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welcome to a growing concern I don't know the exact statistics but I've seen a lot of polls that say you know sixty seventy percent of Americans they were going in the wrong direction and then some of the major directions were going in it's with the global warming we're not taking care of our issues with that the financial sector we're not taking care of that immigration and all of these are you know they're in the news every day and we hear different aspects from from CNN and from different stations I don't tune into Fox too often but they all talk about this and today we're going to talk about the financial situation and that's been going on for some time we hear about it every day that that today I've been here a lot about jobs and people are maxing out twenty thousand a month or on their unemployment there's a lot of problems going on in this country and it could probably all be traced to corporate control and we probably would get into that tent gently tonight but we're going to talk with a couple of folks here on my far right is his Jared Gardner he's with a group called real wealth pdx and then Ted fur chick who's with a working families party of Oregon we've had folks here from working families party in the past and we'll talk a little bit about that as we go through it's an alternative party here in the state put together by some folks on a model I believe from New York and the NIV been very successful back there with this but first we'll go with with Jared welcome to the program both of you and we talked a little bit before the show and what exactly is your organization real wealth pdx all about well thanks Jim for having us sure the real witha Portland is a project of the economic justice action group of the First Unitarian Church downtown and we're a project that's looking at making some connections to things that bring real wealth to our communities and obviously there's a financial component when we talk about wealth it's what we usually think of when we talk about wealth we'd like to expand that and say what are the things that bring real well Straub communities so we've been active three or four years could true some inspiration from rihanna's work blade and chalice real wealth of nations David Courtney's work he's been on the show here those are kind of formational figures in our in our work or about basically three things changing the story so looking at the story tonight we're talk about economic story what is that the story is is it that bigger is better or GDP is the right measure of a healthy economy those kind of questions from that what is the story that we think is healthier that brings more say value in our relationships to each other to our communities to the earth those sorts of things the second kind of framework for real worth of Portland would be to build a resilient community and what does that was that mean first of all and then how does the financial sector or specifically tonight the banking sector how does that play into real wealth in our communities building a resilient community and last would be changing the rules I think we all realize that there are structural imbalance of structural reasons why we have the problems we have and what are those and how can we change them according to what matters we ship the earth and people but the citizenry doesn't really have access to the mechanisms to change those rules its net something Congress does yeah hope that someday we could have a democratic community or we can participate phone when there are there are ways if we organize I think there's there certainly steps we can take irrespective of legislation but we can also organize with that in mind to to happen mm-hmm you know it was a comedian a while back I've Chris Rock I believe it did this real thing about I know money and wealth and I always always thought of wealth as the folks that you know don't have to ask how much it costs and but wealth in this respect it's just what people have and where they invested I understand yet when we start thinking of financial well that would be the question I would ask is what are we doing with her or money where are we putting our money and where are we borrowing our money from and then if we have anything to invest where we invest in who are we investing in more through so those are those are important questions right and so so Ted why isn't a political party involved in these issues well the the working families party is an independent political party that is focused on what we call bread-and-butter economic issues job schools healthcare things like that and we take advantage of something called fusion voting which is basically a tweak on the way that we do elections that allows individual candidates to run for office with more than one party support what that means from the point of view of an independent political party is that like other political parties we can run candidates if we choose but we don't have to and instead what we can do is focus on issues and support candidates of either major party who are committing to do the right thing on the issues that really count things like job schools health care the working families party is interested in what's going on in the financial world because of the very real effect that it has had on the lives of working people in this state and in the country and figuring out what we can do in the wake of this crisis to strengthen our economy to make sure that we are protected against future crises like this and to make sure that people can earn a decent wage in a decent job that's that's pretty important to us so we try to use and the the levers that electoral politics offer us but also the levers that that good organizing focused around issues can offer us as well right so what what are some of these you just mentioned that there that you can utilize well we are coalition of organizations unions community organizations also activists grassroots organizers all kinds of people and what we try to do is focus our energies on a relatively small set of specific issues and we work to get candidates to commit to supporting to voting the right way on those issues should they get elected and we nominate those candidates who commit to doing the right thing so when voters see their ballots this fall this is the first year that we have fusion voting in Oregon they will see candidates who have for example Democratic cama working families or Republican conv working families and those voters will know that the candidates who have that sort of stamp of approval are the candidates who've committed to doing the right thing on these issues that we're focusing on um it gives voters a way to know beyond just the regular party labels of Democrat and Republican beyond you know the speeches and the television ads and the fancy mail pieces what a candidate's actually about it gives those candidates a way to tell voters that they share the values that those voters share mmm and for the working families party it's a way for us to work to hold politicians accountable so the people who commit to us that they're going to do the right thing on these issues obviously we're paying