The Real News: Paul Jay- 'Should Banks be a Public Utility?'

Source:The Real News- interviewing Yves Smith.

"Yves Smith: Finance sector controls the regulatory process - there needs to be a publicly controlled alternative to the private banking system." 

From The Real News

As a Liberal who has no interest in making the Federal Government any bigger than they are and actually wants to make it smaller both the budget and workforce to make it smaller and more efficient. But with the irresponsible behavior of our private banking system and the fact they can bring down our economy like in 2008 with their irresponsible behavior and how large they are and important they are to our economy, they literally have a part of our entire economy. Ao we have to have a healthy banking system that the banks and consumers benefit from in order for us to have a health economy and we don't have either right now. 

I'm someone who believes in competition, not monopoly whether it's a private monopoly or a public monopoly. To me monopolies look like what Microsoft used to look like before it was broken up. Or what a state DMV looks like today and to a certain extent our public education system in America. If a large organization (again, private or public) doesn't have enough competition, it's going to perform and be efficient as it should be because it doesn't have the financial incentive in order to succeed. 

One of the reasons why I'm not in favor of single payer health insurance where the Federal Government controls our entire health insurance system like with Medicare or a single payer pension where the Federal Government controls our entire pension system like with Social Security, large organizations or any organizations need competition in order to succeed, or they get complacent and greedy thinking: "Why do we need to improve our service or even perform a good service, our customers don't have any other choices to turn to." 

Our public education system is an excellent example of a public monopoly where most of our students are stuck going to certain schools based on where they live and not what's the best school for them. 

I'm not in favor of having the Federal Government taking over the banking system in America or even allowing our states to do so either. But what I am in favor of is leaving our current private banking system private and even for-profit (if they choose to stay that way) but regulating it better so they are no longer "Too Big to Fail". As well as providing the private banking system with more competition, similar with my position on health care reform, with a public option in the banking system, but not a new Federal Bank but what I would do is set up a new Federal banking system. 

With a public banking system we could allow all fifty states, plus the territories to open up their own public banks that would all be operated independently of the Federal and state government's. That would be regulated by them and be non-profit as well and then let the consumers decide for themselves what bank they want to use: stick with their current private bank, pick another private bank, or choose a public bank. And let the market the people decide for themselves and give them the freedom of choice to decide who they do their banking with. 

The market is a beautiful thing when you let it operate properly. Community banking is a great idea to provide more competition not less in the banking system. Just as long as you don't end one monopoly by creating another and having less choice in the market. And giving people less freedom of choice in where they do their banking, but have maximum freedom of choice instead.  

On a personal note: this is my 100th post for The FreeState MD. 

The Real News: Paul Jay- Gilbert Achcar: 'Boots on the Ground" in Libya?'

Source:The Real News- Libyan boots on the ground?

"Gilbert Achcar: NATO wants an "Egypt solution", but to achieve it, they may try to put international UN troops in Libya." 

From The Real News

I'll put this as simply as I can: no American troops on the ground in Libya! We have way too many problems as it is and are already over committed around the world and need to start bringing troops home from around the world. And not just in Afghanistan and Iraq, but in Europe, Saudi Arabia, Japan, and Korea, all developed nations that are more than capable of defending themselves and have the financial resources to do so. Which is a big reason why we have a 14T$ national debt because of all the money we've borrowed over the years to defend these developed nations. 

Libya is probably going to need foreign troops now and into the future to help the Transitional National Council, but thats going to have to come from other sources. The Arab League being a great start, as well as perhaps the African Union. If Libya could handle having African (not Arab troops in their country) as well as the European Union, with the NATO No Fly Zone already being popular there. As well as perhaps a United Nations force and allow other foreign troops to go along with this. With the approval of Libya of course. 

It's the Libyan People's nation now especially with Moammar Gadhafi out of power. Libya physically is a very large country, about the size of Algeria which is just next door. Saudi Arabia and Iran and the Gadhafi Regime had a military of 100,000 troops even in a country of 6M people. And a fairly well developed military as well that was professional and even had weapons of mass destruction. 

Libya is going to need foreign troops there in the short-term to defend the nation and to try to prevent civil war. And to prevent foreign terrorists from invading the nation to try to take it over. They are also going to need foreign troops to help rebuild the Libyan military and retrain them, because they'll probably need a military of around 100,000 troops in the future as well because of its physical size, it's neighborhood and especially if the new government in Libya ever develops the nation and its population expands. Which could definitely happen. Iran similar size physically to Libya was a country of 20M people in 1979. Less than twenty years later they had a population of 75M people. 

The United Nations, European Union, Arab League, African Union should all step into Libya with troops (with Libya's approval) to help defend that nation in the short-term as Libya builds its new government and why these people are helping to rebuild the Libyan military so they can leave Libya and Libya can once again defend itself, while the United States can help with resources, like weapons, planes, etc, as well as foreign aide, so Libya can build up its country. 

America is already over committed as a military and its time we bring our troops home because we are already over committed. And rebuild our own country instead as Libya builds its own country and their new form of government.