Bernie Sanders Postal Banking

Banking on the Postal Service:

  Sen. Bernie Sanders has fought cuts in service by the U.S. Postal Service. He’s also sponsored legislation to let the Postal Service find innovative new ways to shore up its finances. A new report from the ...Postal Service suggests one way the agency could make as much as $8.9 billion in annual revenue would be to offer limited banking services like cashing checks and selling pre-paid debit cards. The USPS already takes in more than $100 million in revenue each year by selling postal money orders. “One of the areas we should be looking at is banking,” Sanders told Ed Schultz in a radio interview on Wednesday.

  Listen to the interview: http://www.sanders.senate.gov/newsroom/video-audio/ed-schultz-radio-020514

米国議会にバーニー･サンダース上院議員がいる。バーモント州選出の議員である。米国の郵便に、銀行業務を開始するように求めている。日本では、分社化して切り離そうとしたことは大違いだ。アメリカでも、郵便局で郵便貯金があったが、廃止した経緯がある。それから、郵便為替は、郵便事業の分野として定義されていると言うことであり、それは今の米国郵便でも行われており、一億ドル以上の収入があると言う。プリペイドカードや、小切手の現金化なども提案している。ご参考まで。

なお、サンダース上院議員の提言に対して、米国人のコメントが面白いので、そのいくつかをコピペしておきたい。

Yes and have the government give back all of the money it stole from the Post Office...a few years ago..

Bernie and Elizabeth Warren, politicians that are thinkers and doers instead of just being talkers. We need more of them!

How about repealing the Postal Accountability and Enhancement Act of 2006. This Act was designed to make the Post Office fail by people who wanted to privatize mail delivery. It is another manufactured crisis brought to you by the GOP. If it we not for this unjust Act the Post Office would be turning a profit. If Obama proposed an Act like this on any business out there he would be called a America hating socialist. The Post Office should not need to come up with new niches so that they can avoid becoming bankrupt. What they need to do is post a quote from George Washington's first State of The Union Address, "I trust, need recommendation; but I can not forbear intimating to you the expediency of giving effectual encouragement as well to the introduction of new and useful inventions from abroad as to the exertions of skill and genius in producing them at home, and of facilitating the intercourse between the distant parts of our country by a due attention to the post-office and post-roads", (Washington, 1790).

 this is normal in 99% of all other countries in the world. it shouldn't be a shock to americans, and if it IS, u all need to travel. the rest of the world's post offices offer bank services. most of the time they don't even call it the post office, it's the postbank :)

why is it so shocking? adding financial lending services to the post office adds income. and the post office already does postal money orders and passport application services, both which really have nothing to do with sending packages. adding banking services is just "adding products". not shocking.

There is so much that could be said about this issue. In many countries, the Post Office is the bank of the poor and working class. It provides access to low cost bank services for people who have neither the means nor the need for the services of a major bank. Post offices provide interest-bearing accounts, bill paying services, and low-interest short-term credit for the working class and working poor, with special banking facilities for those who qualify for government assistance programs.

The cost of being poor in America is high. The article describes the plight of the millions of people who don't have bank accounts, and who pay an average of 10% of their annual incomes in fees and usurious interest rates to check-cashing and payday loan operators. Besides those victims, the major banks make a fortune in transaction fees, monthly fees, bank card fees, check fees, and other fees, from their poor and working class customers. Many of those fees are waived for people who keep five-figure or larger bank balances.

Elizabeth Warren's plan would alleviate some of the burden of poverty for millions of people. Unfortunately, financial institutions, both the banks and the shady second-tier financial sector, will prevail. Last time I checked, the poor didn't have lobbyists in Washington.

http://truth-out.org/･･･/elizabeth-warren-end-usurious･･･

 Sorry but I think the USPS should be allowed to cut back offices in small towns. USPS was supposedly spun off from the govt but then not allowed to make RATIONAL cost-cutting decisions. So postal workers have to put in LONG HOURS in big cities long after dark.  I don't walk around my own neighborhood in the suburbs after dark. But back to this suggestion to provide banking services, there are HUGE compliance considerations - including MONEY LAUNDERING to consider - is USPS prepared?  Debit card have BSA/AML issues.

You CANNOT DENY SMALL TOWNS ACCESS to mail delivery services ! I say to close up inner cities lay off lazy employees save real money & then they don't have to be afraid!  No one makes anyone work anywhere!