attention during the the legislative season we're organizing during the legislative season we're pushing people to follow through on their commitments and if they don't were not glued to those candidates and in future elections they were not obligated to support those candidates those elected officials who fail to do the right thing on the critical issues and will use whatever tools are at our disposal to get other people in there who are going to do the right thing mm-hmm now fusion voting means that X dem X Democrat will have Democrat working families party but it can also have progressive party attendance right up to what three or four some three is the the way the rules were written there's a maximum of three party designations per candidate and wasn't this the way it used to be done up until with one easy or something like that yeah well actually fusion was was was the norm in the country until about the turn of the last century and it was used very effectively in a number of places including an Oregon where there were there was a fusion governor in the late 19th century and fusion allows people who might have differing opinions on some issues but who have the same opinions on important issues to get together and support the same candidates so that they can advance their common interests at the turn of the last century it was you know working people farmers were really getting put under the gun by railroads by the banks by you know the big powerful interests of the day and they might have disagreed with each other on temperance or other issues like that but they knew that they needed to work together to rein in the power of these these very powerful interests fusion was a critical tool for them it seems really a way of emphasizing people's common denominator rather than you know but people at loggerheads like what Paul thinks is all about it just then become so extreme right opposite ends well and the party labels i think that the democrat and republican labels have in some ways distracted us from the real issues there's there's the party line but that doesn't necessarily reflect where where voters are and it's not even necessarily a left or right question you know there's a lot of people who would consider themselves conservatives or moderates or anything like that but are just as angry at the banks just as angry about the failure you know that we've had to provide adequate health care and the problems with jobs as someone who you know called themselves the biggest liberal in the world or what have you you know these labels don't always get to the heart of what's actually happening to working people in this country and and our party is really focused on talking about those issues and those values that a very broad array of people agree on and want to see action on it seems to me it's more of a progressive party and do you foresee really fall in bonding Republicans you have them out there there are really really conservative that there aren't just just radical right-wing you know I think there are certainly the the trend in the Republican Party has been away from some of the types of common sense moderation that used to prevail but I think there are still Republicans out there who do agree with us that something needs to be done about about Wall Street that agree with us that you know workers should be protected if they get hurt or if they get sick and who share a lot of our values and you know it may not be that people agree with us a hundred percent I don't think that has to be the criteria left doesn't agree with itself one hundred percent right no but I do think that there are Republicans out there who share our values and agree with us on the issues that are really important and who if approached the right way can be brought on board with with some of these really important issues that we're trying to have sure well Jared I think you're probably involved in it as well but there's an event going on tomorrow that real wealth pdx and what some other groups are putting together you might talk a little bit about that I think we have a graphic to that folks can read about what's happening yeah we're calling it move your money day and we'll be down at pioneer square one for some live music bunch of banks and credit unions other organizations just talking about the local economy and the role banking and credit units play hmm and so I have this thing here that says move your money Portland and so that means that you were wanting you have you want to target certain organizations certain banks that people can move their money to as opposed to certain others know what is that about yeah this is actually tomorrow is the kickoff for a campaign we're looking at continuing to encourage people to move their money in the spirit of the move your money campaign Huffington Post released earlier this year and organizations unions churches businesses it all adds up and would bring more wealth to our community and circulate more resources so we want people to know that there's another way to look at banks other than how many ATMs there are or how big they are and so we've devised some criteria three of them this web is on our website it's on a few different websites real wealth pdx org or the sustainable business network or the move your money in info site the main national national campaign so this may move your money is a national yeah we're we are in partnership with the National moving money campaign to helping posts a new way forward American finance reform those types of groups and then locally a working families party jobs of justice or are or again some of the faith groups in town Lance for democracy the sorts of groups of all kind of seen this as a is a is a real viable thing to do mmm you say there was three three reasons or three three criteria when we look at what keeps more money circulating so there's the economic question of can we keep more resources circulating here we see the big bonuses and the outrageous things that the big thanks for doing so if we can tap into some of those resources and keep them here we'd have more jobs so it's the economic theory that I think a lot of research is playing out the three criteria be are they based locally and for this purpose we look just at Portland if we were to do a state campaign it would look slightly different but are the banks primarily rooted here or are they all over the place not to say a regional bank doesn't have its role but if if they're slowly based you're like the bank of Lake Oswego there they're focused on Lake Oswego they're not going to pick up and and leave or or shift resources somewhere else so that's that's one criteria are they locally owned where ownership is profits flow so credit union that's mutually owned more money circulates among its members private banks more money stays here Nasdaq traded banks Wall Street banks no it leaves leaves the community are they focused on local business and this is one that I think is really critical for understanding banking do they do they lend small businesses and there's a strong correlation to the money staying here that bank gets to a certain size they tend to stop lending to small businesses that's what