Truthout – By Ellen Brown. Cities and states are seeking ways to better leverage taxpayer dollars and reinvest them in the needs of local communities. Voters in Los Angeles will be the first in the country to weigh in on a public banking mandate, after the City Council agreed on June 29th to put a measure on the November ballot that would allow the city to form its own bank. The charter for the nation’s second-largest city currently prohibits the creation of industrial or commercial enterprises by the city without voter approval. The measure, introduced by City Council President Herb Wesson, would allow the city to create a public bank, although state and federal law hurdles would still need to be cleared.

The bank is expected to save the city millions, if not billions, of dollars in Wall Street fees and interest paid to bondholders, while injecting new money into the local economy, generating jobs and expanding the tax base. It could respond to the needs of its residents by reinvesting in low-income housing, critical infrastructure projects, and clean energy, as well as serving as a depository for the cannabis industry.

The push for a publicly-owned bank comes amid ongoing concerns involving the massive amounts of cash generated by the cannabis business, which was legalized by Proposition 64 in 2016. Wesson has said that cannabis has “kind of percolated to the top” of the public bank push, “but it’s not what’s driving” it, citing affordable housing and other key issues; and that a public bank should be pursued even if it cannot be used by the cannabis industry. However, the prospect of millions of dollars in tax revenue is an obvious draw. Los Angeles is the largest cannabis market in the state, with Mayor Eric Garcetti estimating that it would bring in $30 million in taxes for the city.

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Next City – By Alejandra Molina. The Los Angeles City Council is moving forward with a proposed ballot measure that would ask voters this fall whether they want to create a publicly owned bank.

In a unanimous vote, council members on Tuesday, June 26, gave the go-ahead to begin the process of adding a measure on the November 2018 ballot that would amend city charter in order to create a city-owned bank. The city’s code currently prohibits it from entering into a “purely commercial venture,” unless it’s approved by voters.

To advocates, this move is a historic one that can set the tone for other public banking movements happening across the nation.

“The outcome will reflect the pulse of the national movement,” says Trinity Tran with the Public Bank LA campaign.

In New York City, dozens of residents and community organizers in early June gathered in front of the New York Stock Exchange to launch the Public Bank NYC Coalition, a group calling for the creation of a New York City-owned bank. Oakland and San Francisco are exploring the idea. New Jersey and Michigan are also considering setting up state-owned banks.

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LA Progressive – By Phoenix Goodman. Something big is starting to happen in the world of activism. Grassroots campaigns are beginning to coalesce into coherent, focused missions with definable outcomes.

The Divest campaign is a classic example of how the People can have a tangible effect on society by speaking the language of the dominating classes: money.

Divestment is what it sounds like: removing public investments from corporate institutions, and repurposing them into organizations which will benefit the common good. This means leveraging the collective will through mass individual actions to force the perpetrators of corrupt and unscrupulous behavior to directly lose profits; in essence, to divest is to boycott.

Even in the world of international affairs, we hear of sanctions, which are nothing more than state actors divesting from another nation in order to conduct economic war. On the domestic front, we too face war- class war. As Warren Buffet, one of the richest individuals on earth put it, “there’s class warfare alright, but it’s my class that’s winning.” So applying this divestment strategy at the grassroots level to win very real battles in this economic war on behalf of the People is key to changing the world for the better, because it works.

At minimum, it sends a symbolic message that we are creating a culture of higher virtues and principles in which the divested institution and others like them are not welcome anymore. At best, very real systemic change can result.

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