Author: Outside Source

Oregon lawmakers on Friday approved $30 million to turn hotels into shelter space in wildfire-affected areas — less than half of the money initially sought in a strikingly contentious and emotional committee hearing.With many Democrats urging swift action as wildfires and a pandemic have exacerbated an existing shortage of shelter beds, two prominent Democratic Senators wound up siding with Republicans to block another $35 million that could have been used to site shelters more broadly.

The pandemic has laid bare the failure of the federal government to justly deal with the economic fallout wrought by a disaster. Public banks at the state and local level could have helped our country get through the pandemic, and they could be vital in our recovery.
Public banks can provide a financial bulwark in our federal system by supporting local banking systems. They achieve this both by providing banking services to state and local governments and by financing credit programs to assist those most harmed by disasters, who are inevitably part of our most disadvantaged communities.

Loath to be seen profiting from the economic disaster caused by the coronavirus, the nation’s biggest banks were quick to pledge that they would donate to charity any money earned from helping deliver the government’s signature small-business relief plan.
That promise may be something of a mirage.

Here’s something you might not have known. The Fed is a national development bank – our national development bank. Its mandate originally was and remains that of a facilitator of local business and productive community bank lending across the entire nation, not a bottomless liquidity hole for Wall Street high rollers.

News reports detail how the Main Street Lending Program and the Paycheck Protection Program, the Fed’s programs to assist small- and medium-sized business, have failed in their missions. This is partly because the private banks’ participation in the programs was optional, creating confusion for those applying. Loan-seekers had to search for a participating bank, then try to figure out how to apply for the programs. Many banks did not even know the programs existed.