drives our local economy mmm yeah I didn't know that you know I asked a question a while back it isn't isn't it the Congress's job to do that I forget what in reference that was too but a lot of people feel like they don't you know they don't have any power to do anything and but what you were talking about is a way to you know even slightly change the dynamic and bring it more community-based it seems to me yeah the the local group the local banks not only will they may be loan money to local people more but they're more aware of the dynamics of the of the economy locally much more responsive and when you look at actual lending practices one of the one the reasons why big banks don't lend to small businesses that a quirky they don't they don't fit the norm you can't securitize it and sell it so quickly so they have to look at who you are and say what's your track record in this community oh we've known you for many years and ok we're going to you might fall outside of this parameter but will we make up for it in this parameter and because you're a foundational part of the community we're going to we're going to make this decision but you can have that partnership at a community level where you don't with a big bank mm-hmm so when you say a big bank of course you probably mean what Chase and Wells Fargo and off all these big banks you know I know that I was banking at Washington Mutual and they screwed up big time and if they were taken over by Chase and got the whole dynamic of that Bank change yeah I did not like it and not that they were necessarily only local to begin with before but and I can remember when first interstate was taken over by thing wells fargo and US bank was taken over by another bank back in the midwest it just changes you know the East Coast banks have a different way of looking at it and what are some of the dynamics of why a we've got bank / credit union why s a credit union or a community bag better than one of these bigger banks and because you're trying to emphasize to people to move their money it may not be wealthy but they do have a certain amount of money so yeah definitely an art criteria is a starting point we hope to you and the Democratic spirit engage people's minds to think think through the issues of what matters to them but we've come up with about 20 organizations banks and credit unions that that makes sense and they're different so a credit union tends to lend differently than it than a community bank and so suddenly your needs might be met better through a bank or credit union that would be the first thoughts but yeah community banks to be smaller scale and more responsive lower fees as well there's there's been quite a few research articles that have come out to show that commute banks acadians have lower fees and that goes a long ways mm-hmm that would go a long way and so maybe we'll get back to that to the event that's going on it's tomorrow right it so what the working families party is also involved in this you're going to have a table they over there we'll have a table talking about some of the work that we're doing signing people up that kind of thing and so that's do you hope to sign people up to the to your political party Alyssa right and incense intriguing is you've actually got some of the folks on this on this list to be there and do table in there will be quite a few community banks and credit unions in the fun part it's not gonna be your typical trade fair where you've got to say a younger person who doesn't have so much about banking is there that give you some schwag we actually have CEOs VPS and presidents coming down so you'll get a chance to actually ask your hard questions and meet them and say you know this is what my business does you know how is going to be beneficial to move to you what kind of payroll services is your bank have I could meet my needs that kind of stuff we real real answers for real people and rises amusing music I was just going to ask about that you say you've got brazilian band signs of body kata it's a great local band they are very supportive of this type of movement and they'll be down just get in the rhythm going and get people dance in it all right noise it's a Brazilian sounds like yeah all right are you all dancers all that and carnival dancers all that so kind of like in the spirit of marching forth or Mallorca and what is some of the schedule of it it goes from one to four they're going to be speakers and all that or it Wayne Lee just what's going on out and that with the tabling we're not going to keep it to kind of heady so will be some out announcements about you know meet me so and so who's here or listen to this about the state bank but just a few minutes here in there to just mess it up and keep the keep the flow going keep the flow going yeah because the music works you know and then I've seen I've seen really speech heavy rallies you know lose a lot of people over period of time so more than a rally this is celebration of the local economy and the role that local banking plans do we want to keep it in that that spirit it's more the bank's incretins that come they realize that we're in this together and if we don't work together than it's it's not going to work will be a lot more bank closures if we're not embracing our community and serving our community and vice versa for communities not out sport mess has there been any any of these smaller banks and credit unions of it like wamu as wamu did not that wahoo is a small one yeah as if any of those shut down or the way that they invest is protected them from that I would see that the community banks are more at risk for some of the tripping of the current economy because they tend to lend say affordable housing it's not the building affordable housing development loans that's not the best loan to have done say four or five years ago because you construction you're dealing with rental properties you're dealing with people of lower income and so that that combination can really trip up a bank quickly but that's needed in our communities idea what do you do with that would you do you say you made a bad loan that was great for a community but now because it's hard to hard to make those payments what do you you know what any interesting thing is that you know the federal government came in and and backed up the biggest banks which had taken the biggest risks and done the most harm Mariah but a lot of smaller institutions which where one or two bad loans for a small bank and have a really big impact on their balance sheet were deemed too small to save basically I something get sucked down the hole caused by the bigger ones then I never thought about that of course yeah they got a much smaller amount of capital that are working with I what tends to happen with the community banks that they get they get swallowed up into the the bigger banks and the FDIC comes in and basically appoints a new owner and that you mentioned Washington Mutual and there they were a fairly large bank when they when they went under but they followed a trajectory of I would see call it more of a shareholder own profit driven model of bank acquisitions and they grew extremely fast acquiring other