Why Is Socialism Doing So Darn Well in Deep-Red North Dakota?

[xchrom]

http://www.alternet.org/corporate-accountability-and-workplace/why-socialism-doing-so-darn-well-deep-red-north-dakota



North Dakota is the very definition of a red state. It voted 58 percent to 39 percent for Romney over Obama, and its statehouse and senate have a total of 104 Republicans and only 47 Democrats. The Republican super-majority is so conservative it recently passed the nation's most severe anti-abortion resolution – a measure that declares a fertilized human egg has the same right to life as a fully formed person.

But North Dakota is also red in another sense: it fully supports its state-owned Bank of North Dakota (BND), a socialist relic that exists nowhere else in America. Why is financial socialism still alive in North Dakota? Why haven't the North Dakotan free-market crusaders slain it dead?

Because it works.

In 1919, the Non-Partisan League, a vibrant populist organization, won a majority in the legislature and voted the bank into existence. The goal was to free North Dakota farmers from impoverishing debt dependence on the big banks in the Twin Cities, Chicago and New York. More than 90 years later, this state-owned bank is thriving as it helps the state's community banks, businesses, consumers and students obtain loans at reasonable rates. It also delivers a handsome profit to its owners -- the 700,000 residents of North Dakota. In 2011, the BND provided more than $70 million to the state's coffers. Extrapolate that profit-per-person to a big state like California and you're looking at an extra $3.8 billion a year in state revenues that could be used to fund education and infrastructure.

One of America's Best Kept Secrets

Each time we pay our state and local taxes -- and all manner of fees -- the state deposits those revenues in a bank. If you're in any state but North Dakota, nearly all of these deposits end up in Wall Street's too-big to-fail banks, because those banks are the only entities large enough to handle the load. The vast majority of the nation's 7,000 community banks are too small to provide the array of cash management services that state and local governments require. We're talking big bucks; at least $1 trillion of our local tax dollars find their way to Wall Street banks, according Marc Armstrong, executive director of the Public Banking Institute.

[dkf]

1. Or maybe it's because they are fracking and developing their energy reserves?

[Berlum]

2. Crack, Inc.

[maindawg]

3. no, did you read the article?

the bank has existed for 90 years. thats a long time. they just started fracking reacently. you need to work on your reading comprehension skills.

[CelticWarrior1]

6. Spelling and Grammar

You need to work on your spelling (the e and the a are not so close on your keyboard as to make a mistake). Learn how to spell before calling someone out on reading comprehension.

[UnrepentantLiberal]

16. "CelticWarrior"?

http://archive.adl.org/hate_symbols/racist_celtic_cross.asp

[niyad]

18. my, my, such manners in a newcomer. enjoy your undoubtedly short stay.

[SidDithers]

21. Results of the alert on your post...

At Fri Mar 29, 2013, 09:47 AM an alert was sent on the following post:

Spelling and Grammar
http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1002&pid=2582838

REASON FOR ALERT:

This post is disruptive, hurtful, rude, insensitive, over-the-top, or otherwise inappropriate. (See <a href="http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=aboutus#communitystandards" target="_blank">Community Standards</a>.)

ALERTER'S COMMENTS:

This poster joined DU on March 5 and this is their 3rd post. This is an obvious return troll back to do it again. Please hide so MIRT can show them the door. (BTW, "CelticWarrior" is neo Nazi thing. http://archive.adl.org/hate_symbols/racist_celtic_cross.asp )

You served on a randomly-selected Jury of DU members which reviewed this post. The review was completed at Fri Mar 29, 2013, 09:58 AM, and the Jury voted 1-5 to LEAVE IT.

Juror #1 voted to HIDE IT and said: These snarky grammar and spelling posts that do not relate to the topic are extremely annoying, and I believe they hurt DU. Trolls can easily clutter up a thread with these posts so that others just give up on reading.
Juror #2 voted to LEAVE IT ALONE and said: To the alerter: If you call someone else out on their reading comprehension it would behoove you to make sure you don't have such obvious spelling errors. Seems that comment was fair return for your own snarkiness.

As to the Celtic Warrior being a neo Nazi thing--may be, however the real Celtic warriors predate the Nazis (and Neo Nazis) by about two thousand years.
Juror #3 voted to LEAVE IT ALONE and said: Dumbass alert.
Juror #4 voted to LEAVE IT ALONE and said: the post itself, while annoying, is nothing that has not been said in the past to other posters. that this is a returning troll, however, is highly likely, and I am assuming MIRT has been notified.
Juror #5 voted to LEAVE IT ALONE and said: Some people are becoming very touchy about other people's posts. I have had two posts hidden when other posts on the same threads have been much more obnoxious than anything I wrote. Leave it be...the poster was just making a point.
Juror #6 voted to LEAVE IT ALONE and said: No explanation given

Thought you might like to know that you're in the cross-hairs.

Sid

[Volaris]

7. New revenue from oil and natural gas development helped pad them against the nationwide recession,

but I grew up there, and its not called socialism, it's called Farmer's CO-OP's. And they have existed since before the New Deal. The state tends to trend red only on social issues because most of the population stems from Lutheran and Catholic heritages, but other than that (ideas of Goverment usefullness, economics, competency of local regulation and such), it tends to actually be pretty liberal. And, like most places, its not ALL the people who think that last clinic should be closed. More than a HUNDRED people were protesting in Fargo last week, and in a city with a population of roughly (ONLY) 100,000 people, thats kind of a lot. You get that % in New York, LA or DC, and people take notice...

