The bill for Public Banking HB 130 is scheduled for the House Commerce and Economic Development Committee at 1:30 on Wednesday, February 5, 2025.

Click here to see the schedule. Scroll down to the bottom of the page to see the members of this Committee.

Now is the time for our collective voices to be heard. Please contact your legislators, especially your Representative, and request their support for HB 130–Public Banking Bill and that it be heard in committees and acted upon by the full House.

Click here to if you want the name and contact information of your Representative.

Friday, January 17 at 8:00 a.m. our Executive Director, Angela Merkert was featured on an hour-long radio interview with the public radio station in Silver City on The Forum with lead interviewer, Raul Turrieta, a board member and community leader in Silver City. Click above to have a listen.

Photo credit: Microphone by Israel Palacio on Unsplash

Community wealth building requires capital. New Mexico’s investments have focused largely on recruiting mid- and large-size businesses to the state. A state public bank would invest NM tax and fee revenue in small business development, especially in rural and other underserved areas, which include farming and ranching.

The Alliance for Local Economic Prosperity (AFLEP) advocates to keep NM revenue safe, local and working for all New Mexicans.

Click here to watch the Zoom meeting. Passcode: p1*tPQ?y

The focus is clearly on keeping revenue local for local investments and more democratic decision-making process about where/how local monies are invested. A public bank is an excellent alternative to sending permanent fund investments to Wall Street investment groups whose interest is for mostly non-NM investments.

Click here to read the article in full.

Peter Smith, AFLEP Board President
Harold Dixon, Advisory Board member
Rick Clayburgh (CEO of North Dakota Bankers Assn)
Jerry Jones, Anchorum CEO
Angela Merkert, Executive Director

At this link, a state public bank is explained as well as clarification on the initiative before us to make this institution a reality in New Mexico.

Photo credit: Microphone by Israel Palacio on Unsplash

Our mainstream banking system is failing most of us. This ebook includes stories about the people and organizations working to make the system work better for everyone — no matter their race, zip code or socioeconomic status.

It’s not controversial to state that the mainstream banking system is failing many people.

One year ago, ​​Silicon Valley Bank failed after a bank run, along with Silvergate Bank and Signature Bank. But we know that the problems extend beyond one bank or credit union. The problems are systemic. Millions of people live in banking deserts, experience extractive and discriminatory practices, or have been affected by bank failures.

As Oscar Perry Abello, Next City’s senior economic justice correspondent, notes in a piece for this ebook, “The banking system has never worked perfectly, yet it’s always been on the path to improving.”

With room for even more improvement, the people highlighted in this anthology are working in financial institutions and have set goals to right the wrongs of the banking system. These community-level solutions being built to address the failures of our banking system require our attention, participation, and funding to challenge the dominant banking system effectively.

Next City has partnered with Common Future to showcase our coverage of the banking system, which shines a light on innovative solutions that have been built despite the challenges of existing in our current extractive systems.

Download the E-Book and Pay What You Like at NextCity.org

Can we do this with the precious resource of money?

The Alliance knows that we New Mexicans, with our long history of acequia cultures, CAN build a state public bank that emulates the strength and clarity of this ancient life-sustaining democratic practice.

Centering relationships and responsibilities, built on cooperation, and focused on the well-being of all, a NM state public bank will invest New Mexico revenues in New Mexicans, strengthening our communities from the inside out. As with the acequias, regional needs and aspirations are identified by locals and incorporated into planning the flow of resources. For the bank, this means lending programs are recommended to the state bank board, made up of both financial lending and community development expertise. Their goal would be to make investments in New Mexicans that are not currently being made. Without those investments, we experience withering rural communities, sales of land to corporate landowners, loss of cultural traditions, and limitations on the capacity to adapt agriculture practices in response to climate disruption.

 
YOU can help make this FLOW a reality! Your support of the Alliance will keep the pressure on to ensure that public bank funding is included in October’s draft budget through:

• Advocacy with legislators and scheduling of interim committee hearings.
• Enhanced detailing of legislation with executive branch departments.
• Increased outreach through allied organizations and community groups.

Our impact will keep New Mexico money flowing throughout our communities in support of shared community values, traditions, and visions that increase prosperity for all!

(Photo: LEONARDO MUNOZ / VIEWPRESS / GETTY IMAGES)

Progressive economist Gerald Epstein explains how we can build a banking system that puts people over profit.

Our current banking and financial system has transformed politics in favor of the rich, debilitating democratic institutions, destroying the common good and hurting the poor in the process. In this context, the challenge we face is to end plutocracy and restore democracy.

It is this challenge that world-renowned progressive economist Gerald Epstein brilliantly elucidates in his pathbreaking book Busting the Bankers’ Club: Finance for the Rest of Us and which he discusses in this exclusive interview for Truthout.

One possible way to accomplish this dual feat is by creating an alternative banking system that democratizes finance. In fact, the movement for public banking — a system where banks are owned by the people rather than the wealthy elite — is gaining momentum in many parts of the country. Just this month, a blueprint for the implementation of a public bank in the state of New Jersey was submitted to Gov. Phil Murphy.

In the interview that follows, which builds on our previous conversations about how “SEC’s Approval of Bitcoin Markets May Set the Stage for Financial Disaster” and how “A Growing Number of Economists Are Joining the Fight to Rein In the Big Banks,” Epstein addresses the issue of democratic finance, including the advantages that it offers as well as the challenges that it faces in a society where money dominates politics. Epstein is a professor of economics and co-director of the Political Economy Research Institute (PERI) at the University of Massachusetts Amherst.