community banks and we're seeing that with some of the regional players in this state and and I don't know that that lack of diversity is going to help our banking community by having regional banks become bigger by swallowing up community makes well all at what was it seven hundred and eighty billion dollars that went to what AIG and all these different places none of that made it down to these smaller banks they were yeah there were pieces of the the Troubled Asset Relief Program that the tarp bailout that some community banks and medium-sized banks did get funds get to get loans from the federal government through that program but the lion's share of it went to to the biggest banks and the federal government was willing to let quite a number of banks fail small banks fail because it was deemed that their failure would not have such a huge effect on the overall economy it comes back to the story though and saying well there's an economy of scale and it's this myth that if we can have more regional banks and larger banks they're going to provide better services and what we see with every step of dreg vation has been worse fees and policies for the consumer and less choice and forth especially the small business owner so that that myth certainly has guided the let's let the small banks fail because they'll just be merged into the big banks and so this is part of what we're we're trying to change well I was wondering how long it would take for the D word to come up the deregulation because you know it's really shown real obvious in the banking world with deregulation is done with the no freaking tote in the name of the bill that was the law vehicle yeah that was it the one that was taken away a few years back and just opened it all up but it's it's the lack of oversight and the deregulation it has caused the problems you know we mentioned the global warming situation and the there the petroleum companies were not regulated and it were near like they should be and apparently according what's going on the TV lately they're the regulations they have that the they weren't being watched and so is that going on also in a financial world and even the regulations that are still in place are kind of Lee just being ignored I think certainly that was the case in the lead-up to the crisis I mean for example the Federal Reserve had the authority to go after certain practices in the mortgage market that were leading to many kinds of fraudulent loans being made and and that inflated the bubble so so so spectacularly the Federal Reserve could have intervened and didn't the one of the things though to come back to the point about community banking when this is tied to the question of deregulation is that if you're invested if your deposits are with Chase or with citi bank or bank of america one of these huge multinational banks when you deposit it the bank is using those deposits to engage in all kinds of extremely risky investments not necessarily lending even to businesses but doing trades and other types of transactions and in global markets that are very volatile when you deposit your funds in a credit union or a community bank that's smaller in scale the odds are much higher that that credit union or that bank is using those funds to lend money in the local area so oh there's a sort of security to it that is much stronger than when you're playing with the very large institutions the large institutions are engaged in those types of very risky behavior in large part because of deregulation there used to be rules that prevented commercial banks the places that you go to deposit your funds and do your local small business lending and things like that from engaging in investment banking from engaging in insurance and the repeal of glass-steagall broke down those barriers so you have these integrated financial companies which take your local deposits and go off and play with them in very risky places and that's a lot of what led to the the amount of risk that was spread out in the economy at the point that everything collapsed so doing something to get at least some of that under control is definitely an important part of the equation mm-hmm you know as you were talking I was thinking you know you know we've had folks come on this program before and talk about free trade and a lot of the problems that with the folks had with Walmart over the last 10 years and we're keeping them from coming into this into this area as much as we can is because all their money goes somewhere else and it's to say I never consistent note until just recently realize that that's the same situation with banks so you know if you've got problems with Walmart and big-box stores with how they conduct themselves banks are no different it goes both ways it's not only the deposits but where do you get your loans so I think of the typical family's budget and you've got mortgage loans you've got maybe some student debt maybe some auto loans maybe some credit cards and when you add up all all that monthly payment how much of that is in interest payments right to a wall street bank they're the ones that control those those segments Muslim but it's really important to consider that that fact or two and so if it's if it's a local bank how does that change it at home the big banks certainly cornered the market on the the mortgage market so what doesn't get spun off into Wall Street through fannie mae freddie mac the sorts of companies the big banks washing mutual chase now wells fargo bank america because of countrywide they they hold so many mortgages the words paying them are our livelihood when we look at that percentage of our income going to go into our mortgage and for other areas that student loans they haven't been able to compete now but federal legislation is going to change that and make the US government direct lender which will be better at least for showing up or tax tax revenue then send it in a way to Wall Street small business though it's like Ted said it's it's that's really I think the primary indicator for the health of a bank in terms of its relationship to a community does it lend to small business big business have equity markets and other ways to raise capital so are they are they lending to swapping so so I'm just a regional bank might might do it or might not and when they do lend to the local economy i would say that's a bank to to consider working with um because the restroom or their cherry-picking they're taking the easy way and they're securitizing loans and they're making money on Wall Street in there covering the risk by showing it off to the taxpayer so that's it's a critical distinguishing point Wilson say they are so large and it kind of like the the Ritz bully at the poker table and hope they can just push the light through and look at anybody dude yeah mm-hmm you know you mentioned I'm glad we mentioned it to think the student because I know that the the president just signed something happened to do with student loans and you mentioned did it the government is now going to loan those don't loan that money out to students it's actually part of the health care bill was there's a long-standing I think since the 1960s that there's