RescueLiberty.com

http://www.2thedeuce.com/news/kdvr-stimulus-money-111709,0,2484481.story
http://www.miamiherald.com/news/politics/AP/story/1338690.html

Colorado

http://www.recovery.gov/Pages/TextView.aspx?data=stateSummaryAllCD&statecode=CO

New Hampshire
http://www.recovery.gov/Pages/TextView.aspx?data=stateSummaryAllCD&statecode=NH

Ohio
http://www.recovery.gov/Pages/TextView.aspx?data=stateSummaryAllCD&statecode=OH

Wyoming
http://www.recovery.gov/Pages/TextView.aspx?data=stateSummaryAllCD&statecode=WY

By JAMES ROSEN
McClatchy Newspapers

On October 21, 2009, Dave Camp, the GOP Ranking Member on the House Ways and Means Committee, issued a disturbing report on the status of new job creation since President Obama’s $787 billion stimulus plan went into effect in February. According to the report, the nation has actually lost nearly as many jobs as the plan was projected to create. Instead of adding 3.5 million new jobs, 2.7 million jobs have been lost. California, which was supposed to gain 396,000 jobs, has lost 336,400 jobs. Arizona, which was supposed to gain 70,000, has lost 77,300. Michigan, which was supposed to gain 109,000, has lost 137,300. A total of 49 states and the District of Columbia have all reported net job losses.

In this dark firmament, however, one bright star shines. The sole state to actually gain jobs is an unlikely candidate for the distinction: North Dakota. North Dakota is also one of only two states expected to meet their budgets in 2010. (The other is Montana.) North Dakota is a sparsely populated state of less than 700,000 people, largely located in cold and isolated farming communities. Yet, since 2000, the state’s GNP has grown 56 percent, personal income has grown 43 percent and wages have grown 34 percent. The state not only has no funding problems, but this year it has a budget surplus of $1.3 billion, the largest it has ever had.

Why is North Dakota doing so well, when other states are suffering the ravages of a deepening credit crisis? Its secret may be that it has its own credit machine. North Dakota is the only state in the Union to own its own bank. The Bank of North Dakota (BND) was established by the state legislature in 1919, specifically to free farmers and small businessmen from the clutches of out-of-state bankers and railroad men. The bank’s stated mission is to deliver sound financial services that promote agriculture, commerce and industry in North Dakota.

The Advantages of Owning Your Own Bank

So, how does owning a bank solve the state’s funding problems? Isn’t the state still limited to the money it has? The answer is no. Chartered banks are allowed to do something nobody else can do: They can create credit on their books simply with accounting entries, using the magic of “fractional reserve” lending. As the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas explains on its web site:

Banks actually create money when they lend it. Here’s how it works: Most of a bank’s loans are made to its own customers and are deposited in their checking accounts. Because the loan becomes a new deposit, just like a paycheck does, the bank … holds a small percentage of that new amount in reserve and again lends the remainder to someone else, repeating the money-creation process many times.

How many times? President Obama puts this “multiplier effect” at eight to ten. In a speech on April 14, he said:

[A]lthough there are a lot of Americans who understandably think that government money would be better spent going directly to families and businesses instead of banks – ‘where’s our bailout?,’ they ask – the truth is that a dollar of capital in a bank can actually result in eight or ten dollars of loans to families and businesses, a multiplier effect that can ultimately lead to a faster pace of economic growth.

It can, but it hasn’t recently, because private banks are limited by bank capital requirements and by their for-profit business models. And that is where a state-owned bank has enormous advantages: States own huge amounts of capital, and they can think farther ahead that their quarterly profit statements, allowing them to take long-term risks. Their asset bases are not marred by oversized salaries and bonuses; they have no shareholders expecting a sizable cut, and they have not marred their books with bad derivatives bets, unmarketable collateralized debt obligations and mark-to-market accounting problems.

The Bank of North Dakota (BND) is set up as a dba: “the State of North Dakota doing business as the Bank of North Dakota.” Technically, that makes the capital of the state the capital of the bank. Projecting the possibilities of this arrangement to California, the State of California owns about $200 billion in real estate, has $62 billion in various investments and has $128 billion in projected 2009 revenues. Leveraged by a factor of eight, that capital base could support nearly $4 trillion in loans.

To get a bank charter, specific investments would probably need to be earmarked by the state as startup capital; but the startup capital required for a typical California bank is only about $20 million. This is small potatoes for the world’s eighth largest economy, and the money would not actually be “spent.” It would just become bank equity, transmuting from one form of investment into another – and a lucrative investment at that. In the case of the BND, the bank’s return on equity is about 25 percent. It pays a hefty dividend to the state, which is expected to exceed $60 million this year. In the last decade, the BND has turned back a third of a billion dollars to the state’s general fund, offsetting taxes. California could do substantially better than that. California pays $5 billion annually just in interest on its debt. If it had its own bank, the bank could refinance its debt and return that $5 billion to the state’s coffers; and it would make substantially more on money lent out.

