From the back cover:
Today most of our money is created, not by governments, but by banks when they make loans. This book takes the reader step by step through the sausage factory of modern money creation, explores improvements made possible by advances in digital technology, and proposes upgrades that could transform our outmoded nineteenth century system into one that is democratic, sustainable, and serves the needs of the twenty-first century.
Banking on the People is a compelling and fast-moving primer on the new monetary revolution by the godmother of the public banking movement now emerging throughout the country. Brown shows how our new understanding of money and its creation, long concealed by bankers and others capturing the benefits for their own purposes, can be turned to support the public in powerful new ways.
— Gar Alperovitz, professor emeritus at the University of Maryland, Co-Founder of The Democracy Collaborative and author of America Beyond Capitalism and other books
More lucidly that any other expert I know, Ellen Brown shows in Banking on the People how we can break the grip of predatory financialization now extracting value from real peoples’ productive activities all over the world. This book is a must read for those who see the promising future as we seek to widen democracies and transform to a cleaner, greener, shared prosperity.
— Hazel Henderson, CEO of Ethical Markets Media and author of Mapping the Global Transition to the Solar Age and other books
Ellen Brown shows that there is a much better alternative to Citibank, Wells Fargo and Bank of America. Public banks can safeguard public funds while avoiding the payday loans, redlining, predatory junk-mortgage loans and add-on small-print extras for which the large commercial banks are becoming notorious.
— Michael Hudson, Research Professor of Economics at the University of Missouri, Kansas City, and author of Killing the Host and other books
Banking on the People offers a tour de force for those activists, NGOs, and academics wanting to understand the forces at play when we talk about the democratization of finance. A must read!
— Thomas Marois, Senior Lecturer, SOAS University of London, author of States, Banks and Crisis and other publications