been a subsidy that the federal government has given to private banks to do student lending basically a government guarantee that if those loans go bad the government picks up the tab so it's been risk free money for sallie mae and those other banks that are engaged in student lending Wells Fargo the federal government in with a stroke of a pen removed that subsidy and what the the practical implication of that is that rather than go to a private bank to get a student loan since those banks are no longer getting the subsidy the banks would have to charge a much higher interest rate and your best interest rate is going to come directly from the federal government as a student lender so federal student loans are going to increasingly come from the government the hope is that that will lower the cost to students the hope is that they will also be able to build in some amount of loan forgiveness for students who can't make enough money or you know for graduates who can't make enough money to pay off their loans but to make the system a bit more fair and a bit less expensive to the students well it seems to me if folks get out of out of the college system and then they can't find a job so it's all it's all plugged into the same same economy if I don't know what the unemployment rate is but you know they they say it's what ten percent but that doesn't include the folks that there are no longer looking or are no longer getting unemployment it can be as much as two times as high and I know that locally here where we're above the national average I believe given that how that works and i keep getting back to this name real wealth i certainly have enough to pay my bills and you know most people i know do and the little bit that's left over you know I never thought of it as well if I never thought of it isn't it you know if you put it in the bank or you you go to that bank and you you borrow money that's all part of that same wealth mmm I don't know the word would be the economy I guess and I was hoping that we could kind of emphasize that during this conversation and the viewers out there could realize that you know the real wealth you know according to to David korten isn't so much our money is our community itself and and working together with our local banks at all it seems to me that that really that really even without the transfer money just just to have that connection is a form of wealth itself what is money but the monetization of our our productive capacities but at least for the working mean one right it's guess I be well worth it still make money but but how can we keep that circulating so if that represents in our time our labors or energy how can we exchange that with each other and just keep that keep that going and then real wealth i would say in couples is so much more and that's that's how can we share how can we say grow our own food and exchange that the alternative currency type type stuff but for me it comes back when we start going down that path that's great and it builds more bonds in the community but we have the reality of our mortgages and our other debts in this debt based economy how can we keep that claim on real wolf circulating here mm-hmm you Mason a word alternative currency I've often thought and I hear that word I want to follow up and check into that need you know much about that how that operates in this area not not a ton i know there are quite a few kind of local versions of that and groups that are trying to get something off the ground it's uses us with insert little little groups thats tended to be and there's some some groups are looking at using the commercial barter system you know multi-million dollar industry that's been going on for a long time where big businesses are actual y borrowing their their services and goods and creating the alternative market so there's there's some pretty good models out there for how to do it that's just kind of getting the critical mass and the systems in place I was thinking a certain place where that might work would be like your produce markets like that where people could be exchanging on that on that level can certainly shift it a good deal of our consumption and are exchanged to a relational model whether it be time based or alternate currency or those sort of things mm-hmm but really until we're free of the Wall Street grip in terms of our housing and our health care and the other debt areas we've got it we've got a pretty big mountain to overcome mm-hmm you just mentioned the Wall Street grip and then the next word you use with the health care we just had a health care bill that a lot of folks think isn't helping much and then I think it was just today that the the Senate passed a some kind of sweeping financial reform is it similar to the to the global warming climate change legislation and the health care legislation that a lot of people think is just making the big guy stronger is it is it really working down that path or is it really some kind of reform either one of you with it in some ways it might be too soon to tell because the the Senate passed a bill but it's going to a conference committee the house also had passed a financial reform bill last year and they're going to have to reconcile those two bills what what ultimately comes out of it remains to be seen it seems to me that there's good things in the bill that would make things more aboveboard limit some of the really risky activities that took place and put some institutions in place that are designed to look out for bad practices in order to protect consumers but i think it's it's hard to say there's a lot of there's a lot of fine print but there's definitely concepts in that that i think are important and that hopefully the best versions of them do come out does it put us in anywhere near as good as dead as we were with a glass steagle act i don't know i think the financial industry has changed a lot it changes very quickly and whether our regulations keep up or not is an important question hopefully this bill will bring a lot of it more up to date so that the regulations that we have actually are dealing with what's actually happening in the financial world mm-hmm it's kind of weird sure you're talking and the question you asked earlier about what kind of role can we we have we the people with the legislative process I think of Massachusetts and LA that's two good examples of how moving your money can be a political act so the state of Massachusetts chose to move its funds and they said we're only going to move funds into banks that don't skirt use rate laws would say user a law shouldn't they abide by it now they're getting around every which way but the Massachusetts leaders thought you know this is this is a chance to say you know you were going to end it at least in our state in Los Angeles they decided to move their money out of any bank that's not aggressively remedying foreclosures it's do banks I would say are making quite a bit of money off this pull closure issue they're taking the prime properties that don't have much debt on them they're stringing people out to wreck their financial lives and they're not really acting with any sort of responsibility for the