Urban Insanity In Minneapolis

The City of Minneapolis’s far-left city council is thinking about starting a bank. Seriously. Is there a shortage of banks in the Twin Cities? No. Does anyone in city government know anything about running a bank? No. Lee Schafer of the Minneapolis Star Tribune explains:

The city of Minneapolis is looking into the “possibility” of launching a city-owned bank. But, of course, it’s possible. So is opening a pet shop.
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Supporters of a new banking arrangement are unhappy with Wells Fargo because the bank took a small piece of the 17-bank loan that’s financing the Dakota Access Pipeline.

This is mind-bendingly stupid. Members of the Minneapolis City Council disapprove, apparently, of the nearly-complete Dakota Access Pipeline, even though, as far as I know, they all expect their cars to start when they turn the ignition on, and they haven’t objected to the many thousands of oil pipeline miles that make modern life possible. But no one expects intelligence from the Minneapolis City Council.

Apparently the Twin Cities’ other major bank, US Bank, also makes loans to the oil and gas industry, hence the idea of founding a City of Minneapolis Bank–even though there are many other banks to which the city could bring its business.

The City Council’s inspiration may be the state-owned Bank of North Dakota, which is minuscule ($3.9 billion loan portfolio, compared with Wells Fargo’s approximately $950 billion) and has no major customers other than the state, but nevertheless has been a source of inspiration to American socialists since 1919. In the meantime, of course, North Dakota has gone in a completely different direction, and (like South Dakota) is now out-competing Minnesota to an embarrassing degree.

Of course, there isn’t any risk that Minneapolis will start a bank, just like there is no danger that it will take over the city’s electric power system, another insane proposal that was recently floated. But the fact that such ideas are even discussed shows how far American cities like Minneapolis have descended into detached-from-reality leftism.