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our next speaker is Walton McCree he is president of public banking associates which provides services around the country to cities counties States and others interested in public banks he is the immediate recently passed CEO of the public banking Institute he's provided many presentations about public banking throughout the country he produces and hosts the radio program it's our money which of course Ellen appears on very frequently and the public bank solution TV program he helps lead the effort to create a New Jersey state bank and of course you know that that is now spearheaded by a new governor in New Jersey Phil Murphy who made a public bank for New Jersey a central part of this campaign it was on his website and every campaign appearance and new jersey has already introduced legislation for a public bank vault a principal factor in getting Phil Murphy interested in the first place in addition Walt was a director of the Pennsylvania a public banking project and he formerly served as CEO of the Alliance for Public Broadcasting he's been a long-term kind of investigative journalist broadcaster so let's welcome Walt McCready [Music] thank you very much Earl and hello it hello everybody and I'm sorry I'm really happy to see so many of you again because we have seen each other before here and in Denver I and listen I'm gonna be the most your favorite speaker because I'm gonna suggest if you stand up not for the whole thing but just so you can stand up for just a moment and we'll you know get refreshed that way because we're gonna be talking about something a little bit different here it's not gonna be nuts and bolts it's gonna be more visionary and more transformative we're gonna talk about public banking as being a breakthrough opportunity for us and kind of taking a look at where we are and where we can go so so thank you once again for for joining us this evening the purpose here for my little talk and it won't be terribly long I don't think but it's basically to discover the relevance and what I would call the urgency of public banking we take a look at the our economic and our political structure in order to assess it to assess the need for public banks ask the question where are we now why are we here where are we gonna go and how are we gonna get there you know and also to share with you during the course of our next couple of minutes a look at what's going on around the country to take a look at what the people like Nicole who have been in the trenches for years and years we've all been in different kinds of trenches but but the public banking one is it's as a deep dig and it demands a certain level of resilience and persistence and again vision I like to speak to vision because I personally I think that's really what makes things happen it's our own personal sense of what's possible our own knowledge and our own personal ability things our sense of responsibility the moral imperatives that were that we respond to that's all part of the public banking effort and I personally think that it's a reverend the rather pivotal opportunity to for the citizens to get back engaged into the promise of what American democracy could actually bring so where are we now well it depends on where you want to look of course but it if you look at the core assets of our communities and of our nation you see that we've got a lot of failed and unfortunate really tragically unfortunate to situations we've got many of our citizens who are just not making it almost 50 percent of our country is living on the edge of poverty this is in the most affluent country in the world we're not even attempting reasonable levels of maintenance for our infrastructure let alone taking on the very exciting possibilities that this day and age with technology can bring forward we're not even thinking about those things because we have no idea where we're gonna get the money we can't even find the money to repair of what we've got here now and we seem to be losing this mythical battle of trying to preserve or maybe create the American dream for our fellow citizens and for ourselves we're abandoning our youth to the captains of capital and basically you know we're losing both the sense of our Commonwealth as well as as the as well as dark our common interests not to depress you or anything but as I started to say you know we're really also on the edge of an exciting breakthrough that provides a way for us to get past the system that it's curbing our growth that now Ellen has talked about this and you're all well aware the primary curve is the dominance of issuance of private capital that systemically restricts all people from gaining economic ground and it locks in the trend toward poverty that's fueled by scarcity and has debilitated our institutions the 800-pound gorilla is private capital maybe that's a bull you know but it runs the show and it has to be dealt with and we are supplicants we are at the at the mercy of how it wants to run through our lives and our economies our cities and towns are subject to this same system they just borrow from the purveyors of debt like the rest of us you know they don't it's not that they don't have money as Eileen just said you guys have a couple of billion dollars hanging around you know and it's it's just unavailable to you it's a more on that in a moment about things how way we characterize that in New Jersey but hundreds of billions of dollars are typically available certainly here in Denver so let's observe the way that things are now money moves the world and banking moves money right so you know let's get us a bank because our governments depend on private sources of capital we have been we have stagnated we've been stagnated in our public management and if we don't have money we're not going to be moving our world no there's a new book out by Bruce