for the population so la just said okay if you're not going to do that then we're going to move all of our money into your other banks and I think those are really powerful both symbolically and also pragmatically powerful ways to change woman what we want to see and following from what jared is saying this this question of what governments both local and state governments do with their money is a very important question that we have been involved in trying to address in one way or another one of the things that we've been talking a lot about is a proposal to have a a state-owned bank in oregon modeled after a very successful institution in North Dakota the Bank of North Dakota which has been around actually since nineteen nineteen it's a money making bank that over the life of over over the course of its history has returned actually several hundred million dollars in profits from its own operations to the state of North Dakota to help with their budget to keep taxes low to support the economy in that way and this is a bank that makes loans and accepts deposits like other banks but it cooperates it partners with the local banks in North Dakota to extend credit in its state and its primary basis where it gets those funds from is the state of North Dakota the state of North Dakota deposits its money the the liquid money that it uses for paying its bills to pay its employees general fund and all that well in fact actually it's the cash it's not even it's not even so much all the money that's spent it's the money that's waiting to be spent so your tax revenues as they come in but before they go out that cash gets deposited in banks and rather than deposited in the big banks the North Dakota deposits it in their own bank and that provides financing for lending in their state just to give a little bit of context on this in Oregon and really in the whole country if you if you rewind to let's say September of 2008 when Lehman Brothers collapsed when AIG collapsed and that was really the the beginning of the acute crisis in the economy as a whole one of the most immediate effects was that credit froze throughout the economy right banks stop lending to each other and they stopped lending to businesses small businesses around the country and big businesses to found that their lines of credit dried up couldn't make the play room they could make their cable they couldn't pay their bills and this was one of the things that really would it was one of the first major problems that we face in the course of the crisis and ultimately the recession we when looking at that crisis and understanding the the deep ways in which we are entwined in a financial system and how dependent we are on credit started looking at ways that we could make ourselves less vulnerable to something like that happening again and getting to this question of how the state deposits their funds and the importance of access to capital in our economy as a whole became what we thought was one of the most important questions to address and we found looking at this model of North Dakota it's not a panacea doesn't solve all problems but nevertheless it is a it uses the state's funds which otherwise would be getting deposited in big banks and doing just like individuals when they deposit it in the big banks the money is often who knows where the state of North Dakota was depositing its funds in its own Bank and those funds therefore were being used to spur lending and access to capital in their own state mostly within a booth in North don't almost almost entirely except if businesses have operations North Dakota businesses have operations in adjacent States needs but for the overwhelming majority of it is working in North Dakota it seemed like Oregon could have such a such a bank as well that the only state is doing this North Dakota is the only state that has a state-owned bank it was actually the result of in 1919 and there was an organization a political party sort of called the nonpartisan League which was kind of the last manifestation of the populist movement in North Dakota and they weren't Democrats or Republicans they were mostly farmers but also some workers and they he took control of their state government in 1918 and they did a couple of things one was to create this state-owned bank one was to create a state mill an elevator to deal with the problems that they had with the big grain companies based in mostly in Minneapolis at that time and actually they we have we had conversations with the folks in North Dakota and they shared with us some of their history and how their bank actually works but they they also shared the policy of the bank which was enacted in 1919 when in the bank was created and basically they said that they were establishing a bank to promote agriculture commerce and industry in their state and to be helpful and to assist in the development of state and national banks and other financial institutions and public corporations within the state and not in any matter to destroy or to be harmful to existing financial institutions and this point I think is really important to emphasize that the model of the state bank is designed to reinforce the type of banking that we've been talking about in the show of community banks whose lending is focused in their community and by their business are supporting the creation of jobs and the continuation of stable economies in our local communities so a state bank would strengthen that would a state bank with partner with community banks to make love to make loans and in our communities rather than competing with them and in that way try to strengthen and make more resilient our economy as a whole mm-hmm well I got two questions right off the bat why hasn't any other state done this in other than North Dakota and can any state do it I mean it doesn't there's no federal regulations or anything that hoops you have to jump through to do it there's there's certainly no federal rules that would prevent it and different states may have banking rules that they have to figure out how this relates to and certainly the legislature would have to create the bank it would have to happen by an act of the legislature but really there's nothing stopping any legislature in the country from from creating one of these if they want to now there are it's a it's a scary idea to some people because it's a it's a change from the way that we do things in some ways and you know the trend in this country in this country has been away from you could say public ownership but you know it's important to emphasize that this isn't you know this isn't like a state-run steel company for example this is this is very much a bank that does bank activities that accepts deposits except from the state instead of from individuals and that makes loans to businesses and to farmers who need capital in order to grow their businesses or maintain their businesses I'm and in that way is very much weaves into the economy that we have but hopefully strengthens it but you know there's a lot of there's if there's a sort of bug bear about this kind of thing but I think that you know the financial crisis and what we've had happened in the last couple of years