NIB Coalition’s September 8 Zoom Town Hall “United States at the Crossroads: An American System Industrial Recovery or Fed Chair Powell’s Nightmare Recession!”

On September 8, the Coalition for a National Infrastructure Bank sponsored a national Town Hall to address the unfolding financial and economic crisis gripping the nation. This timely event occurred against the backdrop of galloping inflation and the potential of a deep recession. Intersecting this debate is the very real crumbling of U.S. infrastructure. The current focus is the national water crisis, viz. drought in the West and the collapse of the drinking water system in Jackson, MS.

The economists addressing the forum included Cornell University Edward Cornell Professor of Law and Finance Robert Hockett, Public Banking Institute (PBI) Chair Ellen Brown, and former IMF Senior Economist Alphecca Muttardy. The three experts opposed the potentially destructive policy of Fed Chair Powell and his army of allies in the economic community, including the ubiquitous Larry Summers.

Professor Hockett identified the root of the problem. The policy of Powell is to address “inflation” as solely a “monetary issue”, to quote Augusto Pinochet adviser Milton Friedman. The predictable result will be mass unemployment and a deep recession. This outcome is neither desirable nor required, stated the experts at the event. Instead, the government should focus on building up “supply” and adding productive jobs, the other half of the “supply and demand equation.”

This will require a return to the political economic outlook last espoused in the large by President Franklin Roosevelt during the New Deal and the WWII industrial expansion. One way to achieve this is to create a National Infrastructure Bank, as identified in HR3339, now increasing sponsors in the Congress. 

During the webinar, Professor Hockett likened the policy of economic recession and prior downsizing of the US economy to a hospital patient who had willfully cut off several limbs and part of his brain to help his physical well-being. The parallel to today’s equally destructive proposals was missed by nobody participating in the event. 

Joining the economists were several state elected officials, including Washington State Senator Bob Hasegawa and former New York Assembly Assistant Speaker Felix Ortiz, who have been leading the effort to pass HR3339. 

Other developments include: 

On September 1, 2022 PBI Founder and Chair Ellen Brown, released an extensive article on how to solve drought in the Southwest. In the course of her piece, she too endorsed HR3339 which would create a $5 trillion National Infrastructure Bank (NIB). Brown’s article was published on a multitude of websites, including, Scheerpost, Common Dreams and Counterpunch.

On September 2 and 3, two of the most important newspapers in New Mexico, the Santa Fe New Mexican and the Albuquerque Journal published a lengthy OP-Ed submitted by dozens of elected and political officials in New Mexico endorsing HR3339 as a policy that could bring water into the parched Southwest. 

The United States stands at the crossroads. The video of the meeting is available here.



Please share it with your friends.