Katz who's a consultant with the Brookings Institution it's called the new localism and this is part of the promise of the change where we were where we are living right now he says there's a chasm a chasm that still exists between cities and financial capital cities are maturing economically but immature govern mentally and financially in most US cities there's little information on what the public actually owns and there's no mechanism for disposing of public assets in ways that maximize long-term growth and public return the result is that private and cat and civil capital sits on the sidelines and fails to invest in our cities now to embargo Rubio a moment hear from you member again he takes money from the NRA so so this of course means that we're not using our native assets to be able to to invest in ourselves and to make progress Eileen mentioned that and of course she said which is taking out a billion dollars out of where the money is now she didn't observe and but implied that that billion dollars could have been invested in a more secure a place namely the city of Denver or the state of Colorado there are so many needs affordable housing being one and that's of course that's all over the nation affordable housing is a hugely big interest so so we have that's a that is a need and we know that it's not going to be fixed by the people in the state capital or certainly in the in in the national capital but new this localism this new localism is the way forward when we can't count on the top down bestow love benefits of pipes what we have to do is what we've always done mostly in count one that's count on each other it's how we built this country to begin with it's how people around the world live we count on each other and that's where the power is and that's where I want you guys to get clear about now I notice event itself several of you are over 21 and again another you're talking to you know and my point is that you know we've all been through periods of change and commitment and civic dedication and we some of us have been through a number of wars and efforts to try stop wars and to be able to pretend some of our common assets well you know now that we've gotten at this point in our careers we see the young people we think about what are we handing on to the next generation is it going to be worth having will there be something there I feel personally like this is a responsibility we have as alter Cluckers you know to be able to to to fight through this to persist as Nico says and to realize as Jason was saying you know that we're stuck in a system that doesn't work for us and that is not going to change unless we do this now that's how public banking comes into it because if money moves the world and banks move money then if we want to move the world we meet these banks and we need them as expressions of our our of our own commitment to each other and ovals and our neighborhoods and our because we don't like to not only not get ripped off we'd like to do something really exciting there's a lot of terrific things that we're not able to do we don't think about doing them because there's just no money there so that's what a public bank can do in a city and a state and and it's a I say it's a transformative movement broadband municipal ization of power systems and so forth that's local action that's building local infrastructure working together to create new systems so you know when you really look around and you see all the problems and see all that stuff you can say well where are we this is this is our home this is the way it looks now you know we've got some stuff in the backyard we need to clean up and we got some stuff in the basement we didn't need to fix up and revive and get going and if we have the money to do that we can we can get on with that now that kind of personal commitment at a civic level and at a citizen level is what can move this process forward and I'll illustrate that around in in some of the examples of other people who are doing what y'all are doing here in Denver and in Colorado and of course capital is is the focused here so all right all right let's talk about some of these good people in other places because I think you'll be interested to see how long they've been persisting and what has happened and reticular little cross-country tour okay we'll start from the northeastern part of America not to do all 50 states but just places where there are where there's persistence a real plan people working it and pushing through the systems that they have in their areas to have to deal with the main is that up that way Maine has had a bill on the state legislature for the last at least five years and they have made a consistent forays into the state legislature their governor has no interest and the guy who's in charge with their Finance Committee and Senate who doesn't want to hear about it but there are people now running for governor in Maine who love the public banking idea and they the citizens there when one of them our colleague Randall par just gave an award for profiles and courage to ten of the elected officials who voted in favor of the public bank initiative there you know it starts to position the politicians as here as heroes you know as a real representatives of the people so we're expecting to see something new in Maine this year in the form of a revised bill but a new bill that will will not be abandoned next domain is Vermont of course and in Vermont that's an interesting story because they can they persist even though they were pushed back and denied the their public bank even though twenty of twenty three towns voted dissident and told their legislators that they wanted to have a public bank they discussed it through a variety of town meetings town halls the help the vast majority says we want it they even had a couple of state senators who said they were going