has led some people to think well maybe there's other models out there that we should look at and the Bank of North Dakota happens to be a very successful model that provides a useful template for us and thinking about how we might craft a workable institution for for Oregon mm-hmm 10 it seems like there's two kinds of people in this country some people think that the government's to blame for it all some people think that it's corporations that are blamed for at all and you know and the people think both some people think both and you know some people think they're both wings are the same bird in some ways follow the money follow the money that's exactly what we're talking about here it would seem to me that even though you're you're putting it into into a public reservoir and it's a government obviously the government has had serious problems in the past but I don't think any of them come close to the problems we've had with the runaway situation with with the private enterprise in the financial banking world it's just been devastating to feed people and it would seem to me that is there any move in any other state you're actively moving to do something in this state right quite a few states looking at either specific legislation or having that conversation with her with legislators Washington had a bill has a bill or some move California Michigan Florida Vermont and when we spoke to the folks in North Dakota they told us that a great many people had had called them up a written to them wanting to learn more about their experience and how their bank works and whether this was a model that could be replicated in other states so there's definitely interest and their people are definitely either whether it's along the lines of Massachusetts where they're trying to use their deposits to leverage and certain kinds of practices on the behalf of banks or whether people are looking at how we can use the money that the state has to invest in the economy there are a lot of conversations happening about a variety of policies but but the bank is coming up again and again as as something that should be seriously considered which seemed to me it was a very viable alternative to the way things are going now the fact that it's being invested within the state and then you know it isn't necessary local but compared to being invested in these many cases what multinational or at least extremely large back Eastern banks so it seems to me it would it would calm the fears of both the people that hate the corporations and the people hate the government both it's a great crossover yeah it would seem to me that it would be well and you know it's not the anger at our current situation is not limited to any political grouping you know people who have lots of different points of view and lots of different types of issues understand that our economies overreliance on the very large banks has made us extremely vulnerable you know if if these if the banks that we're so big hadn't been so big then the recession that we're experiencing right now wouldn't have been as bad that's just that's a fact and so I think there's a lot of there's widespread interest in looking at what we can do taking advantage of the resources that we do have in order to lessen our reliance on these on these over large banks and this is one model this is one model well alright see we got about 10 or 12 minutes left we might just put up a phone number if folks want to call up with questions and any comments like I was saying earlier I mean I've said it clearly that we always talk about on this program that there's a lot of things people can do and I think this would be a very effectual way to do something that's and you would be killing more than to use the terminology killing more than one birds with the stone as well because you would be building your local economy you would be helping yourself and maybe you would be gouging the eye of the other of these banks back east that I'm trying to think of a figure but I can't remember all the billions of dollars some of these folks have taken away you know I guess we got a phone call you might get back to that if we because as the the unbelievable amount of money these folks are getting for running these companies this sticks in my craw more than just about anything but we got a couple questions here first commentary on the air you bet and thank you very much for the discussion now I've got a comment about something at the very beginning of the discussion of regarding fusion voting and my comment is for those of us who choose to a registered no party affiliation I am forever frustrated that in the primaries I have no candidates to vote for other than judges and county commissioners and I would do the same thing myself if it's totally frustrating and and I do hope that at some point origin can change that aspect of the elections and allow non-affiliated voters to vote any party any ticket any time and I do thank you again for the program all right thank you that is a problem i notice i have anything to vote for this last one but this working families party the fusion voting doesn't affect any way it does not affect that uh but only Democrats can vote in democratic primaries only Republicans can vote in Republican primaries Washington State has changed the rules on this a little bit and calif actually has a ballot measure that's coming up in June that would completely change their primary system so it's a statewide designation it's state-by-state there's rules on part primaries in some states do have open primaries where where non-affiliated voters can choos to participate in either party's primary mm-hmm but for now it's not an option in Oregon all right did I see we had another phone call nope all right we'll move along here we might be get back to that event so it is an event going on tomorrow you mean just lay that out again pioneer square 124 celebration of our local economy will call it move your money day and we'll have lines of auto kata drumming it up keep the energy going banks credit unions will be there the ones that are rooted in this this town for CEOs vice presidents be there to answer questions good good fun event all right we'll make sure to get back to that him at least one more time for the show's over the next caller you're on the air good evening the idea of the fusion program is really wonderful because it allows of clothes and toys and wife is not available probably there is no time to discuss at length but in in the context of these are the mood collective mood swings if you can call them their way in my opinion was treated of the idea was a Sunday over has grown to an expand without outlive its own usefulness not there is a very movement or movement of thought that if not to destroy the theater monster at least to bring it under to some control because now it is essentially it's run amok it's a run amok institution that produces nothing if he can increase temporary the wealth based on air but most of the time as we has been shown now it is only brings destruction so I don't want to continually further thank you for the show and I would like to have your comments thank you alright i would say we're definitely