Econintersect: One of the burdens imposed on state, county and city governments across the U.S. is, collectively, many billions of dollars in payments to Wall Street banks for loans and derivatives. In some cases derivatives have been highly profitable to Wall Street and devastating for local economies. There is a growing movement toward the establishment of public banks to manage the public assets and investments for public purposes. The idea is essentially that private banks would manage private assets and public banks would manage public assets.
Today’s Documentary of the Week describes one such effort underway in Philadelphia. Here is the summary from YouTube:
Philadelphia and any other large city can have its own bank. It can use this bank to finance at zero or near percent interest: community development, infrastructure, schools or whatever else is decided in the bank’s mission statement. This video is targeted at those who will be attending a meeting to determine what the mission of this public bank should be. This is an important step before bringing a bill before city council.
Hat tip to Web of Debt.