to support it it got right down to the wire and the State Treasurer basically didn't want and said but was willing to make a deal and and what they what they did was instead of taking a state bank and getting a bank they decided to repurpose an existing development authority of the Vermont development authority and the idea that the pitch the message in the public banking message was is that let's keep our money in Vermont we you know and break break down our bank is in Toronto you know and for securitized what the debt was and how much money wasn't going in state well okay so they got a little thing out of it and it was a start and it wasn't a complete loss in fact it was pretty good progress when you look at at what other states have had to have not produced and the program is a ten percent for Vermont fund in which ten percent of the treasurer's funds are invested in Vermont's businesses and people been very successful really it's produced new jobs and and its really improved things so much so that the legislature didn't even have to discuss the next time around this was bill came up oh yeah let's do that again but the people still didn't get they're ready and they know the difference between having a revolving fund you know and a bank so there they are Mackin estamos a streets but they are back into their communities having a variety of different public gathers people like us here talking about what it is that we want to create for for our state are one of our former executive directors and one of the real really a world-class writer and monetary theorist I know that's exactly what we call Gwen but a Gwen Houseman actually she's from Boulder conducted one event called it the public baking baking public baking outing or something so the gather people around a baking event you know but it was clue who gets the cookies yeah yeah next door to Vermont is New Hampshire and in New Hampshire we have a were happy to have Valerie Fraser who's a a tea party Republican who originated the bill there she is one of several around the country who have initiated the public bank movement or a bill she's been working on the bill there for the last couple of years and they will be talking about that again in this legislative session she even though she's a state rep has trouble with her committee members but she has been pushing and pushing and bringing some of us in there to talk to them and persisting in having them address what are the facts about this bank and can we get this to the next level talk to the banking department and so forth and so on so we're thinking New Hampshire may have a shot at that this year getting a little bit further and South going a little bit further southeast Massachusetts Massachusetts has an interesting little tale in that in 2011 they had a they created a commission for a public bank to examine the public and what came out of that and the Commission was heavily staffed by bankers and actually and one of our colleagues it was on and he was one of three votes who voted to for the bank the others voted it down and the Federal Reserve of Boston does did a review of the measure and said that you know this Massachusetts is not North Dakota and we've done plenty of banks or would what's the need why do we need more banks you know we've got a very vibrant to landing at atmosphere and this just seems to be unnecessary what problem you're trying to solve and by the way you know of you if you extrapolate the numbers from hypothecated I per belies really the numbers from the bank north dakota's start it would take three and a half billion dollars to capitalize the bank for to do what the Bank of North Dakota is doing now it was a hatchet job so like so that demos Center for state innovation and our own Helen Brown that are really resounding and complete thorough review and critique of how wrong that thing was but the thing that's memorable about this is that last about a month ago maybe the state of Washington which is also been looking at a public bank of the last five six years Senator Bob hasagawa he's now a senator he was a state Rep introduced a state bank bill year after year after year after year and always in got pocketed at the end by the chair of the Finance Committee won't see this again you know well that has changed the the citizens have been talking Bob's made his points that logic is self-evident that the debt is growing there's no way out of this hole you don't borrow your way out of debt it's just what's the future here there is no future here this is an unsustaina le system that we have and the treasurer that gave lip service to the idea and so they had a task force met for about six months and looked really good you know they said we we see a way forward and then at the last moment where the the final thing was that they said no don't go the Treasury said we don't we don't want to do this we think this is an unnecessary exercise and and by the way that study in Boston that would bank the Federal Reserve in Boston says this is a bad idea so we don't think we should let's not look down this hole anymore okay you know now because it so they wanted to forestall any further discussion of it now we know very well in Massachusetts as I indicated and in Maine and in Vermont and in New Hampshire and in Washington the state Banking Association was key at influencing that decision so but it still exists and even though it's a bogus report we expect to see it a lot more just be notices you study from Boston yeah well if you keep traveling south that for somebody I think somebody mentioned neutral someone mentioned New York earlier several efforts there the home of Wall Street does not have that would seem to not have a lot of prospect for Republic Bank but it's a big stick and they have the same problems all the rest of us have how are we gonna make things work so and people out in the country and