Letters to the Editor

Letter: We need an Alaska state bank

The human tragedy of state governments failing to fully access the financial mechanisms continuing to be used to bail out Wall Street asset prices will someday be written as a chapter in United States history.

State governments continue to lose billions of federal and Federal Reserve monetary policy dollars each year because of inaction in creating the banking institutions necessary to participate in the financial reforms that began in 2008.

The 2008 operational changes in federal and Federal Reserve monetary policy continue today in the form of massive subsidies for capital and reserve requirements for originated loans, interest income on federal securities and reserves, low-interest loans, and the purchase and guarantee of public and private assets and equity.

To fully access these subsidies in a way that benefits all Alaskans, our political leadership must create a public state bank that asserts the local decision- making process of loan origination through partnering with existing public and private financial institutions.

The goal is to participate in federal policy by asserting technology and anti-corruption credit guidance and beginning as a simple infrastructure bank that evolves into a primary dealer special depository bank.

Those politicians who claim that Alaska’s fiscal problems can be solved through taxing individuals while excluding all conversations about creating the Alaska State Bank should not be elected to public office.

Join us in debating a public state bank on the Alaska State Bank Advocate page on Facebook.

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— Charles E. Duncan

Anchorage

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