"Postal banking could revolutionize our relationship to our economy for millions of workers, and make our economy a more fair place for everyone."

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COMMENTS:
*  It is a good idea, and the Postal Service is losing money as a postal service, but this will expand their realm of opporations. Plus it does give a National banking option where you money isn't going to parasitic lenders like Wells Fargo.
*  The PO is a non profit organization and was set up that way. The PO isn't allowed to compete with business and add that to having to prepay in advance health insurance, they are behind the 8 ball before they even open the gate. PO banking will help.  I worked 44 years for this fine organization and want to see Congress actually do their job and fix what ailes the PO. Allow the PO to compete and they'll turn a profit.
*  Post Office banking is very much prevalent in Japan. Bernie must be having that in mind. It is easy for poor people.
*  Like the idea,but we need to get Congress to fix the mess they created in forcing the Postal Service to fund retirement out 75yrs and a few other things. Then this might work. Would be nice if hunting&fishing licenses were available to. Congress did this in order to privatize the PS. This needs to be fixed ASAP,no more privatizing public entities.
*  Actually it is a good idea. In my section of Pittsburgh, Banks have moved out of the poor sections of Pittsburgh. Check Cashing & Payday Loans have taken their place.  I found an interesting fact about Check Cashing Stores, they are run by Big Banks. I found this out while researching an investiment. I was interested in investing in a large New York Bank.  I found out that this bank had outlets in Pittsburgh, but I never seen or heard of this bank being in Pittsburgh. I researched further, and found the locations of the outlets. Well, I was suprised to find out that this Bank was actually a Check Cashing Store, which didn't list it's parent Banks name. If Banks have abondanded the poor sections of cities, then Post Office should take up the slack.
*  KiwiBank is a Nationally run Bank in New Zealand that opporates out of New Zealand Post offices. They are a good bank, and combining the two is very convenient because you can pay bills, do your banking, do your mailing and buy stationary all at the same time while knowing that the profits the bank are making off your money are at least staying local and in the public realm, The USA does have some good community banks and credit unions, but there is no reason why there should not be an option on the nation wide banking scene that is an alternative to the likes of Wells Fargo and Bank of America.
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Bernie's Brilliant Idea: Postal Banking
By Mike Leyba, October 22, 2015

At the Democratic debate, Bernie Sanders famously suggested that the only way to fix our country was with a political revolution. He suggested that in order to get our country back on track, millions of people would need to take to the streets and demand that the government return to its mission of helping people, not corporations. And by all these measures, one of his ideas would revolutionize the way people interact with our economy: postal banking.

The idea of using post offices to provide banking services is not a new one. In fact, from 1911 to 1967, post offices offered savings accounts. The idea was to get the "money out from under mattresses" and over time, encourage savings and wealth building. Many unbanked or underbanked people already frequent post offices, as the postal service offers money orders at a lower cost than nearly anywhere else.

In the United States, one in five households are underbanked, meaning that while they may have a checking account, they also rely on a network of predatory financial service providers (such as check cashers, payday lenders, auto title lenders, etc) to make ends meet. For Blacks, this number is closer to one in three households, and for Latinos, Native Americans, and Native Hawaiians/Pacific Islanders, one in four families are underbanked. Eager to profit off of this exclusion, alternate financial service providers rake in $103 billion per year in fees and interest at the expense of the most financially vulnerable. Postal banking could change this completely.

One type of predatory financial service that has been in the news lately is the RushCard, Russell Simmons' self described effort to "empower" black and low-income communities with prepaid debit cards. This week, thousands of users have been locked out of their accounts, told they have no account, or unable to access the wages that they worked for. On top of this, prepaid debit cards such as Rushcard often charge fees for inactivity, activation, adding money manually, or calling customer service, making it incredibly expensive to be poor.

This idea is not only possible, we have done it before. But more importantly, it puts people back in the center of our economy, not the big banks. Postal banking could revolutionize our relationship to our economy for millions of workers, and make our economy a more fair place for everyone.
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