also on the island Long Island some state senators there are into it and there are now one or two bills that are moving forward in the New York house and in the Senate all right then moving to Michigan or no Pennsylvania Pennsylvania is another example of how the citizens will not give up our own Mike Kraus who was one of the founding members of the board of public banking Institute and a former head of the state GOP an old dear friend of mine he's the guy who got me into this quite a number of years ago Mike has been his meeting with the governor's guys next Wednesday and the heads of unions and leaders of the state legislature to go over this banking thing once again why because Pennsylvania has it's never able to come up with a budget they they they have really run out of corners that they can put casinos on the taxation load is you know it's just there's nothing there you know so so this is a great new resource that speaks for itself and and we think that's gonna be moving on in Philadelphia which was also one of Mike when Mike and I were working on this he Philadelphia was one of our targets and years ago we started working with City Council people and now the the guy who's into the new mayor of Jim Kenney and thought very favorably about this idea but Kenny is has lost faith the council is kind of drifted there's not a lot of political courage there but the people are still there and now they're revitalizing their tactics about taking over the the what he called the county the the city committee people positions and running for council and so forth so there is still active I'm gonna speed this up a little bit until then we're gonna go to all of these states but in Michigan tea party Republicans again have just launched or another bill in Michigan so that's back on their floor Chicago the city of Chicago is there's bubbling up there and I think that the there's a gubernatorial candidate who is Chris Kennedy Bobby Kennedy's son who is looking at adopting this and the state of Illinois has had a couple of bills which make it revived in the process of course we've talked to talk about Colorado and we've covered New Mexico in Santa Fe Albuquerque said something about Washington State and while the wash even though there is now a legislative caucus for a public bank in the Washington Assembly or Senate there and there is this dead end as far the state treasurer is concerned at the moment but there is the City of Tacoma and Seattle and Seattle is on the trail and it's now issued a request an RFP for studying a figure for doing a feasibility study on a public bank they have many of the same issues that that other cities you know affordable housing and so forth so so they are in play and Tacoma is as well as it's Portland Oregon there now interestingly part of the horizon in Oregon as in other states and I don't think it's true here girl we know but there's a prohibition in Oregon that very clearly spells out you won't have any bank you can't have a bang well it's a 19th century law it could be interpreted a variety of different ways my point would only be that laws like that Washington say the same thing laws like that are contestable you know there is I guess that's what laws are always a contestable on some at some point but but it might be that you have to go through that hoop to get to the next stage of consideration and of course in California we have a - of the leading Gatton gubernatorial candidates are in favor of the public bank we've been working pretty closely ellen has been working with the current one about not only a public bank for the state that the the iBank application los angeles has now come forward with people who are 21 who were bernie Kratz who have driven that propelled a movement there to create a city bank and they have in that instance a very vibrant and supportive City Council so much so that when the the report that they requested from their I guess their Budget Committee or whether financial committees came back and said you know this looks like it's gonna be really hard LM suggested this they're really hard to do for the city and maybe we shouldn't do it the guy said you know you just tell us it was enough this how to make this work we'll decide whether or not it's too hard for us that's what we like to see that's the kind of shift that I'm talking about when we talk about a transformative opportunity with public banks to move our democracy into something that represents what we're about and mcourser Oakland Santa Rosa and San Francisco San Francisco's the coset has got a nice big task force there Oakland is well on its way with is Santa Rosa you may recall a couple of months ago they've lost 5% of their houses in fires and they knew the mayor there is now really interested to know for this work for us could this help us with finding you know recovery instances like that so if we look fairly at the world that we want to create and we look at the systems that were stuck with public banks need to be factored into that as part of the future that we want to create the future that is coming that we're where the global economy has let most of the regular folks down and where the local economies need to be revived because that's where the future is where there are new collaborations abilities for us to create collaborative business efforts cooperatives and so forth it's a system it's a systemic shift away from this top-down business and a new commitment to the people so we're talking about getting out of a dead-end system that is internal unsustainable you know more debt more taxes replacing more debt more taxes with more investment more equity you know at the counter supply is the cyclic allottee that we discussed before that's the potential the transformational potential of public banks now there are a couple of things they just quickly want to touch how it affects banks some of us touched