Besides capital, a bank needs “reserves,” which it gets from deposits. For the BND, this too is no problem, since it has a captive deposit base. By law, the state and all its agencies must deposit their funds in the bank, which pays a competitive interest rate to the state treasurer. The bank also accepts deposits from other entities. These copious deposits can then be plowed back into the state in the form of loans.

Public Banking on the Central Bank Model

The BND’s populist organizers originally conceived of the bank as a credit union-like institution that would free farmers from predatory lenders, but conservative interests later took control and suppressed these commercial lending functions. The BND is now chiefly a “bankers’ bank.” It acts like a central bank, with functions similar to those of a branch of the Federal Reserve. It avoids rivalry with private banks by partnering with them. Most lending is originated by a local bank. The BND then comes in to participate in the loan, share risk and buy down the interest rate.

One of the BND’s functions is to provide a secondary market for real estate loans, which it buys from local banks. Its residential loan portfolio is now $500 billion to $600 billion. This function has helped the state to avoid the credit crisis that afflicted Wall Street when the secondary market for loans collapsed in late 2007. Before that, investors routinely bought securitized loans (CDOs) from the banks, making room on the banks’ books for more loans. But these “shadow lenders” disappeared when they realized that the derivatives called “credit default swaps” supposedly protecting their CDOs were a highly unreliable form of insurance. In North Dakota, this secondary real estate market is provided by the BND, which has invested conservatively, avoiding the speculative derivatives debacle.

Other services the BND provides include guarantees for entrepreneurial startups and student loans, the purchase of municipal bonds from public institutions and a well-funded disaster loan program. When the city of Fargo was struck by a massive flood recently, the disaster fund helped the city avoid the devastation suffered by New Orleans in similar circumstances; and when North Dakota failed to meet its state budget a few years ago, the BND met the shortfall. The BND has an account with the Federal Reserve Bank, but its deposits are not insured by the FDIC. Rather, they are guaranteed by the State of North Dakota itself – a prudent move today, when the FDIC is verging on bankruptcy.

The Commercial Banking Model: The Commonwealth Bank of Australia

The BND studiously avoids competition with private banks, but a publicly-owned bank could profitably engage in commercial lending. A successful model for that approach was the Commonwealth Bank of Australia, which served both central bank and commercial bank functions. For nearly a century, the publicly-owned Commonwealth Bank provided financing for housing, small business, and other enterprise, affording effective public competition that “kept the banks honest” and kept interest rates low. Commonwealth Bank put the needs of borrowers ahead of profits, ensuring that sound investment flows were maintained to farming and other essential areas; yet, the bank was always profitable, from 1911 until nearly the end of the century.

Indeed, it seems to have been too profitable, making it a takeover target. It was simply “too good not to be privatized.” The bank was sold in the 1990s for a good deal of money, but it’s proponents consider it’s loss as a social and economic institution to be incalculable.

By Greg Evensen
November 1, 2009
NewsWithViews.com

Greg Evensen is an award winning former Kansas State Trooper and Kansas Marshal. He speaks across the nation for Patriot groups and is available to come to your area as well. Call 906-367-0505 or e-mail him at greg@theheartlandusa.com.

Most of us have been in this tragic position before. It feels something like that slow, heavy walk that we experience as we approach the front door of the funeral home. The anticipation of walking through that door into a room that reeks of death is a soul chilling moment that is never forgotten.

The statements, the warnings, the what if’s, and how can they do that situations are thousands upon thousands across America. The personal injuries heaped on the heads of true Americans at the border, in the city streets, by apostate church leaders, from judges at all levels, to the arrogant bureaucrats that run our lives and could fill the Library of Congress if printed, are ABSOLUTE proof that the Republic is dead.

There is no one left to turn to for relief from an onslaught that would have been a declared war had it come from another country. We as a nation of citizens, have been brutalized so badly by criminals inside the government, that we could have easily justified the use of deadly force to beat back the pillaging of our homes and communities. And diabolically, this has been done by the very people who were allowed a seat of power over us by our own vote.

The ongoing war for liberty is being waged on a thousand fronts. City and county governments have been persuaded by government agents to buy into Agenda 21 at all levels and adopt the radical environmentalist agenda. These local maniacs have done so eagerly. They revel in the appearance of solidarity both socially and politically with those who want to see swamp dwelling muskrats be able to retain attorneys should their habitat be threatened. Utterly blind deceit and a spirit of delusion reigns. Churches and cities have joined in efforts to provide illegal aliens (illegal here meaning ILLEGAL) “sanctuary” in direct and open violation of federal law. You know, the kind of federal law that says you can’t shoot FBI agents on sight or that you MUST pay a voluntary illegal federal income tax, or call a sodomite evil, to just name a few minor federal laws. But then, since when has consistency or lawful conduct ever meant anything to BATF, FBI, IRS, CIA, DEA or NTSB agents that were at Ruby Ridge, Waco, Oklahoma City, Flight 800, New York, the Pentagon, Dallas, etc., etc., etc…..We have been misled, lied to, confused, plotted against and abused by lawyers representing all of these entities so many times, that every last one of the perpetrators would have been hung in the public square 120 years ago.

