Thursday, March 8, 2012

Public-Sector Banks: From Black Sheep to Global Leaders

 
(Photo: DHANU / Flickr)
Ellen Brown, Truthout | News Analysis

Public-sector banking is a concept that is relatively unknown in the United States. Only one state - North Dakota - owns its own bank. North Dakota is also the only state to escape the credit crisis of 2008, and has sported a budget surplus every year since, but skeptics write this off to coincidence or other factors. The common perception is that government bureaucrats are bad business people. To determine whether government-owned banks are assets or liabilities, then, we need to look farther afield.

When we remove our myopic US blinders, it turns out that, globally, not only are publicly owned banks quite common, but countries with strong public banking sectors generally have strong, stable economies. According to an...

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