States taking fresh look at socialist bank

msnbc.msn.com ^ | 2-16-10 | Associated Press

[cajuncow]

BISMARCK, N.D. - It has no automatic tellers or drive-up windows, doesn't issue credit cards and tends only a few thousand checking and savings accounts. Its only location is a glass, steamboat-shaped headquarters near the Missouri River, where the business moved from its original 1919 home in a former auto assembly plant.

The Bank of North Dakota — the nation's only state-owned bank — might seem to be a relic. It was the brainchild of a failed flax farmer and one-time Socialist Party organizer during World War I.

But now officials in other states are wondering if it is helping North Dakota sail through the national recession.

[Seruzawa]

MSNBC appartchiks at it again.

Oh yeah. I’ll be the first in line for Date owned banks. /s

[olezip]

This looks interesting. I wonder if this “socialist” bank is better than credit unions? Credit unions have not suffered the losses of commercial banks that have been corrupted by government regulation, oversight, and schemes.

Is the state owned bank really socialist or is it simply fiscally conservative because of its responsibility to husband the resources of a financially successful state?

[goldstategop]

Its actually a sound business... and is run like one because the state taxpayers are on the hook if it should go belly up. I doubt it would be run as wisely anywhere else in the country.

"Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find only things evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached." - Manuel II Palelogus

[goldstategop]

Its not really socialist. Its just a state-owned business and is run like any other business. It doesn't follow socialist principles - if by such principles one means wealth redistribution. That's never happened in North Dakota. Its more akin to Canada's Crown Corporations - public companies that are expected to be profitable and yet also responsible to their true shareholders - the public.

"Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find only things evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached." - Manuel II Palelogus

[VRWCmember]

It isn’t really a socialist bank at all. It is a state-owned bank. If the bank had taken over a privately run bank or the entire banking system in the state, THEN you would have a socialist bank. This is simply a state-run bank that serves primarily as a bank for other banks, and a bank that provides the state its financial services at rates probably more favorable than would be offered by commercial banks.

If other states were to try this approach, it would probably be detrimental to the banking industry in those states as it would move state accounts and loans out of the private sector banks and into the new “state” bank.

[EBH]

bump