Instead, patriots, citizens, civic groups and moms and pops have been the target of these same self-serving, power infested dirt bags simply because they wanted the truth and were not going to accept any other made up version of Washington’s idea of “truth.”

Many of these good people have been the victim of government abuse at the hands of federal prosecutors and judges who receive bonuses for successful prosecutions. Honest, God fearing and courageous individuals have been persecuted by the United State’s government for following the law, publishing the truth, and protesting the cowardly use of “Nazi” power that was allowed by federal judges bought and paid for by the Council on Foreign Relations or simply the so called “Justice Department.”

My dear God, how is it possible that the Attorney General’s office is staffed by radicals and rights robbers? How is it that Eric Holder, a radical political leftist shames us daily by walking into his office? Add to that a supremely incompetent Janet Napolitano, racist Planned Parenthood supporter Sebelius, bumbling Biden and on and on and on.

So instead of moral leadership in the states, we must endure examples of freedom’s guardians like the State of Missouri and the “bumper sticker” warriors with the Missouri State Highway Patrol. We watch helplessly as Arizona is set upon by jackals from Mexico and California slips into the ocean of poverty and liberalism run amok. All in the name of progressive socialism, or “do whatever you want and get someone else to pay for it” statism. The Republic died because we were not content with freedom in every corner of the land. No, we allowed our legislators at all levels to create “freedom” out of nonsense and liberty out of lawlessness. We shook our heads when the courts made law from guilt, incarcerated the innocent, and set the criminals free. We are living with Alice in the 180 degree world of Wonderland. Bad has become good, right has become wrong and gray the color of choice.

Now comes the hard part. There are no easy paths left for America or Americans. Any last second victory with a miracle field goal is just not there to be found. We left the playoffs in second place. Doesn’t matter that they cheated and the refs were bought off, it is in the books as a loss. Get that fact firmly planted in your minds. This game is OVER!

You may continue to live in your comfort zone and deny all truth. Some of you do and justify it because you don’t want to rock anybody’s boat. A few of you write to me, lie about the facts and tell me I am the nut job. Hear me well. I do not want to rock boats, I want to sink fleets!! That time is now. If they wanted me to go to Viet Nam and fight someone else’s civil war, then I am just as ready to fight one right here and right now. They have sent our military to prove freedom and “democracy” are worth fighting for. Well, how about doing the same in America? Let’s put those troops on our own borders, PLEASE!! Let’s sink the coastal pirates and the drug runner’s boats with chain guns and A-10’s. Throw some ordinance in those border tunnels. Yea, sure. But we WILL kill women and children at Waco and Ruby Ridge now won’t we, and call it righteous. Janet “the Bull” Reno embarrassed us all with her other worldly looks and actions in the name of the American people as another “hero” at Justice.

Let me cut to the chase. Some in America are quietly and to a very minor degree working to bring sanity back to our local, state and federal governments. It will not be enough and it will not turn the tide. I respect them for trying and know that many have believed they could effect real change (not the Obama type). Others have written off the government and agency goons at all levels and are gearing up for some monumental change. You know, the kind of change that will have authorities buying all the Depends they can find for the day of reckoning with American citizens.

In that regard, Americans from coast to coast have been calling and scheduling in-field training to be conducted within their local regions in anticipation of whatever is to come. They are ready, they are eager and they are committed to this effort. Our training team will be joining hundreds with the goal of amping up the training levels for many who have not even started a camp fire. This is exactly what is desired and precisely what is needed for those who have said, “we have nothing more to lose and we will defend what we have left.”

Like with the training sessions held this year across America, a DVD produced by our production crew was made to send to those who could not get to a seminar. The seminars are over and only field training is now being conducted. We have also produced a nearly six hour DVD outlining much of what is covered in the field and was actually taped at our inaugural two day camp this past July. Hundreds wanted to come, but could not make it that time. We will hold these camps next year beginning in April and those sites will be posted at our web-site. Nine have scheduled already. They are reserved on a first come basis. That information and the seminar or training DVD’s are available at www.theheartlandusa.com. There is a holiday special if you want both training aids. They are available NOW. If the national scene changes and we can’t make it to your area, then the DVD will give you more than you could get otherwise, short of the actual training itself.

I am afraid that the time has arrived for Americans to decide that the robbery of their nation can no longer be tolerated. To cede one more inch of freedom’s last acre is 50 million acres too much. To allow the enslavement of our children by a government pretending to be our benefactor is a crime that must be avenged. That is why we are in the field with you. We will do our best to help you get through this national nightmare. All we ask is that you stand with us in prayer and roll up your sleeves. It’s time to till the soil.