Thursday, July 24, 2014
1st National Bank and Post Office?
One of the ideas floated to "save" the Post Office, other than repealing that destructive pension requirement, is to offer financial services through your local post office. None of the services suggested are major but the nationwide network of post offices would bring them to many financially underserved areas.
Perhaps the most high-profile proponent of the inspector general’s proposal is Sen. Elizabeth Warren, a liberal Democrat from Massachusetts, who laid out her case for “postal banking” last week at a conference hosted by the Pew Charitable Trusts, a Washington research center.Opposition from banks and folks like Congressfelon Darrell Issa mark this as a positive idea for people. However, those same people mean that the idea has little to no chance of passage until we consign the Republican/Teabaggers to the garbage heap of History.
Warren said the post office was an ideal venue to provide affordable financial products for families of moderate means whose needs weren’t met by the traditional banking system.
In 2012, the senator noted, a quarter of U.S. households _ 68 million people _ spent an average of 10 percent of their incomes on interest and fees for check cashing and payday lending, about the same amount they spent on food.
If post offices teamed up with nearby credit unions or community banks, Warren said, they could provide similar services for less, potentially funneling millions more people into the traditional banking system.
“That’s a win-win,” she said.
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