In this episode of The Laura Flanders Show, The Next System Project Research Director Thomas M. Hanna and author Nomi Prins explore what systemic change would look like at the Federal Reserve.

Hanna recalls that during the height of the 2008 financial crisis, then-President Barack Obama told a group of bankers that his administration was the only thing standing between them and “the pitchforks.” If there is another financial crisis of that scale, which Hanna believes is likely, the pitchfork bearers might just break through—and Hanna argues they should. But the pitchfork bearers need a plan for how to reshape monetary policy to serve the interests of the public as a whole instead of Wall Street.

“At the national level during the last financial crisis we did actually take over several companies,” including the mortgage financiers known as Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the lending company GMAC, and financial giant AIG. “When these big banks are going down in a crisis we have an opportunity: we can either bail them out or give them free cash or we can take something exchanged for that cash and that should be ownership shares with voting rights.”

Prins adds that another alternative is to “have more money in public banks that actually have been shown to adhere to the public good, … to actual, real economic growth at the foundational level of our economy.”

The host of the show, Laura Flanders, is a fellow with The Next System Project. The Laura Flanders Show airs nationally on Free Speech TV and KCET/Link TV, and CUNYTV in New York City.