Press Room & Media
News
The Hidden Potential of the Fed’s $600 Billion Emergency Small Business Loan Program
Grain Collective, a five-person landscape architecture firm in Brooklyn, designed this public plaza for the Brooklyn Academy of Music. Thanks to the Fed's Main Street Lending Program, Grain Collective may last to design many more spaces. (Photo by Oscar Perry Abello)...
A public bank for New Mexico gains interest
By Michael Tashji, Taos News – Community activists have renewed their efforts to create a New Mexico public bank, designed to provide needed capital for jobs and infrastructure spending across the state. The initiative, to be introduced in the 2021 legislative session, could keep much more of New Mexico’s money in the hands of local communities, according to supporters.
It’s Time for Public Banking in New York City
By Bob Master and Mark Levine, The Nation – Bad behavior in banking is nothing new. From redlining, to the foreclosure crisis to high-interest payday loans, mainstream financial institutions have long exacerbated racial inequality. Public banking offers a better way. A bank created and controlled by our city government would be driven not by profit motive but by the public interest.
New Mexico ranchers face historic drought
By Kyle Land and Theresa Davis, Albuquerque Journal – Ranchers across New Mexico are selling off large portions of their cattle, in some cases more than half their herds, as drought has ravaged what little grassland remains. When grass withers away, ranchers may turn to government programs to make ends meet.
New broadband pact to support Sierra County
By Kevin Robinson-Avila, Albuquerque Journal – Sacred Wind Communications is using a $6.1 million federal grant to extend broadband coverage in rural Sierra County through a new partnership with Sierra Electric Cooperative. Sacred Wind CEO John Badal hopes it will inspire more joint efforts, ideally through a statewide strategy to replace individual, isolated projects with a centrally-coordinated approach to bridge the digital divide.
A State Public Bank: Investment in Local Communities in Post-Pandemic New Mexico
By Dee Gamble (AFLEP), Green Fire Times – How do we climb out of a seemingly intractable situation in the face of ongoing damage being caused by the coronavirus? A public bank for New Mexico: a bank with a “common good” purpose and resources to build community wealth in every village, town and city, can be the primary engine for such a far-reaching transformation.
Rural NM: Higher turnout at fewer polling sites
By Kyle Land, Albuquerque Journal – Senate Bill 4, passed during the 2020 special legislative session, sought to ease the process of voting and address issues that arose during primary elections in June, most of which stemmed from the COVID-19 pandemic. Part of that was requiring each polling site to have internet connectivity. Those that had none — almost all of which were rural communities — were closed and became “allmail” precincts.
Reclaiming Public Development Banks to Finance a Sustainable & Equitable Recovery Post COVID-19
By Thomas Marois and Maria Jose Romero, In Depth News – Public development banks – and here we are talking about multilateral institutions, but also often overlooked national banks like Germany’s KfW, India’s NABARD, Colombia’s Findeter, and the Development Bank of Southern Africa – are in a unique and powerful position to play a major role in tackling the crises arising in today’s world.
How The US Could Achieve 100% Financial Inclusion Through Local Public Banking
By Nik MIlanovic, Forbes – Banking in the United States has become – like many other critical services – stratified along class lines. Consumers with more assets and higher spending are rewarded for being customers with benefits like high APYs and robust credit card points. Poor consumers, meanwhile, are taxed for using financial services through fees and high APRs. It is time for regional municipalities to create public, state-owned local banks focused on driving 100% financial inclusion.
Buying Local, Expanding Agriculture
By Katherine Lewin, Santa Fe Reporter – The COVID-19 pandemic’s economic devastation has exacerbated another lingering problem in New Mexico: food insecurity. In a bid to alleviate New Mexicans’ worsening battle with hunger on a county level, the Santa Fe County Commission passed a resolution Tuesday to implement a new plan for improving access to local and regional produce and meat.
Upcoming Events
It’s not too soon to start preparing for next year’s growing season, and New Mexico State University’s Cooperative Extension Service is hosting a six-part online series on sustainable agriculture topics to help growers get a head start this fall.
As the COVID-19 pandemic struck, schools across America scrambled to respond. This fall, many K-12 school leaders opted not to resume in-person instruction as the public health risks remained too great. The resulting nationwide shift to online learning has posed many challenges for school districts and families, particularly those in lower-income and rural communities without high-speed internet access. Currently, some students are going to extraordinary lengths to access a Wi-Fi connection, even sitting in the parking lots of fast-food restaurants or on the stoops of closed schools and libraries. Vulnerable K-12 students are also experiencing penalties for not logging on—including disciplinary actions—which serves to widen achievement gaps among U.S. students.
The State Land Office and the NM Healthy Soil Working Group proudly present a collaborative fall webinar series for the benefit of New Mexico’s farmers and ranchers and advancement of healthy soil principles on working lands.
California’s New Public Banking Option Opens Door for Real Community Investment
FAIR / Truthout.org
Economy & Labor
Oct 22, 2019
Janine Jackson interviews Public Bank LA’s Trinity Tran about public banking for the October 11, 2019, episode of “CounterSpin.”
Ellen Brown’s
2019 Book
Today most of our money is created, not by governments, but by banks when they make loans. This book takes the reader step by step through the sausage factory of modern money creation, explores improvements made possible by advances in digital technology, and proposes upgrades that could transform our outmoded nineteenth century system into one that is democratic, sustainable, and serves the needs of the twenty-first century.
“I had the good fortune to work on this initiative before Bernie kidnapped all my time. This is one of those no-brainer initiatives that only the 1% could oppose. It has the potential to save the state millions of dollars by vastly reducing the cost of its bonds to improve infrastructure funding. in a public bank, our state funds can be used to build our local economy and our local infrastructure.”
– Paul Gibson
Retake Our Democracy