# Ellen Brown

Ellen Hodgson Brown (born September 15, 1945) is an American author, attorney, public speaker, and advocate of alternative medicine and financial reform, most prominently public banking. Brown is the founder and president of the Public Banking Institute, a nonpartisan think tank devoted to the creation of publicly run banks. She has appeared on several cable and network television, radio, and internet podcasts & programs.

## Quotes

* The money issued by governments to finance public projects has a long and successful history dating back at least to the beginning of the 18th century, when the American colony of Pennsylvania issued a currency that was both lent and spent by the government local in the local economy. The result was a period of unprecedented prosperity achieved without inflation or taxes.
** Révolte contre l'UE et le FMI: La Grèce, l'Islande et la Lettonie pourraient montrer la voie'(Revolt against the EU and the IMF: Greece, Iceland and Latvia could lead the way)" Horizons and Debates (ISSN 1662-4599) , No. 5, February 8, 2010, p. 2
* The brief visit of then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to Libya in October 2011 was referred to by the media as a “victory lap.” “We came, we saw, he died!” she crowed in a CBS video interview on hearing of the capture and brutal murder of Libyan leader Muammar el-Qaddafi.... US-NATO intervention was allegedly undertaken on humanitarian grounds, after reports of mass atrocities; but human rights organizations questioned the claims after finding a lack of evidence.... Before 2011, Libya had achieved economic independence, with its own water, its own food, its own oil, its own money, and its own state-owned bank. It had arisen under Qaddafi from one of the poorest of countries to the richest in Africa. Education and medical treatment were free; having a home was considered a human right; and Libyans participated in an original system of local democracy. The country boasted the world’s largest irrigation system, the Great Man-made River project, which brought water from the desert to the cities and coastal areas; and Qaddafi was embarking on a program to spread this model throughout Africa. But that was before US-NATO forces bombed the irrigation system and wreaked havoc on the country.
** Ellen Brown, Exposing the Libyan Agenda: a Closer Look at Hillary’s Emails, CounterPunch March 14, 2016
* Of the 3,000 emails released from Hillary Clinton’s private email server in late December 2015, about a third were from her close confidante Sidney Blumenthal, the attorney who defended her husband in the Monica Lewinsky case. One of these emails, dated April 2, 2011, reads in part: Qaddafi’s government holds 143 tons of gold, and a similar amount in silver . . . . This gold was accumulated prior to the current rebellion and was intended to be used to establish a pan-African currency based on the Libyan golden Dinar. This plan was designed to provide the Francophone African Countries with an alternative to the French franc (CFA). In a “source comment,” the original declassified email adds: According to knowledgeable individuals this quantity of gold and silver is valued at more than $7 billion... Conspicuously absent is any mention of humanitarian concerns. The objectives are money, power and oil.
** Ellen Brown, Exposing the Libyan Agenda: a Closer Look at Hillary’s Emails, CounterPunch March 14, 2016
* May 15th-19th has been designated “National Infrastructure Week” by the US Chambers of Commerce, the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE)... Their message: “It’s time to rebuild.” Ever since ASCE began issuing its “National Infrastructure Report Card” in 1998, the nation has gotten a dismal grade of D or D+. In the meantime, the estimated cost of fixing its infrastructure has gone up from $1.3 trillion to $4.6 trillion. While American politicians debate endlessly over how to finance the needed fixes and which ones to implement, the Chinese have managed to fund massive infrastructure projects all across their country, including 12,000 miles of high-speed rail built just in the last decade... A key difference between China and the US is that the Chinese government owns the majority of its banks... The US government could do that too, without raising taxes, slashing services, cutting pensions, or privatizing industries.... The federal government could set up a bank on a similar model. It has massive revenues, which it could leverage into credit for its own purposes. Since financing is typically about 50 percent of the cost of infrastructure, the government could cut infrastructure costs in half by borrowing from its own bank. Public-private partnerships are a good deal for investors but a bad deal for the public. The federal government can generate its own credit without private financial middlemen. That is how China does it, and we can to.
** Ellen Brown: If China Can Fund Infrastructure With Its Own Credit, So Can We, CounterPunch (18 May 2017)
* Funding through the Federal Reserve may be controversial, but establishing a national public infrastructure and development bank should be a no-brainer. The real question is why we don’t already have one, like China, Germany, and other countries that are running circles around us in infrastructure development. Many European, Asian and Latin American countries have their own national development banks, as well as belonging to bilateral or multinational development institutions that are jointly owned by multiple governments. Unlike the US Federal Reserve, which considers itself “independent” of government, national development banks are wholly owned by their governments and carry out public development policies. The most profitable and efficient way for national and local governments to finance public infrastructure and development is with their own banks, as the impressive track records of KfW and other national development banks have shown... We need to resurrect that public funding engine today, not only to address the national and global crises we are facing now but for the ongoing development the country needs in order to manifest its true potential.
** Why Germany Leads in Renewables: It Has Its Own Green Bank, TruthOut (31 January 2019)
* Money might... indeed become a servant of humanity, transformed from a tool of oppression into a means of securing common prosperity. But first the central bank needs to become a public servant. It needs to be made a public utility, responsive to the needs of the people and the economy.
** The Fed’s “Emergency Measures” Are Becoming the New Normal, TruthOut (27 February 2019)
* As alarm bells sound over the advancing destruction of the environment, a variety of Green New Deall proposals have appeared in the US and Europe, along with some interesting academic debates about how to fund them. Monetary policy, normally relegated to obscure academic tomes and bureaucratic meetings behind closed doors, has suddenly taken center stage... Public development banks already have a successful track record in Europe, and their debts are not considered debts of the government. They are financed not through taxes but by the borrowers when they repay the loans. Like other banks, development banks are moneymaking institutions that not only don’t cost the government money but actually generate a profit for it.
** Monetary policy takes center stage: MMT, QE or public banks? Nation of Change, (22 March 2019)