Sen. Elizabeth Warren with great new ideas

[UCmeNdc]

Coming to a Post Office Near You: Loans You Can Trust?

Think about that: about 10 percent of a family's income just to manage getting checks cashed, bills paid, and, sometimes, a short-term loan to tide them over. That's more than a full month's income just to try to navigate the basics.

The poor pay more, and that's one of the reasons people get trapped at the bottom of the economic ladder.

But it doesn't have to be this way. In the same remarkable report this week, the OIG explored the possibility of the USPS offering basic banking services -- bill paying, check cashing, small loans -- to its customers. With post offices and postal workers already on the ground, USPS could partner with banks to make a critical difference for millions of Americans who don't have basic banking services because there are almost no banks or bank branches in their neighborhoods.

Families rely on financial services more than ever, but those who need them most -- who struggle to make ends meet -- too often must contend with sky-high interest rates and tricks and traps buried in the fine print of their loan products.


http://www.huffingtonpost.com/elizabeth-warren/coming-to-a-post-office-n_b_4709485.html

[House of Roberts]

1. The USPS competing with payday loan companies and title pawn companies?

I like it, but can it be done without the support of the RWNJs in the House?

[Laelth]

2. k&r for Elizabeth Warren. n/t

-Laelth

[coldbeer]

3. I'm for it!

I'd even donate to the USPS. Always treated me great. I have already donated
way to much to the banks and what do I get back? The banks now want to charge
me for my savings.

[MannyGoldstein]

4. Tricking and trapping the financially-desperate is what makes America great

Literally hundreds of Americans will be denied their right to car elevators if this nutjob idea sees the light of day.

What will it take to stop this difficult woman?

Regards,

Third-Way Manny

[Scuba]

5. Great idea. The USPS should also offer hi-speed broadband services.

[Nay]

6. Wonderful idea. Hope it happens.

[frazzled]

7. It's not a new idea

It's good that Senator Warren is promoting it, but she did not originate this idea. A return to postal banking was adopted as a resolution a year and a half ago by the National Association of Letter Carriers. And it's hardly "new": the USPS had a banking system from 1911-1967, and many countries around the world maintain postal banks.

On July 27, 2012, the National Association of Letter Carriers adopted a resolution at its National Convention in Minneapolis to investigate establishing a postal banking system. The resolution noted that expanding postal services and developing new sources of revenue are important to the effort to save the public Post Office and preserve living-wage jobs; that many countries have a successful history of postal banking, including the U.S. itself; and that postal banks could serve the 9 million people who don't have bank accounts and the 21 million who use usurious check cashers.

...

The now-defunct U.S. Postal Savings System was also quite successful in its day. It was set up in 1911 to get money out of hiding, attract the savings of immigrants, provide safe depositories for people who had lost confidence in private banks, and furnish depositories with convenient hours. Deposits ranged from $1 to $2,500, and the postal system paid 2 percent interest on them. It issued U.S. Postal Savings Bonds that paid annual interest, as well as Postal Savings Certificates and domestic money orders. Postal savings peaked in 1947 at almost $3.4 billion.

The U.S. Postal Savings System was shut down in 1967, not because it was inefficient but because it became unnecessary after its profitability became apparent. Private banks then captured the market, raising their interest rates and offering the same governmental guarantees that the postal savings system had.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/ellen-brown/saving-the-post-office-le_b_1765156.html