C.J. Polychroniou: Jerry, in your recently published book Busting the Bankers’ Club you highlight the need for changes to the current financial system that go beyond regulation. As you write, “we need banks without bankers.” You propose public banking as the best way toward creating “a financial system that works for all of us.” What are the advantages of public banking, or having banks without bankers?

Gerald Epstein: There are numerous advantages to having more public banks in our financial ecosystem. But before I discuss these advantages, let me explain what I mean by public banking or “banks without bankers.” Many public banking advocates and activists define “public banks” as banks that are owned by governments — federal, regional, state or local — and that are tasked with serving a public mission.

This is a fine definition but when I use it, I mean something a bit broader: I include government-owned financial institutions, but I also include any financial institution for which maximizing profit is not the main goal. These banks must have a main mission that entails pursuing social goals such as community economic development, the promotion of environmental justice or promotion of cooperative economics. These banks might be purely government owned, but they might also be public-private partnerships. The key is that the “mission orientation,” not profit, has to be dominant.

As Thomas Marois has shown, there has been a resurgence in the creation and use of public banks around the world. There has also been a strong public banking movement in the United States, especially since the great financial crisis and the Occupy movement. As my former graduate student Esra Nur Ugurlu and I discovered when we did a survey of public banking activists, they pursue a number of goals in their attempts to establish public banking institutions: to provide affordable banking services to underserved communities, to invest in key social goods such as affordable housing, to provide more credit for cooperatives and small business, to promote environmental sustainability and fight against climate change.

The potential contributions of public banking to help solve these problems are many. First of all, private banks avoid making investments in these areas because they are perceived to be too risky or not profitable enough. It will largely take financial institutions with a public mission and mandate to make significant progress on many of these challenges.

Second, public banks can provide an alternative to overcharging, speculative mega banks such as JPMorgan Chase and Bank of America. This will help society and the government to be less dependent on these “too big to fail” institutions and, in fact, can make it somewhat easier to just let them go by the wayside.

Third, by leveraging the financial power of the state, and by avoiding having to pay high returns to shareholders or massive salaries to bankers, these public financial institutions can provide basic financial services more cheaply.

Finally, because these public financial institutions will typically not face pressures from shareholders and highly paid management and traders to pursue maximum profits and bonuses, these institutions will take on less speculative and risky investments and be a stabilizing force in financial markets. Further, the governance structures of public banks are typically much more democratic and broadly representative than that of private for-profit banks. Most public banking initiatives have stakeholder and community representation on their boards of directors and/or advisory boards.
…

Read the full interview at Truthout.org.

Santa Fe New Mexican | January 5, 2024
 

A recent Ringside Seat column by Milan Simonich (“Another $3.4 billion makes legislators dangerous,” Jan. 2) raised questions regarding legislator support for creating a state public bank in the upcoming session. There will in fact be legislation introduced, with revisions from past proposals. It is a viable answer to the lack of equitable access to capital, especially for small business start ups and expansions, as well as agricultural and food system needs.

Yes, the Bank of North Dakota, a huge success for the state, is often cited for good reason. In 2022 this bank generated a 19% return on investment on a loan portfolio of $5.4 billion and investments. The bank holds a credit rating of A+/Stable. It’s all done with a focus on investing in North Dakota business, agriculture and people. That kind of outcome can be developed in New Mexico.

The public bank failures noted are not so recent. Several occurred in the 1800s and early 1900s. The weak link in their failures was typically the governance structure — too much cronyism and weak business practices. The proposed Public Bank of New Mexico legislation addresses those issues as has the Bank of North Dakota, which is why it is so healthy.

In the history of the United States there have been four successful federal public banks, all closed due to sunset clauses in legislation demanded by Wall Street banks. Each bank was successful in achieving its purposes.

That track record is why legislation is being proposed in Congress for a national infrastructure bank, a federal public bank.

It is not “gambling public money” to create an additional tool in the state’s finance system to enhance the ability to invest in New Mexicans.

Initially the state public bank would focus on developing partner loans with community banks and credit unions to create more equitable access to capital for small-business entrepreneurs and to enhance lending for agriculture-related needs. More support then would be available to invest in climate-impacted adaptive practices by farmers and ranchers, along with food processing and distribution expansion. Why are we exporting 95% of our food production and importing 94% of what we consume?

Finally, loans made by the bank would be repaid with interest. The anti-donation clause would not apply because no gifts are being made. The state owns the bank and it is managed independently, similar to how the New Mexico Finance Authority is operated. That charge is a boogeyman.

What is so scary about placing at least a portion of the state’s revenue in a state public bank rather than in a Wall Street bank? At a state public bank, lending could be focused on local needs rather than exploiting regulations to enhance executive compensation and stock prices. Let’s invest in New Mexico.

Alliance for Local Economic Prosperity has indeed been advocating for a state public bank for four years. Operating by more democratic processes than the big banks and focusing on innovative ideas that community banks and credit unions cannot, or will not, engage on their own, will expand community wealth. These are not high-risk loans; rather, they don’t fit into those dark boxes that hold the computer-driven formulas driving decision-making. The public bank is in partnership to create those loans and small businesses expand and thrive. New Mexico revenue will remain safe, local and working for New Mexicans.

Angela Merkert lives in Albuquerque and has lived and worked in New Mexico for 18 years. She serves as executive director of Alliance for Local Economic Prosperity.