America's Only 'Socialist' Bank Is Thriving During Downturn

[Beet]

(AP) The Bank of North Dakota - the nation's only state-owned bank - might seem to be a relic.

But now officials in other states are wondering if it is helping North Dakota sail through the national recession.

Gubernatorial candidates in Florida and Oregon and a Washington state legislator are advocating the creation of state-owned banks in those states. A report prepared for a Vermont House committee last month said the idea had "considerable merit." Liberal filmmaker Michael Moore promotes the bank on his Web site.

...

The bank had almost $4 billion in assets and a $2.67 billion loan portfolio at the end of last year, according to its most recent quarterly financial report. It made $58.1 million in profits in 2009, setting a record for the sixth straight year. During the last decade, the bank funneled almost $300 million in profits to North Dakota's treasury.

Founded in 1915 by A.C. Townley, who became a Socialist Party organizer after he went broke raising flax in western North Dakota, the NPL advocated state-owned banks to provide low-interest farm loans, along with state flour mills, grain elevators, meatpacking houses and hail insurance.

http://current.com/1tq0s4c

Wait... you mean a bank that returns profit to taxpayers rather than asks for bailouts from them?

[12th Doctor]

State banks aren't "socialist".  The historic reasons for the U.S. not having a national bank have nothing to do with arguments about socialism.

[12th Doctor]

In fact, historic opponents of the national bank tended to distrust all banks, because of perceived "elitism" and the idea that banks themselves ran in opposition to a true free market (in the Jeffersonian View), by allowing accumulation and dissemination of wealth by a small majority of upper-level merchants... so really the arguments made against such institutions were just the opposite of a anti-socialist rant.

[Beet]

In fact, historic opponents of the national bank tended to distrust all banks, because of perceived "elitism" and the idea that banks themselves ran in opposition to a true free market (in the Jeffersonian View), by allowing accumulation and dissemination of wealth by a small majority of upper-level merchants... so really the arguments made against such institutions were just the opposite of a anti-socialist rant.

That is true, but this bank's origins are from the turn of the 20th century, not the turn of the 19th century.

The founder of this bank was a Socialist Party organizer. You can't get more explicit than that. For all the name calling of Obama being a socialist it would certainly be amusing if conservatives argue against the socialist label when confronted with the real thing.

[rob in cal]

I know that the American Free Press, formerly the Spotlight, which is primarily an anti-Israeli, anti-Trilateralist paper, with pro Ron Paul sentiments mixed in, and which many would term far-right, has been very favorable to this North Dakota experiment.

[k-onmmunist]

This is why the British government should keep Northern Rock.

[Tetro Kornbluth]

The title of this thread is a perfect example of why conservatism is the dominant ideology in the United States.

[Derek]

I'm not a big fan of the feds being involved with banks cuz it can lead to socialism if the wrong ppl are in charge.