Right now, there are few ways for poor people to even try to save what little money they have. It is often hard to get an account, and even if you do, fees will be too high or interest too low to make it worth having the account. So the poorest have to pay usury fees to check cashing services–often owned by major banks like Wells Fargo or Bank of America. Also, those who do get government assistance, while on the program, must use debit cards from the same national banking concerns that charge usury fees on those cards… thus making a huge profit from taxpayers by charging the poorest among us for the use of these cards. So much would be solved by having a national postal savings bank. If we are going to treat the Postal Service as a private concern–thanks to rightwing tactics to undermine the postal unions–then let them compete against banks that are themselves gaming the system at every turn to perfect global corporate usury.

One reason public postal banks are profitable is that their costs are low: the infrastructure is already built and available, advertising costs are minimal and government-owned banks do not award their management extravagant bonuses or commissions that drain profits away. Rather, profits return to the government and the people.

Profits also return to the government in another way: money that comes out from under mattresses and gets deposited in savings accounts can be used to purchase government bonds. In Japan, for example, Japan Post Bank is the holder of fully one-fifth of the national debt. The government has its own captive government lender, servicing the debt at low interest rates without risking the vagaries of the international bond market. Fully 95 percent of Japan’s national debt is held domestically in one way or another. That helps explain how Japan can have the worst debt-to-gross-domestic-product ratio of any major country and still maintain its standing as the world’s largest creditor. If you owe the money to yourself, it’s not really a debt.

via Saving the Post Office: Letter Carriers Consider Bringing Back Banking Services.