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Americans that fear the Socialist Menace should read this.

Bank Of North Dakota: America's Only 'Socialist' Bank Is Thriving During Downturn

See what government run institutions can do when the people running them and those who support them want it to succeed?

So many of our government agencies and institutions have been slowly bled through sabotage since the early 80's (Reagan) by corporate interests who want to see government weakened.

Now that this bank is getting national attention, lets watch and see if it gets mauled by those powerful anti government interests.

A surprising number lot of your insurance companies and banks started out as co-operatives hence the prevalence of the term mutual- they moved away from the early socialistic ideas behind them, demutualised issued shares and got taken over and privatised when they became successful. In the UK mutual building societies (Originally they were self help organisations designed to help members who couldn't get access to capital from conventional banks to build homes. ) were allowed to demutualise, operate as banks and issue shares to become Ltd companies a lot of members voted in favours to get a windfall of shares. I think you could make a good case that it wasn't such a great idea after all. The ones coming out the best out of all this are the lenders that stayed mutuals and stuck to their core business.

It shouldn't be a surprise that a bank that stuck to the basic common sense of lending practices should be able to succeed when the get rich quick lenders fell on their faces. If shareholders can own a bank and benefit from the profits why should not those who put their money in it. why is a few owning something seen as somehow morally better than many owning it?