Sanaders and AOC introduce a bill that caps credit card interest at 15%...

[boutons_deux]

A hard interest rate cap is dumb. Peg it to a limit about the Fed Funds rate.

BigFinance makes $10Bs on renting money through credit cards, will block any reduction in usurious interest rates.

"The average American has a credit card balance of $4,293

Total credit card debt is also at its highest point ever, surpassing $1 trillion"

https://www.cnbc.com/2019/02/21/cons...-trillion.html

if avg cc interest is 20%, that $200B / year.

[Capt Bringdown]

Interest rate limits -- yes

Postal banking -- uh, no

Why not? It has been done here before, with great success.

Postal Savings System

An Act of Congress of June 25, 1910, established the Postal Savings System in designated Post Offices, effective January 1, 1911. The legislation aimed to get money out of hiding, attract the savings of immigrants accustomed to saving at Post Offices in their native countries, provide safe depositories for people who had lost confidence in banks, and furnish more convenient depositories for working people.

The system paid two percent interest per year. Initially, the minimum deposit was $1, and the balance in an account could not exceed $500, excluding interest.

Deposits were slow at first, but by 1929, $153 million was on deposit. Savings spurted to $1.2 billion during the 1930s and jumped again during World War II, peaking in 1947 at almost $3.4 billion.

After the war, banks raised their interest rates and began offering the same governmental guarantee as the Postal Savings System. In addition, United States savings bonds gave higher interest rates. Deposits in the Postal Savings System declined, dropping to $416 million by 1964.

A Short History of Postal Banking

Every other developed country in the world has postal banking, and we actually did too. It is important to remember this forgotten history as we begin to talk seriously about reviving postal banking because the system worked and it worked well. Postal banking, which existed in the United States from 1911 to 1966, was in fact so central to our banking system that it was almost the alternative to federal deposit insurance, and served as such from 1911 until 1933. The system prevented many bank runs during a turbulent time in the nation’s banking history—essentially performing central banking functions before the Federal Reserve was up to the task. Postal banking helped fund two world wars and reduced a massive government deficit after the Great Depression.
As the debate over reins uting postal banking heats up, we should know we had it. And it worked.

[CosmicCowboy]

As if the privatization of prisons, education, and healthcare system haven't been a disaster . Muh "free market"

"Disaster"



Hyperbole much?

[Winehole23]

"Disaster"



Hyperbole much?

you're wringing your hands about a measure that would eventually be self-sustaining and would instantly be a significant social good, one that would give real heft to a very popular US ins ution, the USPS.

[SpursforSix]

BigFinance makes $10Bs on renting money through credit cards, will block any reduction in usurious interest rates.

"The average American has a credit card balance of $4,293

Total credit card debt is also at its highest point ever, surpassing $1 trillion"

https://www.cnbc.com/2019/02/21/cons...-trillion.html

if avg cc interest is 20%, that $200B / year.

Where are you getting 20% as the average rate? That seems high.

[CosmicCowboy]

Meh. No hand wringing here, but the postal behemoth is incredibly incompetent and whose incompetence is possibly only surpassed by the VA. Your average postal clerk moves with as much energy as a zombie loaded with zoloft. Adding banking responsibilities to that bloated bureaucracy makes zero sense.

[boutons_deux]

"The argument for supporting Post Banking is the fact that private banks are 'too big to fail' and it goes beyond perception."

for-profit banking EXTRACTS excessive profits, simply because it can, just like all the oligarchy does.

Want to amass more wealth?

Just raise prices, add fees, penalties, etc, etc.

There's nothing stopping it, esp not compe ion.

Boil the frogs slowly enough so they become accustomed to silent, never-ending push to impoverishment. And they have nowhere to exit.

[Winehole23]

Meh. No hand wringing here, but the postal behemoth is incredibly incompetent and whose incompetence is possibly only surpassed by the VA. Your average postal clerk moves with as much energy as a zombie loaded with zoloft. Adding banking responsibilities to that bloated bureaucracy makes zero sense.

Couldn't disagree more. Public disinvestment left the USPS in its current difficulties, as to the supposed laziness of of the USPS I have to disagree. The decades long conservative strategy of half throttling the USPS while negging it publicly seems to have borne fruit in the minds of the suggestible and the ignorant.

The USPS has a tough job, their carriers work ing hard. IHMO, they do it well.

[Winehole23]

You're so indoctrinated CC, you can't see it.

[Will Hunting]

"Disaster"



Hyperbole much?

You don’t think the privatization of prisons has been a disaster?

[Winehole23]

"The most recent survey was administered in June 2017 in partnership with the U.S. Census Bureau, collecting responses from more than 35,000 households. The survey provides estimates of the proportion of U.S. households that do not have an account at an insured ins ution, and the proportion that have an account but obtained (nonbank) alternative financial services in the past 12 months."

The survey shows the number of people that unbanked/underbank. That doesn't mean they don't have access to banks and credit unions.

look man, this is not denied, but there's got to be a better way.

it ain't that hard, if you're not weeping crocodile tears for the lost profits of bloodsuckers.

[Nathan89]

look man, this is not denied, but there's got to be a better way.

it ain't that hard, if you're not weeping crocodile tears for the lost profits of bloodsuckers.

Credit unions are non-profits.

[Winehole23]

Credit unions are non-profits.

Dude, i am pro-credit union. , i belong to one.

[Winehole23]

You can't pretend the problem isn't there just because some estimates may be somewhat overshot. People are underbanked. it makes everyday life more precarious and more expensive.

It is also a per se economic inefficiency for people to have discontinuous access to a form of payment. Postal banking would tend to make the the broader economy more, not less efficient.

[Winehole23]

It's also a revenue stream for the governing authority that isn't a tax. you can pay for with postal banking.

[TheGreatYacht]

Tucker Sides With Bernie & AOC On Capping Interest Rates At 15%

[boutons_deux]

One in Four Local Banks Has Vanished since 2008. Here’s What’s Causing the Decline and Why We Should Treat It as a National Crisis.

We have 1,971 fewer of these small, local financial ins utions today than at the beginning of 2008.

Some 500 failed outright, with the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) stepping in to pay their depositors.

Most of the rest were acquired and absorbed into bigger banks.

In 1995, megabanks — giant banks with more than $100 billion in assets (in 2010 dollars) — controlled 17 percent of all banking assets.

By 2005, their share had reached 41 percent.

Today, it is a staggering 59 percent.

Meanwhile,

the share of the market held by community banks and credit unions —

local ins utions with less than $1 billion in assets —

plummeted from 27 percent to 11 percent.

https://ilsr.org/vanishing-community...tional-crisis/

USPS banking would reverse this trend of BigFinance controlling all of banking