It’s Our Money with Ellen Brown – Paradigm Shift: Going Local – 07.20.16

Globalization has given giant private interests virtually free reign to influence policies and institutions that undermine local interests. This dominant economic paradigm in which private interests trump public interest is being pushed back by emerging forces ranging from new financial technologies, social media and changing populist narratives about the importance of effective public governance. Ellen speaks with renown global economist, author and futurist Hazel Henderson about these changes, Walt talks with David Morris of the Institute for Local Self Reliance about those changing narratives and Matt Stannard discusses threads of endemic racism that manifest in private bank practices. And we check in with one of our colleagues about why they will be demonstrating at the Philadelphia Democratic Convention about the role of money in our democracy.

It’s Our Money with Ellen Brown – Heading for the Exits – 07.06.16

BREXIT, FREXIT, GREXIT – where’s everybody going? The recent vote in the United Kingdom to get out of the European Union is a telling example of how ill-served citizens in the political/financial union are feeling about their status. Such feeling suggests the potential for contagion with other European nations souring on the control of the unelected bureaucrats in Brussels. Ellen talks with a noted international observer Stephen Lendman about this vote and the politics that led up to it and are now playing out.

Matt Stannard reports on another political stage, in NC, where money for local infrastructure depends on compliance with onerous immigration policies. And our What Wall Street Costs America report focuses on the tragic human costs inflicted on Puerto Rico by American hedge funds.

Black Agenda Radio – 6.20.16

This is Black Agenda Radio, the radio magazine that brings you news, commentary and analysis from a Black Left perspective. Your hosts are Glen Ford and Nellie Bailey, here they are with a weekly hour of African American political thought and action.

– The People’s Organization for Progress, POP, does not hesitate to demonstrate, whether it’s marking the anniversary of the 1967 rebellion in Newark, New Jersey, or protesting President Obama’s attempt to cut Social Security. Recently, POP hit the streets to protest New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s executive order that sets up a blacklist of companies that have agreed to Boycott, Divest and Sanction Israel. Larry Hamm is chairman of POP. He’s also a Bernie Sanders delegate to the upcoming Democratic National Convention.

– The City of Philadelphia is welcoming the Democrats to town, but the welcome mat does not extend to protest marchers. Cheri Honkala is a longtime poor people’s activist, based in Philadelphia.

– The Democratic Party’s presumptive presidential nominee, Hillary Clinton, ran the Caribbean country of Haiti with an iron fist when she was Secretary of State. Clinton helped to engineer the rise to the presidency of Michel “Sweet Mickey” Martelly, who was finally forced out of power by popular demand, this year. Nikolas Barry-Shaw, a Voting Rights Associate with the Institute for Justice and Democracy in Haiti, says Clinton’s record in Haiti is an embarrassment to her campaign, which would prefer that Haiti not be in the news.

– Gunmen riddled the home of Haitian presidential candidate Dr. Maryse Narcisse, who represents Fanmi Lavalas, the political party of former President Jean Bertrand Aristide, who was overthrown by a U.S.-backed coup in 2004. Aristides’ party has been banned from most elections since then. We spoke with Pierre Labossier, of the Haiti Action Committee. He says the U.S. State Department fought tooth and nail to try to force the Haitian people to accept the results of last year’s rigged elections.

– New federal rules would make it harder for people to get payday loans at usurious interest rates. Matt Stannard is Policy Director of Commonomics USA. He’d like to get rid of payday loans altogether, and providing alternative financing to poor people.

Visit the BlackAgendaReport.com, where you’ll find a new and provocative issue, each Wednesday.

It’s Our Money with Ellen Brown – The Little Bank that Does – Part 2 – 06.08.16

We continue our conversation with the preeminent historian of the Bank of North Dakota, Dr. Rozanne Enerson Junker, about the founding factors and functional dimensions of America’s only state-owned public bank. Ellen discusses block-chain technology with co-host Walt McRee while this week’s What Wall Street Costs America examines the impact of predatory banking costs on the city of Detroit — Matt Stannard talks with Tom Stevens of “Detroiters Resisting Emergency Management.”

