Public Banksters - Part VI

in the previous five parts of this series there's been a lot on the characters and unregistered lobbyists pushing this proposal and their deep ties to the remnants of the Vermont secession movement.

Today's post will focus on the Vermont State Treasurer's report to the legislature. The links below will take you directly to the League of Women Voters of Vermont website, who sadly seem to have drunk to a little too readily from the vat of Kool-Aid provided by Gwen Hallsmith and Ellen Brown's California based Public Banking Institute. There you can read Vermont State Treasurer Beth Pearce's report and its attachments for yourself. Pearce dismisses out of hand the neo-Georgist Gund Institute (Gary Flomenhoft, really) claim that "concerns about impact on our bond rating (are) unfounded." In essence, with regard to the creation of a state public bank, Treasurer Pearce says like, "Nuh-uh!"

Treasurer Pearce's analysis of the public bank proposal sent to the Senate Committee on Government Operations: http://lwvofvt.org/files/Pearce1.pdf

Also of considerable interest are reports from Vermont's financial advisory firm, Public Resources Advisory Group and the Vermont Municipal Bond Bank. The PRAG "feel('s) that that the establishment of a state bank introduces additional risk to the State, which may in the future negatively affect the State’s credit rating and could increase the State’s cost of borrowing." The VMBB report expresses similar concerns and, like Treasurer Pearce, contests directly the Gund Institute/Flomenhoft assertion that a state bank could be capitalized from unrestricted state assets, saying essentially that such a critter doesn't exist.

Memo from the Public Resources Advisory Group: http://lwvofvt.org/files/Pearce3.pdf

Vermont Municipal Bond Bank report: http://lwvofvt.org/files/Giroux.pdf

Nothing seems to have changed much since the first legislative review of the public banking proposal in 2010 that seceshers threw such a hissy fit over then: http://lwvofvt.org/files/JointFiscal.pdf

One particular concern repeatedly raised by state officials is the potential for political machinations, cronyism and corruption that would be allowed for in the current proposal by the public banksters unregistered lobbyists. It's happened before with other public banks, most of which have failed, and includes the vaunted Bank of North Dakota which has its own very dirty laundry that was not disclosed by the public bank proponents to the legislature or to Vermonters. In short, the Gund Institute/Flomenhoft fictions just ain't gonna cut it with State officials or the state legislature - again.

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