Portside

Banking on the Public Option: Will LA Lead the Way for People-Owned Banks?

Spurred by the heavily cash-reliant cannabis industry, Los Angeles residents will be the first in the country to vote on a public banking mandate, after the City Council agreed on June 29 to put a measure on the November ballot...

California has over $700 billion parked in private banks earning minimal interest, private equity funds that contributed to the affordable housing crisis, or shadow banks of the sort that caused the banking collapse of 2008.

Reader Comments: Information is power -- Portside annual Fund Appeal; How to Talk to Your Family About the Trump Tax Scam; The US, Africa and a New Century of War; Keystone Pipeline; Public Bank Option; Sci-Fi and Fantasy Every Socialist Should Read; Remembering Syd Bild; and more....

School districts are notoriously short of funding – so short that some California districts have succumbed to Capital Appreciation Bonds that will cost taxpayers as much is 10 to 15 times principal by the time they are paid off. By comparison, California’s Prop. 51, the school bond proposal currently on the ballot, looks like a good deal.

Advocates didn't get the public bank they wanted. But the compromise they reached in the end was still a rare and significant win over Wall Street banks.

If any of these ideas sound good to you, there's a bitter political struggle to be waged. Let's get to work.

North Dakota's thriving state bank makes a mockery of Wall Street's casino banking system -- and that's why financial elites want to crush it.