Any informed and honest observer recognizes that the world’s largest privately held banks are illegally gaming the system and causing serious financial harm and instability to the US and world economy and to every business, individual, and municipality that borrows money. Studies show that for every $100K borrowed for municipal bonds, $40K actually goes to the banks. These are bonds that pay for school renovations, road repairs, and other basic services everywhere across the US at every level of government.

When the banks gambles fail, they get bailed out with our tax dollars, further increasing our national debt and crippling our productive capacity. Joblessness increases, cities go bankrupt, homes are foreclosed, loans are defaulted, and basic services, such as safety, education and infrastructure are cut off. The American people suffer while banks report record profits.

In response to this problem, the Public Banking Institute is forming a coalition of nationwide grassroots organizations to further the establishment of public banks in the USA and Canada. The Public Banking Coalition will shape public dialog on how public banking can resolve the mortgage crisis, counteract the credit embargo, and fund jobs that will support middle-class tax-paying families. The Public Banking Coalition Organizing Committee is forming, with the Steering Committee to be named upon launch late this winter.

More on the Public Banking Institute here and on the PBI board here.

Heather Booth has been an organizer for over forty years starting in the civil rights and women's movement. She is one of the country’s leading strategists about the development of progressive issue campaigns and the integration of issue and civic engagement efforts.

She was the founding Director and is now President of the Midwest Academy, training social change leaders and organizers. In 2000, she was the Director of the NAACP National Voter Fund, which helped to increase African American election turnout by nearly 2 million voters. She has been a consultant to a variety of social change and political groups that have included MoveOn.org, National Council of La Raza, Campaign for America’s Future and NOW. She was the lead consultant for the founding of the Campaign for Comprehensive Immigration Reform. In 2008 she was the director of the Health Care Campaign for the AFL-CIO. she directed the campaign that was successful in passing President Obama’s first budget.

In 2010 she was the founding director of Americans for Financial Reform, fighting to regulate the financial industry. She is currently consulting with a variety of organizations and working to promote voter registration.

Eleanor LeCain is a specialist in developing and implementing innovative policies that support sustainable development. Ms. LeCain led a team at Boston Edison to develop next generation energy efficiency programs (for 640,000 commercial, industrial, and residential customers in the greater Boston area). She served as Massachusetts Assistant Secretary of State for Strategic Planning, and previously as Executive Director of Blueprint 2000 heading strategic planning for the whole state government of Massachusetts. Ms. LeCain has spoken widely on “Creating Jobs and Making Money While Healing the Planet”, from Kyoto, Japan, Harvard University, to Chattanooga, Tennessee. Her writings have been published in the New York Times, the Boston Business Journal, and Positive Alternatives, to name a few. Ms. LeCain holds a B.A. in Economics from Yale College, and an M.A. in Law from the Boalt Hall School of Law, University of California at Berkeley. She lives in Washington, DC.

Randy Johnston works as a consultant to progressive and political organizations in the areas of strategy, fundraising and organizing. He is based in Greensboro, North Carolina. Randy has more than 25 years of experience in the political, fundraising, and community organizing fields. Randy is a partner in Environmental Action, a new Washington DC based SuperPAC focused on making environmental and climate protection a relevant political issue in congressional races.

Rick Latham is a recently retired United Steelworkers Sub-District Director and was a member of the former Oil, Chemical and Atomic Workers (OCAW) International Executive Board, representing the West Coast, Alaska and Hawaii. The former OCAW is part of the Steelworkers (USW) via mergers. Originally from Anacortes, Washington, about 80 miles north of Seattle, Rick now lives in Los Angeles.

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