Title
The Majority Report - How the Other Half Banks: Exclusion, Exploitation, and the Threat to Democracy
Abstract
Mehrsa Baradaran a Professor at the University of Georgia Law School and author of the new book How the Other Half Banks: Exclusion, Exploitation, and the Threat to Democracy explains the history of the banking sector in America and the split between Hamilton and Jefferson. (11:50)
-The change in banking beginning in the early 1980’s. Community banks and the shifting realities of banking for the poor. Why Hamilton and Jefferson were both right about banking. The New Deal’s strict banking codes and the lack of financial crises for decades following their implementation. Banking deregulation under the Reagan and Thatcher conservative movements. Obama’s “standing between the banks and the pitchforks” and the lack of a push for fundamental change following 2008. The continuity of financial policy under Bush and Obama. (22:20)
-The fundamental inequality between the “banked” and “unbanked.” The huge subsidy that banks receive from the federal insurance. The logic of Post Office banking. How the credit works and how it works for postal banking. Why being in debt isn’t a moral failing. How the poor are left to pure market credit like payday loans and the big banks are federally insured, despite bank failings being far more disastrous. Small credit for the poor meaning the difference between solvency and insolvency. (27:40)
-How postal banking would work in practice. The advantages of postal banking v. payday loans. Where the concept of postal banking has been raised politically. Why Postal Banking is far from radical. (37:50)
Repository Citation
Baradaran, Mehrsa, "The Majority Report - How the Other Half Banks: Exclusion, Exploitation, and the Threat to Democracy" (2016). Popular Media. 247.
https://digitalcommons.law.uga.edu/fac_pm/247