ALWAYS CONSULT YOUR INVESTMENT PROFESSIONAL BEFORE MAKING ANY INVESTMENT DECISION
November 4, 2024 | Our Fragile Infrastructure: Lessons From Hurricane Helene
Asheville, North Carolina is known for its historic architecture, vibrant arts scene and as a gateway to the Blue Ridge Mountains. It was a favorite escape for “climate migrants” moving from California, Arizona, and other climate-challenged vicinities, until a “500 year flood” ravaged the city this fall. Hurricane Helene was a wakeup call not just […]
September 11, 2024 | The Florida State Sunshine Bank: How a State-Owned Bank Can Protect Free Speech
Fifteen years have passed since the Occupy Wall Street movement focused attention on the inequities and hazards of large Wall Street banks, particularly those risky banks with trillions of dollars in derivatives on their books. “Move your money” was the obvious response, but what could local governments do? Their bank accounts were too large for […]
June 18, 2024 | Why Does the Government Borrow When It Can Print?
In the first seven months of Fiscal Year (FY) 2024, net interest (payments minus income) on the federal debt reached $514 billion, exceeding spending on both national defense ($498 billion) and Medicare ($465 billion). The interest tab also exceeded all the money spent on veterans, education, and transportation combined. Spending on interest is now the […]
April 7, 2024 | By the Dawn’s Early Light: On the Fall of the Francis Scott Key Bridge
The Baltimore bridge that collapsed on March 26th was named for Francis Scott Key, who wrote the lyrics to the American national anthem “The Star-Spangled Banner” in 1814. His inspiration was the British bombardment of Fort McHenry in the critical port of Baltimore during the War of 1812. The British had just burned the U.S. Capitol and the […]
March 8, 2024 | The Public Bank That Wasn’t: New Jersey’s Excursion into Public Banking
In 2017, Phil Murphy, a former Goldman Sachs executive, made the establishment of a public, state-owned bank a centerpiece issue during his run for New Jersey governor. He regularly championed public banking in speeches, town halls and campaign commercials. He won the race, and the nation’s second state-owned bank following the stellar model of the Bank […]
February 15, 2024 | Defusing the Derivatives Time Bomb: Some Proposed Solutions
This is a sequel to a Jan. 15 article titled “Casino Capitalism and the Derivatives Market: Time for Another ‘Lehman Moment’?”, discussing the threat of a 2024 “black swan” event that could pop the derivatives bubble. That bubble is now over ten times the GDP of the world and is so interconnected and fragile that […]
January 16, 2024 | Casino Capitalism and the Derivatives Market: Time for Another ‘Lehman Moment’?
Reading the tea leaves for the 2024 economy is challenging. On January 5th, Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said we have achieved a “soft landing,” with wages rising faster than prices in 2023. But critics are questioning the official figures, and prices are still high. Surveys show that consumers remain apprehensive. There are other concerns. On […]
October 3, 2023 | “The Great Taking”: How They Can Own It All
’You’ll own nothing and be happy’? David Webb has gone through the 50-year history of all the legal constructs that have been put in place to technically enable that to happen.” [Oct 2 interview titled “The Great Taking: Who Really Owns Your Assets?”] The derivatives bubble has been estimated to exceed one quadrillion dollars (a quadrillion is […]
August 31, 2023 | More Banks to Fail? Not in North Dakota
US. banks are again in the crosshairs. Standard and Poor’s has downgraded five new middle-tier banks and put three others on negative outlook. This follows sweeping downgrades earlier in August by Moody’s, which cut credit ratings on 10 banks and placed four of the 15 largest U.S. banks on review for possible downgrade. As with the banks going […]
August 9, 2023 | Ellen Brown: War By Other Means: Short Selling JPMorgan Chase
When the FDIC put Silicon Valley Bank (SVB) and Signature Bank into receivership in March, a study reported on the Social Science Research Network found that nearly 200 midsized U.S. banks were similarly vulnerable to bank runs. First Republic Bank went into receivership in May, but the feared contagion of runs did not otherwise occur. […]
July 12, 2023 | Ellen Brown: The Federal Debt Trap: Issues and Possible Solutions
Rather than collecting taxes from the wealthy,” wrote the New York Times Editorial Board in a July 7 opinion piece, “the government is paying the wealthy to borrow their money.” Titled “America Is Living on Borrowed Money,” the editorial observes that over the next decade, according to the Congressional Budget Office (CBO), annual federal budget […]
June 4, 2023 | Another Look at the Financial Transactions Tax That Could Eliminate Need for All Others
A small financial transactions tax could correct a number of maladies in our economic system, from the federal debt crisis to the widening wealth divide to the rampant financialization of the economy, while eliminating taxes on income and sales. The debt ceiling crisis has again brought into focus the perennial gap between what the government […]
May 17, 2023 | Squeezed by the Shorts: Time to Ban Short Selling?
Short sellers have made a killing in the recent banking crisis, scalping $14.3 billion from bank stock owners just in March of this year. Short sellers “borrow” stock they don’t own and immediately sell it, driving the price down. Then they buy it back at the lower price, return the stock, and pocket the difference. Bankers […]
April 28, 2023 | How the War on Crypto Triggered a Banking Crisis
According to an article in American Banker titled “SEC’s Gensler Directly Links Crypto and Bank Failures,” SEC Chair Gary Gensler has asked for more financial resources to police the crypto market. Gensler testified at an April 18 House Financial Services Committee hearing: [Crypto companies] have chosen to be noncompliant and not provide investors with confidence and […]
April 12, 2023 | The Cobalt Gold Rush and the East Palestine Disaster
Holidays in my childhood were spent at my grandparents’ farm in Plain Grove, Pennsylvania, 35 miles from East Palestine, Ohio. My grandfather’s grandfather fought at Gettysburg and homesteaded the 160-acre farm after the Civil War. My grandmother sold it in the 1960s for $13,000, lacking a male heir to do the work; but my relatives […]
February 23, 2023 | What Will Happen When Banks Go Bust? Bank Runs, Bail-Ins and Systemic Risk
Financial podcasts have been featuring ominous headlines lately along the lines of “Your Bank Can Legally Seize Your Money” and “Banks Can STEAL Your Money?! Here’s How!” The reference is to “bail-ins:” the provision under the 2010 Dodd-Frank Act allowing Systemically Important Financial Institutions (SIFIs, basically the biggest banks) to bail in or expropriate their […]
January 18, 2023 | Solving the Debt Crisis the American Way
On Friday, Jan. 13, Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen wrote to Congress that the U.S. government will hit its borrowing limit on Jan. 19, forcing the new Congress into negotiations over the debt limit much sooner than expected. She said she will use accounting maneuvers she called “extraordinary measures” to keep U.S. finances running for a few months, […]
September 1, 2022 | How to Green Our Parched Farmlands and Finance Critical Infrastructure
Congress has passed two major infrastructure bills in the last year, but imminent needs in infrastructure funding remain. The 2021 Bipartisan Infrastructure Law chiefly focused on conventional highway programs, and the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022 (IRA) mainly centered on energy security and combating climate change. According to the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE), […]