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One thing to keep in mind with postal offices doing the banking is the security angle. In my country post offices are often target of robberies because of their sub-standard security.
frickin bull
excellent example of Repugs using govt power to destroy political foes, and enrich Repugs' paymasters.
One thing to keep in mind with postal offices doing the banking is the security angle. In my country post offices are often target of robberies because of their sub-standard security.
Bull . The government is ALWAYS the least efficient way of providing services.
wait 'til you see how your blind ideology, faith-based delusions deliver for-profit postal service at MUCH HIGHER PRICES and much tier service, and needing $Bs in taxpayer subsidies.
Horse . Who do you think subsidizes USPS currently?
dog . USPS is being bankrupted by the Repugs' 75-year pension death obligation. USPS would be in good shape if they didn't have to top up their pension fund for decades in advance.
The Postal Service Wants You to Bank at Your Post Office
Elizabeth Warren would like to change the way you bank.
The Massachusetts Senator and consumer advocate firebrand may not be running for president. But her backing of the U.S. Postal Service's plan to begin offering budget-priced banking services to U.S. savers could remake the American landscape regardless.
An Idea Whose Time Has Come?
In May, USPS admitted to losing $1.5 billion in its most recent fiscal quarter. If the losses keep up at this rate, the Post Office's budget deficit could surpass last year's $5.5 billion loss, and swell into a $6 billion annual deficit. Last month, though, the USPS Office of Inspector General refloated an idea to close the Post Office's budget gap. Simply put, the Post Office should turn itself into a bank.
Not entirely, of course. Under the Inspector General's plan, backed by Sen. Warren, USPS would still deliver mail and such. But it would also begin expanding the kinds of financial services it offers, permitting "unbanked" and "underbanked" customers to take out small loans, cash checks, pay bills, and open savings accounts -- all at their local post office. According to the Inspector General, entering this market could help USPS reap as much as $10 billion in annual revenue -- and close its budget gap with a resounding snap.
Even just expanding the financial services the Post Office already offers, by adding electronic wire transfers and ATMs to existing offerings of selling paper money orders and prepaid cards, and executing international money transfers, could raise as much as $1.1 billion in additional revenues for USPS.
An Idea Whose Time Came a Year Ago ...
USPS actually first voiced this suggestion early last year (when it was promptly and publicly taken up by Sen. Warren). Back then, Warren explained that 68 million Americans currently have no active checking accounts, yet still need the kinds of banking services associated with such accounts. To get these services, they pay through the nose.
According to Warren, banks and -- in particular -- payday loan and check cashing stores, charge unbanked customers "an average of $2,412 per household" annually for ordinary financial services. The Senator notes that "the average underserved household spends roughly 10 percent of its annual income on interest and fees -- about the same amount they spend on food."
What It Means to Them
This means that in one fell swoop, expanding financial services offerings at post offices could both solve USPS's chronic budget deficit and prevent millions of Americans from being overcharged for basic banking services.
No longer would the "unbanked" be stuck paying high monthly service fees to maintain a bank checking account with a too-low balance, or even higher costs for small loans from a payday lender. These low-margin activities, too unprofitable for many banks to bother with them, could be offered at the post office instead. As a side benefit, these folks would then have thousands of extra dollars a year to spend on things they actually want to spend their money on, helping to grow the economy.
What It Means to You
Of course, if you already have a bank account, you may think USPS's plan is interesting, but not really relevant to you. It could become relevant, however.
In recent months, we've seen multiple stories of traditional banks closing down their physical branches to cut costs and take advantage of the cheapness of online banking. SNL Financial reports 332 bank closures across the U.S. in the first quarter of 2015. One single bank, JPMorgan Chase (JPM), says it's planning to close 300 branches over the next two years.
Assuming this trend continues, finding a physical branch of your bank at which you can cash a check or get a money order when you need it could become increasingly difficult. Knowing that the local post office can help you out, on the other hand, could turn increasingly attractive.
http://www.dailyfinance.com/2015/06/...ffice-banking/
USPS as retail banker is a fantastic idea, would really help Ms of poor and/or rural red staters, but of course the financial industry and their Repugs will kill it, just as the Repugs/VRWC have been killing the USPS with the 75-year forward pension financing (while BigCorp themselves under finance their pension funds).
If they are spending $2412 a year for banking services why the don't they get a checking account at a bank?
