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At the time, the bank was endowed with $2 million in seed capital. Funded with $100,000, each of five branches operated autonomously. Besides providing capital for state agriculture, the bank also participated in financing the railroad industry in the mid-1800s.
It operated during Louisiana's unprecedented growth period, with state imports and exports rivaling most other states. In 1871, it became the State National Bank, then unfortunately liquidated 11 years before North Dakota's BND was established. Perhaps its reemergence lies ahead.
Brown explains that today's budget crisis affecting nearly all states didn't "arise from too much spending or too little taxation." A Wall Street created credit freeze caused them, easily avoided with a state bank like North Dakota's, a prosperous oasis during the worst economic crunch since the Great Depression.
The Public Banking Institute: Banking in the Public Interest
Ellen Brown heads the initiative to promote an idea whose time has come, explaining that public banks are:
-- viable economic solutions to promote sustainable growth and prosperity;
-- available to states, cities and local communities of any size;
-- owned and operated by states or local communities, not private investors, scamming the system for profit at the public's expense;
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