I want a postal bank like Japan Post Bank.

[roamer65]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japan_Post_Bank

Fuck these commercial banks. Nothing but greed and problems.

[SheltieLover]

1. I want a society based upon Zen

😉

[roamer65]

2. +1000

[SheltieLover]

3. Incredibly normal & peaceful.

Based upon integrity. What a contrast!

[diva77]

4. Bernie Sanders's Highly Sensible Plan to Turn Post Offices Into Banks (2015)

They're much less crazy than payday-lending services, and the rest of the world agrees.

By Joe Pinsker

https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2015/10/bernie-sanders-lets-turn-post-offices-into-banks/411589/

SNIP
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:

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 institutions 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.
SNIP

==========
article says he put the idea out in the WSJ in 2014 too

[moose65]

6. A Postal Credit Union?

I am a huge fan of credit unions. They are non-profit, so they don't have the constant need for more and more profits to satisfy their hungry investors.

Most of us don't need a bank or CU to hold millions of dollars for us. And for those at the very bottom of the economic ladder, this would be a lifeline. I hate those check-cashing services and payday lenders.

[DBoon]

5. We used to have one until 1967

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Postal_Savings_System

The United States Postal Savings System was a postal savings system signed into law by President William Howard Taft and operated by the United States Post Office Department, predecessor of the United States Postal Service, from January 1, 1911, until July 1, 1967.[1][2]

The Postal Savings System was established as a result of lobbying by farmers and workers with grievances against the private banking system due to numerous bank closures and inadequate credit opportunities.[3] The system accepted deposits from the general public, but did not offer full banking services. Instead, it redeposited the funds to designated banks at interest. It took one-half percent of the interest to cover administrative expenses and passed on the rest—around two percent—to the customer. Accounts in the system were initially limited to a balance of $500, which was raised to $1,000 in 1916 and to $2,500 in 1918. Immigrants, workers, farmers and people living in parts of the rural West and Midwest were most likely to patronize the Postal Savings System until the Great Depression, when high rates of use were no longer “limited to certain places and particular groups.”[4] At its peak in 1947, the system held almost $3.4 billion in deposits. In addition to holding cash deposits, the system also sold fixed-term bonds and operated a Savings Card program. These cards provided spaces for a fixed number of postage stamps, each purchased for a few cents. Once filled, the cards could be presented for credit to a savings account in the system.

From 1921, depositors were fingerprinted.[5] This was initially 'not to be associated with criminology' but in some instances the Yours Truly, Johnny Dollar radio show in the early 1950s suggests Postal Savings account fingerprints were used for positive identification in criminal cases.

According to a 2019 analysis, "the program was initially used by non-farming immigrant populations for short-term saving, then as a safe haven during the Great Depression, and finally as long-term investment for the wealthy during the 1940s... Postal Savings was only a partial substitute for traditional banks, as locations with banks often still heavily used postal savings."[6]

[crickets]

7. K&R for the post and the discussion.