It’s Our Money with Ellen Brown – The Little Bank that Could, and Did, and Does – 05.25.16

The Bank of North Dakota has generated a groundswell of excitement and amazement that its founders couldn’t imagine. It started with a simple goal of service to citizen victims of Wall Street monopoly almost 100 years ago and now inspires the hopes of citizens nationwide as they struggle to wrest their financial freedom from the same villains. Ellen’s guest tells how it all happened. Dr. Rozanne Ennie Junker got her doctorate studying how this upstart institution took on the big banks and turned a challenged economy into a financial powerhouse of service to its owners, the people of North Dakota. Walt McRee talks with Tom Tresser about a new collaborative book called “Chicago is Not Broke – Funding the City We Deserve” – there’s more money laying around than most citizens know and Matt Stannard discusses What Wall Street Costs America with a focus on Detroit and Harrison, NJ – yet more victims of the global banking cartels that keep America under the thumb of debt servitude.

It’s Our Money with Ellen Brown – Pursuing Populist Politics – 05.11.16

Almost 100 years ago, populist politics marched across America in reaction to the same sort of monetary monopoly that is depriving this century’s citizens of their hard-earned assets and wealth. That deprivation has mobilized an angry, fed-up backlash of folks willing to support any candidate who will talk straight and promise real change. Several candidates are rising to the challenge. Ellen talks with Tim Canova, a law professor and Fed expert facing off against Congressional Democratic insider Debbie Wasserman-Schultz in South Florida – out West, a State House Representative candidate Pamela Powers-Hannley runs on a platform calling for a public bank to stave off the deteriorating state economy and using inspiration from 100-years ago; and Matt Stannard talks with the award-winning author David Dayen whose new book Chain of Title reveals how a few plucky citizens pushed back against the Goliath of Wall Street mortgage fraud.

It’s Our Money with Ellen Brown – You’ve Been Strip Mined! – 04.13.16

You’ve Been Strip Mined! That’s how Ellen’s guest Les Leopold describes what has happened to the constructive role of capital, such as investment in research and development, expansion and improvement of services and industries. He calls it “economic strip-mining” in which capital speculators like hedge funds strip the equity of companies, countries and consumers to feed their insatiable desire for short term profits – outcomes be damned. We also introduce the new national project and campaign called “What Wall Street Costs America” – the start of a national conversation revealing the massive extraction of public dollars by Wall Street interests. And Matt Stannard reviews presidential politics and bank reform on the Public Banking Report.

It’s Our Money with Ellen Brown – Purloining Profits from the Public – 03.16.16

When legislators here and abroad gave power to private bank interests to supply the money for their national economies, it was a thickly-veiled ruse that set the stage for complete debt subjection of all public interests. Our notional national debt levels are the proof. So it is with great interest that we delve back into a continuing legal struggle over the Bank of Canada’s chartered responsibilities for interest-free public investment. We remind you of some simple truths from 12-year old Victoria Grant about the Bank of Canada and Ellen’s guest, Dr. J. Ryan Collins, discusses the policy that foisted a change on B of C’s virtuous history. And as a legal maven himself, Matt Stannard reviews the benefits that reside even in failed legal challenges of this sort.

It’s Our Money with Ellen Brown – Is George Orwell Smiling? – 02.17.16

Perhaps he’s just smirking, as the merged worlds of global finance and transnational government play out their collaborations of control and deception in the name of a new world order they control. Ellen speaks this week with noted historian, economic researcher and journalist William Engdahl about some backstory facts that belie popular news story narratives from mainstream reporters and government authorities. “War is Peace” is just one of those. Later, we revisit another powerful narrative deception rolling our way in the form of the Trans Pacific Partnership as we look at some of its deceptive and unbelievable features with anti-TPP activist Kevin Zeese. And Matt Stannard brings it all home with his insightful observations about how these factors play out in our global climate reality.

It’s Our Money with Ellen Brown – Connecting the Dots – 05.06.15

At what point are you willing to challenge your own notions of what’s really going on? Can you even imagine that the mavens of the Money Power would threaten human survival to serve themselves for even bigger personal profits? Ellen’s guest, researcher Dane Wigington, has a trove of data to suggest that they would. And they do so in the form of geoengineering, a covert tool allegedly being used to control natural systems for private profit. We also hear commentary from Matt Stannard about the economics of the Baltimore uprising and from Marc Armstrong about America’s only publicly-owned depository bank, the Bank of North Dakota, which just issued its latest annual report — it’s another record-setting winner!