Patrick Loftus (Modern Money Lab U.S.) joins Tyler Suksawat and Scott Ferguson to unpack their experience at the Public Banking Institute’s national conference, “Public Banking for Public Prosperity: A Declaration of Financial Independence,” held October 22–24, 2026 in Philadelphia. Reflecting on the palpable energy of the weekend, the hosts revisit the excitement of finally sharing a room with a diverse, nationwide network of advocates. They highlight the overwhelming sense that attendees were there to fight for social and ecological justice—anchoring the movement in community and environmental needs rather than getting lost in the technocratic sauce of banking for its own sake.
Sampling the weekend’s highlights, challenges, and generative debates, the conversation explores the profound challenge of translating ideas across different activist discourses and habits of thought. The group navigates the simmering tensions and polysemic ambiguities surrounding the concept of “endogenous” money that floated throughout the conference.
They reckon with the varied receptions to Money on the Left’s Democratic Public Finance framework, which positions money as an inexhaustible, legally designed public utility. Touching on specific interventions—from the “Loop” model for recapturing municipal bond interest, to the push for public banks to issue grants rather than just interest-bearing loans, to the recognition that pricing is always socially administered—the hosts discuss how these ideas were variously applauded, debated, or unheard.
The episode captures a standout spontaneous moment at the conference when Tyler began mapping out strategies to circulate more capital to minority-owned banks, drawing an ever-growing crowd of attendees to collaboratively puzzle through the problem.
Additionally, the hosts weigh the possibilities and limits of the new National Infrastructure Bank movement, supporting the initiative while critiquing its problematic Hamiltonian reliance on private treasury bond capitalization over the federal government’s own full faith and credit.
Finally, the discussion broaches Scott’s proposal for the prospective Los Angeles Public Bank to establish an Independent Media Facility, a strategic intervention aimed at rescuing small- and medium-budget Hollywood productions amidst the industry’s current investment and employment crisis.
Tune in for these dispatches from the frontlines of the public banking movement.
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Original music by Josh Klinghoffer
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