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Public Banking Institute News: February 6, 2018
San Francisco assembles Task Force to lead city toward Public Bank launch
San Francisco has assembled its 16-member Municipal Bank Feasibility Task Force that will study launching a Public Bank. SF Treasurer José Cisneros announced last week the task force’s purpose is “to identify and pursue opportunities to extend access to credit for small businesses, provide banking services to the cannabis industry, expand capital for affordable housing, and research the viability and advisability of a municipal bank.”
Cisneros continued:
“San Francisco has always been a leader in socially responsible banking and investment. I am eager to work with the Task Force to identify new approaches to support our City’s bold vision for inclusive innovation.”
Task force member and former Supervisor John Avalos, a longtime advocate for Public Banks, told the San Francisco Examiner:
“With the profit motive out of its mission, the municipal bank can hold private financial institutions to a higher standard of greater equity and public good.”
The first meeting of the Municipal Bank Feasibility Task Force will be on Wednesday, February 21 in City Hall room 305 from 3-5pm. The full meeting calendar is posted here.
[read more]
Public Banking is a game changing solution
The Story of Stuff project put out this short video a few years ago that is just as urgent today. The Story of Solutions explores how we need to reorient ourselves to an entirely new goal if we want to create a just economy. We need to change the point of the “game.”
Public Banking is exactly this kind of “game changing solution.” A Public Bank gives people more power, lessens the wealth gap, and brings democracy to our money. It is time to build the solutions … solutions that will change the entire game.
[watch the video]
Ellen Brown: How Uncle Sam launders marijuana money
PBI Chair Ellen Brown’s latest article explains how the US itself is the largest money launderer of cannabis cash. The IRS accepts money from the cannabis industry in the majority of states where the herb is now legal to some degree, as payment of taxes — turning it into “clean” money — all the while continuing to brand growers and dispensaries criminal enterprises. The arrangement results in massive US profits.
As the will of the people moves rapidly toward legalization in light of mounting evidence of cannabis’ significant therapeutic value, the industry remains in banking limbo. Ellen writes: “If the government can accept marijuana money for taxes, banks should be able to accept it.”
To that end, a bipartisan coalition of state attorneys general sent a letter Jan 16 to leaders in Congress requesting legislation to “provide a safe harbor” for banks that provide financial products or services to state-legal marijuana businesses.
Ellen continues:
[read the full article]“The government makes a massive profit off the deal, snatching up to 70 percent of the proceeds of the reporting businesses, as opposed to the more typical rate of 30 percent … [since they] are not entitled to deduct their costs when reporting their income.
This is not only a clear case of the unequal protection of the laws but is a clear admission by the government that it is knowingly accepting illegal funds. The government is a principal beneficiary of a business the government itself has made illegal.