Bernie actually advocated for postal banking because every zip code MUST have a post office but quite a lot of the more remote ones do NOT have any sort of banking available. He pissed off the bankers and now they want Biden to be in charge instead. Says a lot about this country and who runs it.
That was actually a Postal Service proposal that was backed by Elizabeth Warren before Bernie Sanders jumped on that bandwagon, but it it’s hardly a unique idea; many European countries have or do provide basic banking services as did Canada prior to 1968 and even the US Postal Service offered a savings account system where it managed money through private banks for clients which survived up through 1966, although the usage of it declined precipitously after WWII.
In an era where electronic transactions have become the norm (and are likely to become essentially mandatory due to the current pandemic) providing essential banking services to all is a very sensible move to ensure that people are able to access their own earnings in a useful fashion without predatory check cashing. Of course banks object to this because it reduces their ability to charge fees and manipulate holdings (my cite is Wells Fargo) but this has less to do with repressing Bernie per se (who has no actual plan to regulate finance other than “break up the banks”) than just maintaining the status quo of check cashing companies who are a powerful lobby in their own right.
Stranger
Oh yeah, like the issue the brought Bernie down was the friggin’ post office.
I know that Trump hates Jeff because the WaPo speaks the truth about him. Also because Jeff is an actual billionaire that can think his way out of a wet paper bag.
But. Why not just have the PO raise prices a little on all package deliveries?. Bailing them out makes no sense. We are going to pay for it one way or another.
Is anyone going to be overly burdened because the delivery of a package costs an extra dime?
FedEx has a big contract to move mail for the USPS, they hand it to the PO for the final delivery. I’m sure FedEx won’t mind getting paid extra for what they do.
Um, no. Other way around. The USPS delivers things for FedEx and UPS, as noted above. The USPS is an incredible logistical operation that has few peers worldwide. FedEx and UPS can’t do what the USPS does, or they would be delivering rural mail themselves. The USPS is taken for granted because it’s (a) always been here and (b) it’s cheap. But the one time postal workers went on strike, in 1970, Nixon had to call out the National Guard. They are now forbidden by law to strike.
There’s also a universal pricing regulation. Absent a contract with a specific customer, the USPS cannot charge one customer more than another for the same service. They cannot just decide they are charging Amazon twice as much as, say Walmart, to deliver their packages unless they have a contract with Amazon for different services.
Also…isn’t Trump’s threat illegal? Isn’t it illegal for the Federal Government to use their power to harass a specific individual or company? Trump has pretty much said there’s nothing more to this veto threat than that he wants to punish Bezos and Amazon for…something. If I were Jeff Bezos, I’d sue the shit out of Trump for this.
I’d further note that the USPS is older than the country itself - it’s been around since we were colonies. Maintenance of the Post Office is mandated by the Constitution so privatizing it would seem to be completely unconstitutional. I would expect even this Supreme Court to recognize that.
I think Bezos has more important things to do rather than sue a moron president. By the time the suit is settled or dismissed Trump will likely be out of office.
I suggested this in the “cash only” thread and was mocked.
For a long time Germany’s PO ran the phone system too. Since 1995 their PO is privatized and the phone system is private too.
Mocked for what? This is something many nations do with a high degree of effectiveness. Japan, which is an almost cash-only exchange economy offers savings accounts through its Japan Post Bank which is part of the postal system and for most individuals the only banking they have. As a visitor to Okinawa Province I appreciated it because it allowed me to pull money directly from my US-based bank and exchange it automatically for a very small exchange fee that was cheaper than what I would have paid to pull cash from an American bank, and you can find a post office with prominent placement and signage in every village big and small.
Stranger
If you assume that everything the gop does is in the service of plutocracy and a white Christian ethnostate then their behavior becomes much more consistent.
I always loved that one. It implies that ‘normal’ conservatism is a rapacious, thuggish meat grinder that rolls over people not only without compassion, but with vicious glee.
Trump is so corrupt that he doesn’t even recognize the impropriety of using the office of the president to carry out his petty vendettas. Does he know it isn’t his money? I’m really not sure.
Not his money yet. Its a work in progress.
He is doing the same thing he did his whole life , screwing other people out of money. A leopard cannot change his spots.
Not only that, but the post office is the only entity allowed to use US mailboxes. Many rural customers invest in large boxes to accommodate packages, because carriers do not like to get out of the vans. A few customers may instruct carriers to leave packages next to the box if they don’t fit in it, and others just resign themselves to the fact that the carrier isn’t going to pull into their driveway and walk the package to the door, but rather leave one of those orange notes in the box, and make them go get it at the office-- but the nearest post office is usually less of a hassle than trying to figure out which office your UPS or FedEx the package has been taken to if the driver didn’t feel like completing the route, or ran out of time.
UPS, FedEx and Amazon are not allowed to leave packages in your US maibox, so clusters of drop spots, like clusters of RR boxes is not an option for AMZ, UPS & FedEx.
FedEx won’t, they purposefully ended their partnership with Amazon last year.
Reasons:
1 - Amazon is increasingly building out their own delivery capabilities and becoming a competitor.
2 - Amazon is cherry-picking routes so they get lower cost dense routes and FedEx (and others) was/are getting higher cost sparse routes.
3 - Due to growth, within 5 years, Amazon’s logistics budget will exceed both FedEx and UPS entire businesses. For a company like FedEx or UPS to be able to handle that additional volume would require a significant investment in facilities and infrastructure, but all of that for one single account that is also building out their own capabilities.
Raising rates for USPS will hurt USPS more than anyone. USPS reported a drop in package volume last year (one of the qtrs at least) due to Amazon shifting to it’s own delivery. I’m sure they are cherry-picking USPS routes just like they did with FedEx. Raising rates would probably just increase the pace of the transition. Even if they don’t raise rates, USPS is going to continue to lose business to Amazon’s internal services, and the business that remains will continue to increase in cost to support.
I can’t get mail delivery. There are a number of counties in Colorado that don’t. Makes no sense to try to deliver in many rural mountain communities. Hell, you can’t get mail delivery in the County seat. There is NO mail delivery where I live, but can get UPS, and I suppose FedX. But I don’t bother. I have a USPS box and a UPS box in town.
But, whatever. Trump is just throwing another daily tantrum. He’s just a toddler not getting his way, and so he want’s to hurt others. That’s it. That’s all of it.
It’s absolutely ridiculous.
I can’t get mail delivery. There are a number of counties in Colorado that don’t. Makes no sense to try to deliver in many rural mountain communities. Hell, you can’t get mail delivery in the County seat. There is NO mail delivery where I live, but can get UPS, and I suppose FedX. But I don’t bother. I have a USPS box and a UPS box in town.
But, whatever. Trump is just throwing another daily tantrum. He’s just a toddler not getting his way, and so he want’s to hurt others. That’s it. That’s all of it.
It’s absolutely ridiculous.
Isn’t the argument that the USPS has to be subsidized exactly because they have to deliver mail to everyone regardless of whether it is cost-effective, so allowing Amazon to use the USPS is in effect subsidizing Amazon? I could swear I heard that argument floating around on the left a couple of years ago. And yes, I know the USPS isn’t literally funded by Congress and is theoretically self-funding, but it often runs at a loss and everyone expects the feds to bail them out. So that’s an implicit subsidy.
I think this is one of those issues that is heavily colored by who is proposing it.