Feb 05 2016
How the Other Half Banks: Exclusion, Exploitation, and the Threat to Democracy
GUEST: Mehrsa Baradaran is the J. Alton Hosch Associate Professor of Law, at the University of Georgia School. She has testified before Congress on postal banking and how poor Americans are forced to resort to payday lenders.
In a 2014 Wall Street Journal op-ed, Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders called for the creation of a public banking system, with the postal service as a foundation. That idea is ostensibly a part of his plan, as Presidential candidate, to break up big banks and hold Wall Street accountable.
Public banking is not often discussed in the mainstream. But it is an idea that is very popular in other countries like Germany. Given that the US economy has been booming for big business, leaving most of the rest of us struggling hand to mouth, public banking may be an idea who’s time has come in the US.
EVENTS: Mehrsa Baradaran will be speaking on February 12 at 7 pm in San Francisco at the Green Arcade bookstore and on Saturday February 13 at 6 pm in Oakland at Laurel Bookstore.
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