If they are promising to pay pensions for decades in advance they need to be putting away the funds to do it. I just wish ALL public pension plans were required to do the same thing.
then why didn't the Repugs make a FEDERAL law that all private pension funds had to be fully funded for decades in advance?
Why did Repugs pick on USPS? Ideology: govt WAS a govt operation and must be destroyed, and USPS had to destroyed which would bust USPS union.
Probably a cultural bias.
Poor people, esp blacks, often don't trust ins utions.
For others, it could a anti-bank prejudice from the history of their grandparents losing their homes to the banks in the 1930s.
In many rural areas, the local PO is key part of the economic and social life. If its position were enhanced and solidified by offering FREE checking, small loans at reasonable rates, etc. all good for the rural life. But the Repugs are sure to the rurals like they always do.
Obviously, Warren, hated by the banks, and USPS, hated by VRWC/Repugs, have too good of an idea for America, so postal banking is dead.
The U.S. Postal Service - "you can't trust us with your mail, so trust us with your money"
You had problems with mail delivery, lost mail?
didja know that under international banking law, including USA, banks can STEAL your deposits to remain solvent?
mail was running perfectly until...yes...Obama became president.
Unlikely scenario your second comment.
What did Obama do the USPS? Was it worse than Repugs' their 75-year pension-pre-funding?
Just wait for the next INEVITABLE systemic Banksters crisis, for the your "unlikely-ness"
There is no telling what this shadow government has done to the USPS. It's all in do ents kept private from the U.S. citizens.
typical fact-less, faith-based, paranoid rightwingnut "thinking"
Problem is, since the postal service is not a government tax payer expense, but uses the same government retirement system, congress is just taking the money in as revenue, and spending it.
There are no funds put away anywhere. The Postal Service did have funds before congress changed that law, but congress confiscated that too.
No, it was just a money grab by congress, trying to bleed the USPS for more money.
Didn't Obama sign the law?
confiscate?
doesn't USPS "lend" money to the general fund like SocSec does, but buying T bonds?
Not to my knowledge. I have seen from the OMB records, money in and out of the general fund, but the USPS used to have their own savings funds as well, not attached to the government. They are now wiped out.
I wouldn't be too quick to blame republicans. The law was passed in 2006, under Bush's watch. however, in both the house and senate, it was passed by voice vote. Neither side requested a recorded vote. Seems democrats wanted this too, without being blamed.
"The Postal Accountability and Enhancement Act of 2006 (PAEA) - H.R. 6407[2][3]enacted on December 20, 2006,"
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Postal...ory_Commission
It was a Repug "screw-the-USPS and its union" Act
Bernie Sanders's Highly Sensible Plan to Turn Post Offices Into Banks
Sanders:
If you are a low-income person, it is, depending upon where you live, very difficult to find normal banking. Banks don’t want you. And what people are forced to do is go to payday lenders who charge outrageously high interest rates. You go to check-cashing places, which rip you off. And, yes, I think that the postal service, in fact, can play an important role in providing modest types of banking service to folks who need it.
In fact, Sanders’s idea is quite sensible. “Postal banking”—which just means that post offices run savings accounts, cash checks, and perform other basic financial services—is common in most of Asia and Europe, and only about 7 percent of the world’s national postal systems don’t offer some bank-like services. Postal banking is a really good way to reach people who haven’t had access to standard savings accounts. One estimate figures that more than 1 billion people have used post offices for making deposits.
The reason why this would be so useful in the U.S. is that somewhere between 20 and 40 percent of the population has to rely on check-cashing or payday-lending services, which in some places charge usurious rates that send people into spirals of recurring debt. Mehrsa Baradaran, a professor at the University of Georgia School of Law and the author of How the Other Half Banks, touched on the promise of postal banking in a book excerpt published in The Atlantic last week:
http://www.theatlantic.com/business/...-banks/411589/
The basic idea of modern postal banking is a public bank offering a wide range of transaction services, including financial transactions, remittance, savings accounts, and small lending. These ins utions would remain affordable because of economies of scale and because of the existing postal infrastructure in the U.S. Plus, in the absence of shareholders, they would not be driven to seek profits and could sell services at cost.
^hmmm....sounds familiar...yessss....
Elizabeth Warren Has A Radical Plan To Remake The Post Office
http://www.businessinsider.com/warre...o-banks-2014-2
yep, both hippie socialists want to block payday lenders from screwing poor people. Repugs will kill the idea and defend payday lenders/BigBanks
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