Actually this is an opportunity for me to learn something. Why does it shock you that people could bank with their post office? I mean not just the poorest people, but also businesses, and others? What fear(S) has this raised in you? what in your belief system got challenged?
it is all part of a left wing scheme to control the extension of credit in the US. the post office should be privatized as it has been the case in the UK, Netherlands and Germany. Italy ,not exactly a bastion of capitalism, says it will privatize the post office to improve efficiency. we shall see.
I only believe in what works and as much as possible facts and real logic. Why is it not appropriate from capitalism point of view?
There's a huge disconnect here that all these media articles never cover about the "unbanked". This article says that the average unbanked household pays $2400 per year in fees to the various entities for services, yet the primary reason given by the unbanked for not having a checking account - is that they can't afford one. Not sure where they are looking for a bank account, but I haven't found one yet that charges $200 a month in fees. Sure, there are some rural elderly folks out there and this USPS effort will be great for them. But the vast majority of this population are illegals, Americans with some financial issues, child support deadbeats and folks engaged in illicit activities, including tax avoidance. Many of these people have judgements or liens and the prepaid cards can't generally be garnished like a bank account. It's a good way for taxpayers to finance the fraud losses as well - which would serve to hide it. Prepaid debit card fraud is huge and growing exponentially every year. A big part of the reason that the fees are so high is to cover the fraud associated with them. Even the banks don't really go after these guys, they just add the losses to the fees. It's a crime that pays - for now. The amount of federal benefit fraud - Social Security, tax refund fraud, etc... is massive. The gov't doesn't chase these guys either unless they can easily determine that one guy may be getting huge money. I think the elderly and legitimate folks may get the stuff from the Post Office, but the rest know that it's the gov't and won't likely go near it. I give them credit for trying to make an agency profitable and helping people along the way.
From a practical point of view, when you have 30,000 physical locations you might as well make the most of them. They should really function as bucket shops too. ...and sell marijuana.
Leave it to the righties to come in with their horseshit explanations. Newsflash: none of this would be happening if the lameduck Republican Congress of 2006 hadn't passed a last-minute bill designed to destroy the US Post Office at the bidding of Fedex and UPS. The USPO is now required to accumulate some ridiculous amount of pension funds in advance of retirements that no other government agency and no private business is required to do, and most other organizations wouldn't survive if they had to do what this outrageous regulation requires the USPO to do. The USPO has been struggling ever since to find ways to survive this agency-killing bill. I am very glad they can get into the banking business. Good for them. And shame on the Democrats for not killing that evil bill when they had the chance.
This threw me off at first when I recently visited France, but it makes sense. Get some stamps, mail a package, deposit a check. I didn't have a bank account but I saw the reasoning and convenience.