They vote Republican because, since Eisenhower, it's just what's been done, mostly.

[HiPointDem]

27. yes.

[n2doc]

4. I'm very surprised that the repubs haven't sold this off to the banksters

I wonder why? Just because it works has never stopped them before, in fact, that would be a reason to destroy it to them.

[malthaussen]

5. Maybe a regional chauvinism thing?

Repubs are pretty big into State's rights, don't want to sell off a local institution to those smart-asses on the East Coast? The influx of frackers and associated hangers-on into ND might be a bad thing for the bank, if out-of-state capital holders gain too much influence?

-- Mal

[RC]

8. The Bank of ND and the State Mill & Elevator are like the 3rd rail politically.

It is a good way to commit political suicide to want to touch them without a very good reason. They are both well run money makers for North Dakota.

[fascisthunter]

9. of coursesocialism can work... and it scares the shit out of the greedy

There should always be a mixed economy. Our governmnet is run by extremist reactionaries to any implementation of socialism... those on the right today are Musolini fascists.

[maddiemom]

13. You're completely right.

The Right has made Socialism and Liberal scare words. Our public services are socialist, and have been successful for years. They're mounting a pretty good assault on public education lately, however; and mercenaries played a large part in our "recent" illegal wars.

[toby jo]

10. I love it when these outlieing (?) areas have a dynamic going that wouldn't

get traction where the big boys play. It's honest and genuine. Good for them for keeping that bank alive and going.

[MinM]

11. Because they don't want to become Wisconsin...

Wisconsin falls to 44th nationally in private-sector job creation

[tabasco]

12. When are they going to demand an end to those commie farm subsidies????

It's SOSHULISM I TELLS YA!!!

[kyeshinka]

14. It's not socialism!

When it's for other people, like gays, blacks, or students (i.e. "other Americans&quot it's socialism. Government-funded health care for GOP congressmen is not socialism because. Just because.

[mountain grammy]

15. I've called and written to my state legislators every year about setting up a state bank

like North Dakota... Every state should have one, but only North Dakota thumbs it's red nose at the banksters. What's up with that?

[snappyturtle]

17. Two years ago I was in ND and needed a wire transfer from my account

in Texas. That transfer was very confusing and to this day I
don't understand how it took place. I gathered the BND isn't
a member of the Federal Reserve.

[The Straight Story]

19. Nice find, rec'd and posted on FB to piss off rw friends

[niyad]

20. good information

[tjwash]

22. When your state infrastructure consists of 8 dirt roads and a stop sign it's easy to keep costs down

I particularly hate it when bullshit comparisons between a state that has next to no people living in it and the most populated state and the world's 8th largest economy start flying around.

I also love how these ginormous oil and gas companies have just rolled on in, set up dozens of little company towns and have started bribing all the media outlets to start pushing cutesy little feel-good story's like this one. In 25 years when the NG companies have turned the entire state into one huge strip-mined smoldering crater that is visible from space all this stuff will be forgotten about.

[magical thyme]

23. in the aftermath of 2008, a number of states looked at N Dakota

and saw that they didn't have nearly the employment crash that the rest of the country had, and started looking into setting up a state bank.

Maine is one of them, and had a proposal in the legislature. Glad to see this article because I just googled and found that although the proposal had died somewhere along the line, it has just been reborn. It's gaining support, too. Hope it gets through. It won't be a retail bank, but will be a state "central" bank that will make local business loans. Good first step. http://publicbanking.wordpress.com/2013/03/22/proposal-for-maine-state-bank-back-on-legislative-agenda/

[HiPointDem]

28. they only have about 700,000 people in the entire state. and they've been doing big energy

development since before the crash.

i doubt it's anything to do with their bank.

[magical thyme]

30. Maine has about 1M people

From what I read, one thing that kept N Dakota going was the ability of the state bank to continue to make small business and other loans, whereas in the rest of the country, the too big to fail banks strangled small businesses to death.

[CanSocDem]

24. Living next door to a once great 'social democracy'...

...has demonstrated that public control of public utilities actually works pretty good. ND's proximity to Saskatchewan (the birthplace of socialized medicine in North America) would have played a role in the states development of co-operatives and community conciousness, as the only difference in the shared rural environment between SK and ND was that SK had a publicly owned infra-structure and protection from the manipulations of the free-market.

.

[progressoid]

25. superduper rec.

[RedCappedBandit]

26. Fascinating. Well worth the read.

[David__77]

29. The "Old Left" would do quite well in N. Dakota.

Freed of sectoralism and New Left content, a socialist party of labor would do quite well there.

[cali]

31. it's totally misleading to claim that because of this one thing

financial socialism is alive in ND. It ain't.

http://www.tcf.org/blog/detail/map-here-are-the-10-states-planning-to-shift-their-tax-burden-from-the-rich

[limpyhobbler]

32. k&r. This is how banks should be. nt