2020 Democratic Candidates Tracker

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Brainster said:
Yeah, let's take an enterprise that lost almost $4 billion last year and put them into a new business in which they have no experience, and encourage them to make loans to people whom the banks have turned down. I can't imagine what could possibly go wrong.
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strawman.

It's about providing a checkings account, purely on positive balance basis.
It has nothing to do with providing loans.
 
Ziggurat said:
What exactly does he mean by lending discrimination? Does he mean not offering loans, or only offering higher interest loans, to people with bad credit? Because that is certainly a form of discrimination. But getting rid of that would be crazy.
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Lending discrimination is a real thing, with countless proven cases.
 
Brainster said:
Bernie's latest brainstorm:
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TragicMonkey said:
That doesn't seem that crazy to me.
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Is he saying that allowing the Post Office to provide basic banking services will end lending discrimination? Or is he just talking about two different banking-related problems in the same sentence?

Also, "allow"? Is the USPS wanting to offer banking services, but isn't currently allowed?

Also, is lending really part of the "basic" banking services? Maybe for an actual bank. But does the USPS actually want to be a fractional reserve banker, underwriting personal, home, and business loans for profit? That seems like a wildly different kind of business than offering basic money storage and transfer services to consumers.
 
Brainster said:
Yeah, let's take an enterprise that lost almost $4 billion last year and put them into a new business in which they have no experience, and encourage them to make loans to people whom the banks have turned down. I can't imagine what could possibly go wrong.
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On the other hand we have an enterprise already staffed with locations geographically distributed all over the country, that has records of everybody and where they live, that already handles a lot of government functions, and has time on its hands. Yeah, it's literally insane that anyone would conceive of that situation as ripe for redeploying in a different capacity.
 
TragicMonkey said:
That doesn't seem that crazy to me.
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It's stupid. Why not either ban loan discriminating or offer government sponsored loans or guarantees to people discriminated against?

Seriously the idea has to be one of the most expensive ways to solve a problem that has many solutions.
 
theprestige said:
Is he saying that allowing the Post Office to provide basic banking services will end lending discrimination? Or is he just talking about two different banking-related problems in the same sentence?

Also, "allow"? Is the USPS wanting to offer banking services, but isn't currently allowed?

Also, is lending really part of the "basic" banking services? Maybe for an actual bank. But does the USPS actually want to be a fractional reserve banker, underwriting personal, home, and business loans for profit? That seems like a wildly different kind of business than offering basic money storage and transfer services to consumers.
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Ask Bernie, not me. All I said was that it doesn't sound crazy, as the post I responded to seemed to imply.
 
Brainster said:
Yeah, let's take an enterprise that lost almost $4 billion last year and put them into a new business in which they have no experience, and encourage them to make loans to people whom the banks have turned down. I can't imagine what could possibly go wrong.
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They didn't lose 4 million, the government confiscated that from the USPS revenues. Look it up.
 
Skeptic Ginger said:
It's stupid. Why not either ban loan discriminating or offer government sponsored loans or guarantees to people discriminated against?

Seriously the idea has to be one of the most expensive ways to solve a problem that has many solutions.
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Ask Bernie, not me. I suggest you don't start off by calling him stupid, though. He might think it a bit rude.
 
TragicMonkey said:
On the other hand we have an enterprise already staffed with locations geographically distributed all over the country, that has records of everybody and where they live, that already handles a lot of government functions, and has time on its hands. Yeah, it's literally insane that anyone would conceive of that situation as ripe for redeploying in a different capacity.
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Next time you are in a bank and in a post office, take a close look. Your post suggests if I have a small office it wouldn't be much at all to turn it into a financial institution.

I think it suggests Bernie's getting senile or just plain carried away with his remaking the world fantasy.
 
Skeptic Ginger said:
They didn't lose 4 million, the government confiscated that from the USPS revenues. Look it up.
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Billion, not million. And the USPS did not make their payment to the feds this year (nor have they for several years):

Similar to the last several years, the Postal Service was unable to make the $6.9 billion in payments that were due to the federal government at the end of fiscal year 2018 to pre-fund pension and health benefits for postal retirees, without putting its ability to fulfill its primary mission at undue risk.
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