Ellen Brown

Ellen Brown

Ellen Brown is an attorney and founder of the Public Banking Institute. She is the author of twelve books, including the best-selling Web of Debt, and her latest book, The Public Bank Solution, which explores successful public banking models historically and globally.

Articles by this author

Federal Reserve Board Chairman Jerome Powell. (Photo by Alex Wong/Getty Images) Views
Monday, September 30, 2019
The Disaster of Negative Interest Rates
The dollar strengthened against the euro in August, merely in anticipation of the European Central Bank slashing its key interest rate further into negative territory. Investors were fleeing into the dollar, prompting President Trump to tweet on Aug. 30: The Euro is dropping against the Dollar “...
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China thinks this is a better banking model than the private Western system focused on short-term profits for private shareholders. (Photo: Thomas Peter-Pool/Getty Images) Views
Friday, August 09, 2019
Neoliberalism Has Met Its Match in China
When the Federal Reserve cut interest rates on July 31st for the first time in more than a decade, commentators were asking why. According to official data, the economy was rebounding, unemployment was below 4%, and GDP growth was above 3%. If anything, by the Fed’s own reasoning, it should have...
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The successful six-year run of Abenomics, along with China’s decades of unprecedented economic growth, have proven that governments can indeed monetize their debts, expanding the money supply and stimulating the economy, without driving up consumer prices. (Photo: Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe speaks at a press conference following the G20 Osaka Summit in Osaka/AFP) Views
Thursday, July 11, 2019
How to Pay for It All: An Option the Candidates Missed
The Democratic Party has clearly swung to the progressive left, with candidates in the first round of presidential debates coming up with one program after another to help the poor, the disadvantaged and the struggling middle class. Proposals ranged from a Universal Basic Income to Medicare for All...
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Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg speaks at a 2014 San Francisco event in front of a screen showing one of the tech giant's early mottos, "Move Fast and Break Things." (Photo: Mike Deeroski / Flickr/CC BY 2.0) Views
Wednesday, June 26, 2019
Facebook May Pose a Greater Danger Than Wall Street
Payments can happen cheaply and easily without banks or credit card companies, as has already been demonstrated—not in the United States but in China. Unlike in the U.S., where numerous firms feast on fees from handling and processing payments, in China most money flows through mobile phones nearly...
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Newly-created credit directed into local communities by publicly-owned banks can provide the additional funding that local governments critically need. (Photo: 401kcalculator.org) Views
Thursday, April 18, 2019
The Public Banking Revolution Is Upon Us
As public banking gains momentum across the country, policymakers in California and Washington state are vying to form the nation’s second state-owned bank, following in the footsteps of the highly successful Bank of North Dakota, founded in 1919. The race is extremely close, with state bank bills...
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The Fed is realizing that it cannot bring its balance sheet back to “normal.” (Photo: LeoLondon / CC BY-NC-ND 2.0) Views
Friday, February 22, 2019
The Fed's Dramatic About-Face
“Quantitative easing” was supposed to be an emergency measure, but the Federal Reserve is now taking a surprising new approach toward the policy. The F ed “eased” shrinkage in the money supply due to the 2008-09 credit crisis by pumping out trillions of dollars in new bank reserves. After the...
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Although Venezuela is not technically at war, it is suffering from foreign currency strains triggered by aggressive attacks by a foreign power. U.S. economic sanctions have been going on for years, causing the country at least $20 billion in losses. (Photo: Alex Lanz / CC BY-NC-ND 2.0) Views
Friday, February 08, 2019
The Venezuela Myth Keeping Us From Transforming Our Economy
Modern Monetary Theory (MMT) is getting significant media attention these days, after Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez said in an interview that it should “be a larger part of our conversation” when it comes to funding the “Green New Deal.” According to MMT, the government can spend what it needs...
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Wind farmer Jan Marrink poses by his wind turbines in Nordhorn, Germany. (Photo: Martin Meissner / AP) Views
Friday, January 25, 2019
The Financial Secret Behind Germany’s Green Energy Revolution
The “Green New Deal” endorsed by Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D.-N.Y., and more than 40 other House members has been criticized as imposing a too-heavy burden on the rich and upper-middle-class taxpayers who will have to pay for it. However, taxing the rich is not what the Green New Deal...
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Infrastructure projects of the sort proposed in the Green New Deal are “self-funding,” generating resources and fees that can repay the loans. (Photo: Emelia Gold) Views
Monday, December 17, 2018
This Radical Plan to Fund the ‘Green New Deal’ Just Might Work
With what Naomi Klein calls “galloping momentum,” the “Green New Deal” promoted by newly-elected Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) appears to be forging a political pathway for solving all of the ills of society and the planet in one fell swoop. It would give a House Select Committee “a mandate...
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The Marriner S. Eccles Federal Reserve Board Building in Washington, D.C. ( Views
Sunday, November 04, 2018
Trump’s War on the Fed
October was a brutal month for the stock market. After the Fed’s eighth interest rate hike on September 26 th , the Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped more than 2,000 points and the NASDAQ had its worst month in nearly 10 years. After the Dow lost more than 800 points on October 10 th and the S...
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