising (and centralising) money creation in the hands of a small ‘independent committee’.
The full article is here:
Out of thin air – Why banks must be allowed to create money
Yves Smith has also commented, here:
Why Banks Must Be Allowed to Create Money
Errata: My original entry said “Richard Wolf”; it should be “Martin Wolf.” A better link is here —
Filed under: Ellen Brown Articles/Commentary | 8 Comments »
Posted on June 20, 2014 by Ellen Brown
Finance is the new form of warfare – without the expense of a military overhead and an occupation against unwilling hosts. It is a competition in credit creation to buy foreign resources, real estate, public and privatized infrastructure, bonds and corporate stock ownership. Who needs an army when you can obtain the usual objective (monetary wealth and asset appropriation) simply by financial means? — Dr. Michael Hudson, Counterpunch, October 2010
When the US Federal Reserve bought an 80% stake in American International Group (AIG) in September 2008, the unprecedented $85 billion outlay was justified as necessary to bail out the world’s largest insurance company. Today, however, central banks are on a global corporate buying spree not to bail out bankrupt corporations but simply as an investment, to compensate for the loss of bond income due to record-low interest rates. Indeed, central banks have become some of the world’s largest stock investors.
Central banks have the power to create national currencies with accounting entries, and they are traditionally very secretive. We are not allowed to peer into their books. It took a major lawsuit by Reuters and a congressional investigation to get the Fed to reveal the $16-plus trillion in loans it made to bail out giant banks and corporations after 2008.
What is to stop a foreign bank from simply printing its own currency and trading it on the currency market for dollars, to be invested in the US stock market or US real estate market? What is to stop central banks from printing up money competitively, in a mad rush to own the world’s largest companies? Continue reading →
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Posted on June 10, 2014 by Ellen Brown
It’s Our Money with Ellen Brown – Where They Hid Our Civic Treasure and How We Can Get Our Hands On It
One of the best kept deceptions within common civic parlance is that our cities, states and communities are “broke” – a meme perpetuated by a lack of public knowledge about what governments do with their money and a highly profitable investment industry that uses those funds for substantial private profits that suck outrageous sums out of our common wealth. Continue reading →
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Posted on June 10, 2014 by Ellen Brown
It’s Our Money with Ellen Brown – The Dollar’s Global Dance of Debt –
The status of the dollar as global reserve currency is being threatened by new international monetary powerhouses and the limitations of its debt-based control. This week, Ellen speaks with Mark Pash of the Center for Progressive Economics, who believes that issuance of currency as debt has outlived its usefulness and should be replaced with a credit-based model that covers basic human needs prior to personal accumulation of additional affluence. Ellen also speaks with Mike Krauss on petro-dollar politics upending America’s hold on global trade as the reserve currency. On the Public Banking Report, co-host Walt McRee talks with John Leonard of the PA Project about new public banking initiatives in one of America’s abandoned industrial centers, western PA, and the promise that public banking agencies may offer to reviving the economy that region.
Filed under: Ellen Brown Articles/Commentary | 1 Comment »
WEB OF DEBT BLOG 
The Global Bankers’ Coup: Bail-In and the Shadowy Financial Stability Board
On December 11, 2014, the US House passed a bill repealing the Dodd-Frank requirement that risky derivatives be pushed into big-bank subsidiaries, leaving our deposits and pensions exposed to massive derivatives losses. The bill was vigorously challenged by Senator Elizabeth Warren; but the tide turned when Jamie Dimon, CEO of JPMorganChase, stepped into the ring. Perhaps what prompted his intervention was the unanticipated $40 drop in the price of oil. As financial blogger Michael Snyder points out, that drop could trigger a derivatives payout that could bankrupt the biggest banks. And if the G20’s new “bail-in” rules are formalized, depositors and pensioners could be on the hook.
The new bail-in rules were discussed in my last post here. They are edicts of the Financial Stability Board (FSB), an unelected body of central bankers and finance ministers headquartered in the Bank for International Settlements in Basel, Switzerland. Where did the FSB get these sweeping powers, and is its mandate legally enforceable? Continue reading →
Filed under: Ellen Brown Articles/Commentary | Tagged: bail-in, Bank for International Settlements, derivatives, G20 Financial Stability Board, oil prices, public banking | 44 Comments »