Monday, April 20, 2009

Fiscal responsibility in one easy lesson

North Dakota has it down. It is one of only four States not in serious financial trouble -- in fact, it has a $1.2 billion surplus. What's the secret? North Dakota has a State-owned bank outside the Federal Reserve! (The Bank of North Dakota was founded in 1919. The Fed tried to shut it down, but lost the court case). The bank lends money to other banks to help strengthen the local economy. Here's an article from The Liberty Voice explaining how it works.

All economics is local. Prosperity comes from the circulation of money within a community.

3 comments:

Sebastian Ernst Ronin said...

It is my understanding that our good friends in Vermont will be seriously discussing a state-owned bank at a secessionist retreat in a couple of weeks. This is in keeping with the organizers' pursuit of the nuts-n-bolts ingredients for successful secession as opposed to a secessionist mantra of Cos we wanna.

Gino said...

Hooray for my friends up north! On top of this, they're sitting on an oil field that's bigger than the Saudis - Bakken.

Sebastian Ernst Ronin said...

Randomes, Inc.:

Size of field does not translate into what is actually recoverable. From the article, The Bakken Formation: How Much Will It Help?, the following conclusion is offered:

"The Bakken potential resource, while large by US onshore field standards, will have only a minor effect on US production or imports. Using 2006 US imports and consumption for comparison, the Bakken undiscovered resource of 3,649 million barrels of oil, if subsequently discovered and fully developed, would provide us with the equivalent of six months of oil consumption or 10 months of imports, spread over 20 or more years. In reality, the reserves developed are likely to be many times smaller than this value."

To read the article, see:

http://www.theoildrum.com/node/3868