feeding the monster by depositing with them borrowing from them our cities and states doing the exact same thing our bonds are usually done through the wall street things so am i my mind we need that we need to starve the Beast a bit but we also have to change the rules and while wall street banks have so much political power in the form of natural capital it's really hard we're seeing that there was a bill to break up the big banks and that got next pretty quick wasn't it coincided with the stock market crash I wanted too hard on that but it seemed like it seemed like it was kind of interesting timing there a little held captive to our our our big banks so you know there's a really scary statistic which is that on the on the eve of the financial crisis forty percent of total corporate profits in in the country went to Wall Street so as the caller said to institutions that while they sometimes are certain purposes I don't think many people feel that they they create real wealth as we were talking about and and it's a real structural shift in the American economy that that has made us so vulnerable so hopefully the legislation coming out of Congress will at least begin to reverse some of the worst aspects of that trend mm-hmm we used to twenty percent of the profits in this country goes to Wall Street at least both at the on the eve of the financial crisis and on just and during the health care debate who were talking to forget what percentage of our national gross national product or whatever goes towards health care which means goes to these big big multinational or lease national hospitals and insurance companies so that that's a big chunk of what we do right and those two little most two big boxes at least you can say in health care that that's millions of people are employed and in a lot of that and spending is nurses and doctors and people who work at hospitals and and you know a lot of that is a real economy hopeful economy and much less so when you're talking about the biggest financial institutions mmm that's true think we have another call next caller hi good job as always all right thank you a couple of comments regarding the third party movement I'm sure you and your guests know that recently there was a lection in Britain and not that Britain is necessarily a model for up for everything that we want to do but you know that there are fully ten parties ten parties represented in the British Parliament and and so this represents the concepts of decentralizing power which i think is part of what your guests are saying the other thing that struck me is when they were announcing the winners there you know we're very used to very large sort of big party because literally parties where this or the Democratic and the Republican Party get together and announce their candidates winning or they have a concession speech none of that phenomenon takes place in in England it's a very kind of a downplayed you know there's no huge hooplah the parties are not as powerful there because there are so many partly be but multiple Azizzadeh demonym the democratic republican parties in this country are really giant private corporation and with their own agenda and their own fun being in their own you know maybe they're basically businesses so I really support the third-party movement I really happy to hear about this party and I would also put in a plug for the Progressive Party which is a new startup another turn a party and sewer again we did that last one yeah that's great so and I was just one last time I know you want to get more callers but I really support the movement of money out of the big banks into the small local banks and credit unions same concept decentralization moving from a national to a local level very very important and I'll take any other comments you guys have off the off the air thankful all right what there's an it's interesting point though about the British system Britain is of all the everybody other than the US has the most favorable system to the to a two-party structure similar to the US as everybody knows the way we do elections in the US is not favorable to third parties the first-past-the-post system doesn't doesn't favor it at all but fusion in a way is the sort of uniquely American form of proportional representation we say that you make the coalition's before the election instead of after the election but it is a way for people with distinct sets of views to come together when they do agree and to support the same candidates and hopefully put those values that they share at the forefront you know at least in the point of view of the working families party there are many candidates who are not in our party but who are Democrats or Republicans who do share our values and who are good on the issues that we care about and we want to be able to work with them at the same time that we want to be able to put pressure on those who who aren't doing as good a job mm-hmm well I see we're down to bottle it over two and a half minutes we'll put the last caller up here and last caller you're on the air you only got about a minute though unfortunately we're running out of time hey good evening good evening first of all just thank you for hanging in there for so many years and covering issues I really appreciate that kind of dedication are you welcome two things one on a city level I really need to focus on the debt the city's taking on it's becoming a very hazardous situation and we need to focus on that a little bit more the other thing I want to talk about is recently with the election Rand Paul got elected to the Republican candidate for the Kentucky Senate hmm and i'm not a huge tea party you know supporter by any means i think it's a manipulated movement but i've noticed that the media immediately went after this guy trying to label him as a racist they were today event and including with that you have racial Rachel Maddow and you have any Goodwin almost in lockstep with the media so I think we have to be cognizant of fact that that there are elements of so-called liberal media that are controlled and are pretty much dictate how look to the left and i'm very concerned about that i'm not at the grand Paul fan thought the Ayn Rand capilla yeah and right here you're making up there we got less than a minute anyway but I appreciate that the comment yeah all right we get we're down to about 50 seconds so appreciate that I'd like to go into that Rand Paul thing a little bit but I appreciate you folks going on just before we just for the phone call got off the air I've seen the graphic up for what's going on tomorrow so it's going to be from one to four o'clock on fire square move your money was it move your money money down your money day right and it's an it's a national national that may be that this particular event was national we're working with the National folks and Portland's the first city to be spotlighted because of our leadership in this area so all right and show we can lead the way all right well I appreciate you folks coming on from from move your move your money day and working families party we're just about to end of the program well thanks you all for tuning in we'll see you next week