The July 13 NIB Zoom Town Hall featured, author and former Wall Street Executive Dr. Nomi Prins, Public Banking Chair Ellen Brown, and Derek Leebaert, author “Unlikely Heroes: Franklin Roosevelt, His Four Lieutenants, and the World They Made.” The event was titled “An American System Policy Can Beat Any Recession and Drive an Economic Renaissance,”

As two polar opposite economic policies are now locked into mortal combat, the question is, “Which one is the right answer?” Number one. The Federal Reserve-is moving the country into a slow-moving recession. While Job creation is still positive, it is trending downward. Manufacturing is in its eighth straight month of contraction. Nearly three hundred companies have gone belly-up this year alone, the highest since 2010, and many are well-known names. The ongoing collapse of commercial real estate could be a harbinger of serious trouble on the horizon. The Fed’s high-interest rate policy is negatively impacting hundreds of small and mid-size banks. Their balance sheets now resemble those of the three large banks that tanked this spring. 

Number two. Although positive alternatives have begun to emerge, as the Biden administration’s CHIPS Act and Inflation Reduction Act and have spurred serious investment by some private sector companies into building new factories, this investment will not be large enough to prevent the real damage now being inflicted on the economy. As a complement to these bills, Congressman Danny Davis, and several cosponsors, have introduced H.R.4052 to create a $5 trillion National Infrastructure Bank to finance the infrastructure gap, and actually uproot poverty from the bottom up along the way. This new Bank will steer new money into all needed infrastructure projects creating millions of new high-wage jobs in the process.   

That is the setting. The choice is yours: Allow our country to descend into the depths of crisis and despair or launch an industrial renaissance. Please watch this insightful discussion and spread the word to your elected officials to cosponsor H.R.4052.

Speakers:

Alphecca Muttardy, former Senior Economist, International Monetary Fund, Fairfax, VA

Dr. Nomi Prins, Ph.D, author and former Goldman Sachs Managing Director, Los Angeles, CA

Derek Leebaert, author “Unlikely Heroes: Franklin Roosevelt, His Four Lieutenants, and the World They Made,”Washington, DC

Ellen Brown, Esq, Chair Public Banking Institute, Los Angeles, CA

Dr. Andrew Winnick, Professor Emeritus of Macro-Economics and Monetary Theory, Cal State University-Los Angeles, CA

Moderator: Julie Olsen, MBA, Small businesswoman and Chair Progressive Caucus Alaska Democratic Party, Anchorage, AK