on it earlier that having a public bank as a partner as a cupid for community bank makes all the difference in the world it's whether or not you as a banker you have a viable business that that can make a profit and and hold its own in the marketplace one of the beautiful things about the North Dakota really data point on that is that not only do they have more banks six times more banks those banks are three to four times more profitable than any other public community bank in the country this isn't an industry that is shrinking you know being that it's losing its footprint through mergers and acquisitions two big guys buying them and of course the shareholders in the community banks wanting to get some money out of their investment are taking that well what that's doing to our communities is yes it's got to stop we need community bankers you know and part of our mission is to is to get the community bankers to realize that we are their BFFs you know we are that we are their best friends we're partners in lending credit into the community and the public bank enables them to do that at a whole new scale and when we talk about investment and building the loop of strength and stability the resilience of the local economy that's mean that means keeping our money here as opposed to putting it in the Wall Street banks so in North Dakota well let me say it another way in every other state they the big banks hold 80 percent on average 80 to 85 percent of the deposits of the cities of the citizens in and so most of the money therefore is leaving those states and going into private hands in North Dakota the community banks have 82 percent of the market share and the big banks are the ones who are marginalized in the marketplace because the public bank allows the community banks to make larger loans to unto share the risk to be able to go toe-to-toe with the big guys to do bigger projects and so they retain their market share they don't lose their customers because they're better because they can't make big enough loans so that's that's a really important systemic thing that we want to focus on and one of the transformative thing is about public banks for for community banks the other thing is is the government's our governments not only do that you know as I mentioned before they have to go to the same lenders that we do so the lending that they do is dependent on how what kind of credit rating they're given by the you know the partners of the banks the credit you know the crediting agencies and they'll tell you what you're gonna pay for the money and whether or not they're gonna give it to you you know so our governments who would like to do some of this stuff are disabled because they're still the supplicants in in the place they're not they're not running the show and they they have to put up with that so a public bank and transform that relationship and then of course we know how the outsized impact of big money is on politicians and on elections so they are having they have much more input on public policy that's something that we need to change we have the public policy should be reflecting the people not the private interests in the public and the and the money business and then of course finally on the citizens relative to transformative effects when you live in poverty or when you're living in this world of debt this web of debt that's the coin a phrase is the it's depressing you know it's not very invigorating to have to wonder or worry about your security whether or not you're going to be able to handle anything and if it we indicated you know a lot of people are in that situation so the whole vibe of our of our culture in our societies brought down by the fact that we are doing or you know owing a bands to to borrowing money it's not necessary and that's one of the things important messages that that we're trying to instill and create now and that is that money is a public utility you know we're living in a world where money is a private commodity if you've got it good for you and if you don't well you know good luck buddy I'll see you on the street corner you know but when it's a utility when people can get it then things change dramatically and that's another one of the reasons why we want to support the white public banking is a transformative opportunity and why it's central relevant and again urgent that we get on with this because time is moving very very fast we're losing ground very rapidly and in this battle big money is not getting smaller they're not losing their agenda they're there looking for every which way they can to maximize profit I'm not saying that's that's a good or bad but in terms of our interest it's a bad thing and we just don't need to play with them we can play with ourselves about this so ultimately this transformative thing is transformative possibility is derived from a shift away and I'm just about to wrap up here okay it's the the transformational potential of public banks is derived from the shift away from the predatory control of profiteering interests and public banks actually bend the arc of power toward public control of resources as opposed to private resources they're thereby helping us to democratize our systems and our outcomes so that's where we are some of how we got here some of what's going on and where we can go of course is up to us we can transform this system and as I said we must now Rudolf Steiner made a very interesting quote that I think is a dimension that we all are also keep in mind when we talk about money because it's a relation it's a relational thing he said in the economic sphere his book is in the economic sphere is born that which unites people in terms of feeling that is fellowship the more that is cultivated the more fruitful economic life becomes and the impulse towards fellowship arises when we establish a certain connection between our