Julian LaRosa currently serves as an organizer and advocate for economic democracy through roles as communications director with California Public Banking Alliance and founder and executive director of Equity Economics Lab.
Silicon Valley Bank’s collapse was no aberration: hundreds of private banks in the US have failed since the Great Recession. For a more stable financial system that actually meets ordinary people’s needs, we need to expand public banking.
The basic functions of investment are too important to be left in the hands of private banks only interested in accruing profits. We need public banks — something the Public Banking Act, introduced by Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Rashida Tlaib, would provide.