Ownership & Assets

The United States peddled $32 billion in weapons in 2007 according to The New America Foundation, a nonpartisan, nonprofit public policy institute. ...

The New America Foundation, a Washington think tank that describes itself as “nonpartisan and post-partisan,” has proposed a plan to capitalize community banks and credit unions as part of the national reaction to the current financial crises. ... Outside Article

Today, with the world's system of anonymous high finance in crisis, small-scale community banks, thrifts, and credit unions -- all regarded until recently as vestigial players in a new world of global consumer finance -- are setting an important example. If federal policies were in place to provide proper support to small-scale financial institutions, Washington could do a lot to alleviate the country's most serious economic problems.

On December 5, 2008, the New America Foundation’s Next Social Contract Initiative hosted a three panel discussion about the future of social policy after the economic downturn. David Gray, Director of the Workforce and Family Program at New America, opened the event with preliminary remarks. Karen Kornbluh, formerly of the New America Foundation, policy director in the office of Senator Barack Obama and the primary author of the 2008 Democratic Party Platform, delivered the keynote address.

In the mid-1990s, new CRA regulations and a wave of mergers led to a flurry of CRA activity, but, as noted by the New America Foundation's Ellen Seidman ...

This was presented on November 26th at the Citi-FT Financial Education Summit in Beijing.

With the big guns in the financial services industry in turmoil, it’s a good time to ask hard questions about the nature of our finance system. Does bigger always mean better? Or does small-scale "relationship" banking, in which individual savers and borrowers are members of the same community, help to make a better banking sector? Community banks and credit unions were regarded until recently as vestigial players in a new world of global consumer finance.

When Paul Hudson, the chairman and CEO of Broadway Federal Bank in Los Angeles, speaks of the current financial crisis, he sounds altogether placid. "It's going to be difficult, because everybody participated in this low-cost-credit, high-value-asset scenario," he says. "But I'm not overly stressed." It helps that his own bank is doing fine. Broadway Federal, founded in 1946 to provide loans to the growing African American community of Los Angeles, is a small institution with five branches located in middle-class, largely black neighborhoods of the city.

One of the most important lessons the subprime mortgage crisis holds for us is just how poorly informed many Americans are when it comes to making important financial decisions. Clearly, there is a need for basic financial education. But when, where, and how should such education be delivered? Financial literacy programs aimed at high school students do not appear to be effective, and few adults are willing to expend the time, money, and effort to acquire the sort of general education that would help them make good lifelong financial decisions.

Low income families often end up going to check cashing outlets rather than banks. For the last 5 years or so, check cashers and payday loan companies have played the role of villain in news stories. They were the bad guys for charging ridiculously high interest rates and for ripping off the poor. But in a recent story in the New York Times Magazine check cashing tycoon Tom Nix appeared in the role of hero rather than villain.