property and another's between our need and in others between something we have and something another has and so on so some have described this transformational movement as the creation of an economy worthy of our affection we're in a transformational moment let's seize it thank you [Applause] I didn't get to tell you about New Jersey public banks the answer is No [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] well that's the point it can only you know Bucky fuller is famously quoted is talking about how you take on obstacles that are bigger than you and and that really are seem indomitable and it says you cannot drive through them you can't plan a strategy that's going to effectively get through that obstacle but what you should do is design something that it obviates the need that does away with the neither that designed something better and you that that's the point it can only it you know Bucky fuller is well famously quoted is talking about how you take on obstacles that are bigger than you and and that really are seem indomitable and it says you cannot drive through them you can't plan a strategy that's going to effectively get through that obstacle but what you should do is design something that it obviates the need that does away with the needed that design something better and that that's the point they can only it you know Bucky fuller is well famously quoted is talking about how you take on obstacles that are bigger than you and and that really are seem indomitable and it says you cannot drive through them you can't plan a strategy that's going to effectively get through that obstacle but what you should do is design something that it obviates the need that does away with the neither that design something better and that that's the point they can only it you know Bucky fuller is well famously quoted is talking about how you take on obstacles that are bigger than you and and that really are seem indomitable and as is as you cannot drive through them you can't plan a strategy that's going to effectively get through that obstacle but what you should do is design something that it obviates the need that does away with the neither that design something better and you that that's the point it can only you know Bucky fuller is well famously quarter is talking about how would you take on it are bigger than you and and that really are seem indomitable and says you cannot drive through them you can't plan a strategy that's going to effectively get through that obstacle but what you should do is design something that it obviates the need that does away with the needed that design something better and you that that's the point you can only you know Bucky fuller well famously quoted is talking about how you take on it are bigger than you and and that really are seem indomitable and as he says you cannot drive through them you can't plan a strategy that's going to effectively get through that obstacle but what you should do is design something that it obviates the need that does away with the neither that design something better and you that that's the point it can only it you know Bucky fuller is well famously quarter is talk ng about how you take on it are bigger than you and and that really are seem indomitable and it says you cannot drive through them you can't plan a strategy that's going to effectively get through that obstacle but what you should do is design something that it obviates the need that does away with the need that design something better and you that that's the point you can only you know Bucky fuller is well famously quoted is talking about how you take on it are bigger than you and and that really are seem indomitable and as is as you cannot drive through them you can't plan a strategy that's going to effectively get through that obstacle but what you should do is design something that it obviates the need that does away with the neither that design something better and you that that's the point you can only you know Bucky fuller well famously quarter is talking about how you take on it are bigger than you and and it really are seem indomitable and says you cannot drive through them you can't plan a strategy that's going to effectively get through that obstacle but what you should do is design something that it obviates the need that does away with the needed that design something better and you that that's the point you can only you know Bucky fuller well famously quota is talking about how you take on it or bigger than you and and that really are seem indomitable and obstacles and as you cannot drive through them you can't plan a strategy that's going to effectively get through that obstacle but what you should do is design something that it obviates the need that does away with the neither that design something better and you that that's the point it can only it you know Bucky fuller is well famously quoted is talking about you take on it or bigger than you and and that really are seeming indomitable and obstacles and as you cannot drive through them you can't plan a strategy that's going to effectively get through that obstacle but what you should do is design something that it obviates the need that does away with the neither that design something better and you that that's the point you can only you know well famously quarter is talking about how would you take God's are bigger than you and and that really are seeming indomitable and obstacles and it says you cannot drive through them you can't plan a strategy that's going to effectively get through that obstacle but what you should do is design something that it obviates the need that does away with the needed that design something better and you that that's the point you can only it Bucky fuller well famously quota is talking about how you take on it are bigger than you and and that really are seen indomitable and obstacles that