The smartest city in the world just made the dumbest choice imaginable

Would you trust the city of San Francisco to run a bank? Evidently, 52 percent of the voters in San Francisco do.They signed off on Proposition B, a charter amendment that purports to set up a “public bank” run by the city.By now, you’re probably rushing to San Francisco with your life savings.But you’ll have to wait to open an account.

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Prop.B starts by creating a nonprofit shell company, a “Municipal Financial Corporation.” The nonprofit shell company will then be handed over to an oversight commission packed with political appointees.Everyone will figure out the actual bank part later.The person who pushed this concept for nearly a decade is Jackie Fielder, who sits on the Board of Supervisors for the city and is a card-carrying member of the Democratic Socialists of America.California Post News: Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, X, YouTube, WhatsApp, LinkedInCalifornia Post Sports Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, XCalifornia Post Opinion California Post Newsletters: Sign up here!California Post App: Download here!Home delivery: Sign up here!Page Six Hollywood: Sign up here!Back in 2017, when she was 22, she co-founded the San Francisco Public Bank Coalition, right after the Standing Rock protests against an oil pipeline in North Dakota.The green activists wanted to stop San Francisco from banking with anyone who financed the pipeline.

Then they came up with the idea of building a parallel bank that they could control themselves.When the idea first came up, the city controller looked at the numbers and estimated that it could cost as much as $460 million over eight years just to open the bank.That’s not a typo.Half a billion dollars to open a bank in San Francisco.Much of the bank’s early investments would be...