Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2019/05/10/predators-vs-posties.html
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long hours of post offices across the country
I’m sorry what?
Also, was there a reason the Post Office got out of the microloan business in the first place?
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On Instagram, she posted her ride over to meet with Bernie on the Senate choo-choo, noting how much nicer it was than the House train, which serves many more people by far. Always looking to even out the balance. 
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Good.
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Still alive and well in Animal Crossing.
But they left the slumlords in, oddly. Constantly weighting you down with new debt, so you are never debt free.
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My area has a significant population of Latino and non-college whites who work at jobs such as small-scale construction, lawn maintenance, etc. - and a number of them use “payday loans” or “check cashing” services because they do not have or cannot get a bank account. Being old, white, male, and paid a comfortable wage, I am totally ignorant of why someone - even a low paid or seasonal worker - would be refused an account by a bank, especially if restrictions were placed on an account (overdrafts not allowed, debit card only, no paper checks, no loans) and they were allowed to charge a small percentage fee on each deposit to cover services. What barriers - other than perhaps language - do banks put up that cause people to use the predatory services that they do? Knowledgable info welcome.
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I don’t think they did any lending. The Postal Savings System was founded before WWI to serve lower income families who still needed elementary banking services. They were able to deposit money at the Post Office and initially earned 2% interest. This was before the FDIC, when bank failures were common and trust in financial institutions was low. After substantial growth during the Depression and World War II, use of the PSS declined as confidence in regular banks grew. Herbert Hoover attacked the PSS and almost a thousand other agencies and programs while serving in Eisenhower’s administration, as the PSS was one of a number of government institutions offering services that competed with private industry. The Postal Savings System was finally closed in 1967, with almost $50 million in unclaimed funds still hanging around.
Basically, it declined in popularity while simultaneously competing with regular banks.
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Expect Debbie Wasserman-Schultz and other current and former members of the Dem establishment who support this bottom-feeder industry to play hard and dirty against both Sanders (again) and AOC. Any Dems who support the payday lending should be ashamed of themselves.
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Also, Elizabeth Warren suggested the USPS component of this in an editorial back in 2014. https://www.huffpost.com/entry/coming-to-a-post-office-n_b_4709485
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Time to press uncle joe for his support on this, or a good explanation why not.
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Of course Trump supports the Pay Day Loan industry. Given how much debt he has, they’re the only lenders left who’ll loan him money!
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Oh No! AOC & Bernie are commingling ideas? Better call out the Progressive Police!
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As someone who has been overeducated and underemployed for most of my life, I’ve used payday loan services to keep from being evicted. I couldn’t get a basic checking account - the very simple account you describe was either not available or I didn’t qualify for it at any bank I tried, and of course a loan was out of the question. Banks literally don’t want you if you’re poor with bad credit, and it’s hard to be poor and not have bad credit.
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What barriers - other than perhaps language - do banks put up that cause people to use the predatory services that they do?
Banks require extensive personal information & up-to-date documents, & most banks charge fees, including a penalty on accounts that go below a minimum balance. If you are struggling to survive paycheck-to-paycheck those fees really hurt. A secured balance may be impossible to keep up, & you may not have time off to visit the DMV for ID (which also costs money; & a passport costs over $100, & takes even longer to acquire).
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Right? How is that a criticism of the bill? It’s another benefit of the bill.
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I wish. I’d prefer those criminals to lend him money over the criminals who have lent him money in the past.
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From someone that has (unfortunately) worked in both vanilla banking and predatory lending (really two heads of the same dragon), I’ll put it as straight as possible: the entire banking system is set up as a barrier to keep poor out and wealthy in. By “wealthy” I don’t here mean “rich” (though it does include them, too), but really anyone that can reasonably “pay it back”. That leaves those that are deemed unable to pay back to sub rosa systems, such as payday lending and various other schemes where the consequences of not paying back are more severe. In summary, it’s a class structure support system. In the USA we rarely ever talk about class divisions, but boy oh boy are they ever there!
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"In 1946, 68 percent of the nation’s towns and cities had both postal savings depositories and banks. And because banks could charge higher interest than the post office and were just as safe, the USPSS was no longer an attractive option for deposits. This is no longer true today as banks have been squeezed on all sides by money markets, capital markets, and foreign banks. Banks began to abandon poor areas and post offices remained, but without banking services. And once banks deserted low-income neighborhoods starting in the 1970s, the high-cost payday lenders and check-cashers flooded in.
"In 1965 the postmaster generals started to endorse ending postal banking. "
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J.Edgar Hoover - WTF was Herbert Hoover doing in the Eisenhower administration?
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