Public Banksters - Part VIII

Gwendolyn Hallsmith has the public banking Sadz.

This past week Hallsmith, supposedly the executive director of the California based Public Banking Institute, posted at Rob Williams' hate blog a ludicrous claim that the Vermont secessionist allies at her Vermonters for a New Economy front group had scored a win in the Vermont Senate. You really can't blame her for trying to make lemonade from such a steaming pile of lemons.

First off, I should explain to recent readers of this blog that Rob's hate blog has long been host to some of the most extreme, hateful thinking centering around the Vermont secesher movement. Back when Rob was co-chairman of the Second Vermont Republic he had on his advisory board an assortment of hate group members from the white supremacist League of the South, the racist and anti-immigrant Lega Nord (Northern League of Italy), anti-Semites like Kirkpatrick Sale and Thomas DiLorenzo (who has written neo-Confederate claptrap for a Holocaust denial journal), along with other lowlifes. Rob's hate blog has included the contributions of anti-Semites like Dennis "Hit List" Morrisseau and the castration fixated misandrist Carol Moore, white supremacists like UVM's Robert S. Griffin and a League of the South Board of Directors member (and convicted felon), Franklin Sanders, as well as the anti-Semitic, racist co-founder and baas of the Second Vermont Republic, the still dead Thomas H. Naylor who, along with the Canadian racist and anti-Semite Sebastian Ernst Ronin, was a proponent of a white homeland in northern New England and the Canadian Maritime provinces, and a host of conspiracy theorists including Rob himself - 9/11 Truthers, contrail hoaxers, aliens trading technology with the US military for mineral assets on the darkside of the moon, to, well, you name the nuttiest conspiracy you can think of and it's got an adherent at Rob's hate blog.

Gwen Hallsmith's own particular delusion has to do with her imagining that she can claim a win in the effort to convince the Vermont Senate that her public banking proposal has merit. Here's what she said at the hate blog:

"... it starts to look like we’ll have a modest win on the public banking front as the 10% for Vermont theme struck by Senator Anthony Pollina will likely make it through the legislature, and 10% of the money the state has on deposit will be transferred to the Vermont Economic Development Authority. To win that, it is also likely that VEDA will not get a banking license, but it will still be a step in the direction we all want to go – reclaiming public, democratic control over one of the critical drivers of economic health – the monetary system itself."

Not so fast there, Gwen. That's just the kind of "we-didn't-lose" sort of spin that one expects to hear from a lobbyist, even the unregistered sort like Gwen and her secesher cohort Gary Flomenhoft. Fact is, Vermont has been doing just such a thing for more than a year before the secesher public bankster proposal made it to the legislature but then Gwen and Gary probably already knew that.

In her report the the Vermont Senate Committee on Government Operations of February 5, 2014 the Vermont State Treasurer, Beth Pearce, speaking directly to the 10% local investment plan outlined in the Hallsmith/Flomenhoft plan put forward in the Senate under the bill S. 204 by Senator Anthony Pollina, Pearce advised,

"I want to emphasize that I do support the local investment concept incorporated in S. 204. That said, I differ on significant portions of the proposed mechanics of achieving local investment through the creation of a state bank. The 10% of the state’s cash for local investment in Vermont is something I support..."

"Over the past year we have already made commitments that will get us to $17 million in local investments from our treasury funds (under Act 87). That’s roughly half way to the 10% objective. I am committed to getting us the rest of the way. But as fiduciary I want to address this in a way that is a win-win for Vermont. While I support the concept of 10%, will work to achieve it, and hope to even exceed it, there are portions of the bill that I believe need to be revised to make it a true win for Vermont. Without these changes, I believe there would be great risk—unnecessary risk—for Vermont taxpayers.

Addressing Hallsmith and Flomenhoft's larger plan to morph the Vermont Economic Development Authority into a public bank, Pearce added,

"What I do not recommend is expanding VEDA’s authority to accept deposits from municipalities or other entities, or to engage in banking operations..."

So, Gwen claims credit for that which the Treasurer has been doing for more than a year. Pret-ty chees-ey. And to suggest that the 10% local investment plan came about because,"(t)o win that, it is also likely that VEDA will not get a banking license" is nothing but a straight out lie. There was no quid pro quo and Hallsmith damn well knows that. She not just spinning here, she's bullshitting in a way that shows complete contempt for the ability of average Vermonters to know better.

As for Gwen's reference to Pollina's theme, here's what he's said that's being repeated by public banksters around the country,

"it 'doesn’t make any sense for us to be sending Vermont’s hard-earned tax dollars to some bank on Wall Street which couldn’t care less about Vermont or Vermonters when we could keep that money here in the state of Vermont where we would have control over it and therefore more of it would be invested here in the state.'”

Treasurer Pearce directly refutes Pollina's untruthful assertion by stating in her report to the Senate committee,

"The Treasurer recently sold just under $25M in bonds to Vermonters and approximately 80% of VMBB financings are sold to Vermont investors. Other instrumentalities have significant local investment. We hope to do even more with local investors. Further, when we sell bonds to investors outside of Vermont, capital actually surges into the state and then trickles back out as principal and interest are repaid. Replacing this outside capital with the state’s operating cash would actually represent a loss of state financing resources."

The truth here is that the Hallsmith/Flomenhoft/Pollina public banking proposal scored no "win" or change to existing state investments policy. The proposal died in committee and no action was taken on any part of Senate bill S. 204.

For anyone keeping track at this point, I'd predicted nearly two years ago on April 9, 2012 that Gary Flomenhoft's economic hokum would come to naught when brought again before the Vermont legislature. I'm making the same prediction today should he and Hallsmith take another stab at it with the legislature. And just to make it interesting, I'll predict that Hallsmith will be just as unsucessful in her new scheme to liberate Detroit from the clutches of government and capitalism.

Gwen Hallsmith, buh-bye.

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