USPS should get into at-cost banking. There's no reason there should be any underbanked persons without a no-fee ATM/debit card, savings account, and check cashing services.
In India, postman sells n pays money order (upto a certain amount) on the go on a bicycle. Bicycle because mostly its letters. Packages go through private courier only.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Postal_Savings_S...
We can't have this because people won't unionize and exercise collective bargaining outside the bounds of the law.
Why can't we have this? Big banks don't want it.
Why does that matter? Big blanks have too much influence over the government.
Why do banks have too much influence? Because money votes on politicians before people do (politicians fundraise before the primary which means that money votes on candidates before people do) and money contributions are unbound (thanks to citizens united).
Why can't we make our politicians work for us? Because we have less power than the our plutocrats.
Why do we have less power? Because the law prevents us from exercising it via unions (or other means) and those in power are able to keep us fighting eachother rather than exercising collective power.
Why don't we put justice above law? Because that puts ourselves at risk and most people would rather live a slave than risk death or otherwise when the powerful defend themselves from having their power reduced.
So if you want a government that works for you, you have to unionize, until people have credible power, we will not be able to influence the government to work on our behalf.
Unfortunately, corruption is endemic in any political system. Socialism also isn't a solution. Someone has to pay and be held accountable.
As long as it remained manageable its not necessarily a negative. What we are seeing is the debt fueled rage of two selfish generations piling up unchecked and snowballing; leaving us with the check, or more appropriately bag of flaming poo rolling down on us.
The less manageable the corruption is, the more it costs to manage it less effectively.
So the idea of manageable corruption seems farcicle to me. In your political model of reality, who is doing that managing?
> Socialism also isn't a solution. Someone has to pay and be held accountable.
I think I disagree. In order to hold someone accountable, you must have power. You cannot expect the powerful to hold themselves accountable.
So in your political model of reality, where does the power to hold someone accountable come from?
> What we are seeing...
I don't buy this at all as a key factor.
There is such a thing as the rule of law, but as you mentioned when the powerful band together in collusive behavior anything is possible, and its usually for their benefit. The rule of law as we've come to know it generally speaking usually requires appropriate representation with regard to crafting/maintaining those laws but that is not always the case.
Also, without maintaining a market which limits currency sufficiently to allow rational price discovery, you run into the Economic Calculation problem which has no solution. A form of it is inflation/deflation curves based on lagging indicators where you whipsaw closer and closer to the margins until one or the other outcome spirals out. Very dynamical.
> What we are seeing. >> I don't buy this at all as a key factor
We'll have to disagree. Its pretty obvious that previous generations starting at the point of taking the dollar off the gold standard have consistently spent more than revenue (negative cashflow). They've spread the loss in value globally, but its still a loss and worse its in lagging inflation adjusted payouts.
The bill always comes due, and the consequences of policies put in place over that time will be paid by generations who had no say in its creation. Debt can be just as coercive when backed by law (austerity measures).
Incidentally, a very similar issue came up during the French Revolution (Bastille) at least according to Thomas Paine who wrote about it in passing in his Rights of Man (1770s). That and Common Sense are both very interesting reads if you can make the time.
In my opinion, power should be entrusted to the people's representation in a republic with important limitations enforced independently to preserve their responsiveness to the people they represent.
For example representatives who spend more than X% of their time on activities other than representation, time for which they are paid by the taxpayer. Or representing/concentrating more than 80,000 people's voting rights in a single person aren't really representing their constituents in any equitable way. Exceeding either of those limits causes their responsibility and duty to fall in furtherance of maintaining their profession.
Fundamentally you think the problem with America is framed around money and monetary policy. I think the problem with America is framed around power, of which money is one form of, and the middle class and lower class loss of power.
power should be entrusted to representatives of the people, but what is the remedy when it is not?
Who "enforces independently"?
I don't agree with him on that point, but I haven't come across any other practical wisdom that accounts better for how to deal with people who do not give up power willingly.
I continue to hope, but then again I'm an eternal optimist at heart.
Systems could enforce it independently such as currency indirectly, if you required a funding plan for any proposed program. It does require functioning arms of government though and printing more money than tax revenue obviously not being an option. Corruption would need to be minimized with harsh penalties and not allowing conflicts of interest. Basic stuff.
You cannot have democracy or republic without citizens who live the ideal of "live free or die" or an educated aristocracy that can see the bigger picture and are convinced that they must exercise their power with responsibility.
You understand that in the game of prisoners dilemma, if the aristocracy defects and there are no consequences, that choice of defection is a winning strategy. You understandably don't like the answer because you bear responsibility for your half of the strategy, your strategy multiplied over the entire population is the game. It takes an MLK to bear that burden and we have none.
I think you underestimate unionization as a 2nd amendment alternative. Unions are not a legal construct, but a power construct. Companies and the economy at large cannot function without labor, and unions purpose are to use this property to get a seat at the negotiation table.
Do you think if we start shouting "no taxation without representation" it's going to be easier next year than it is this year? Of course not. Power is consolidating and will continue to do so, and the cost of taking it back is only going to go up unless our aristocracy can sort itself out, which is just "hope as a strategy." If you work in tech it should be obvious that hope is not a strategy. I'm sure the average Russian citizen used hope as a strategy, that's certainly the consequence of inaction.
FWIW, you might like the works of yale history professor Timothy Snyder. I think I am more extreme than him, but he is definitely the modern embodiment of the ideals of our founding fathers. He prescribes investing in our institutions as the potential back-pressure on our decay (my choice of word, not his). "On Tyranny" is a great very short book and he also put it on youtube. Very much worth a read/watch.
I think you would enjoy Snyder's talks on the "politics of inevitability" (on youtube) and the idea that democracy is something you do, not something you are. Which means democracy is the sum total of actions, culture, and beliefs of a society, not a structure and not a ritual. He would likely critique my post as one advocating for "mob rule."
Harvard Law Professor Lawrence Lessig also has some pretty choice words on the state of our democracy and has hope that we can alter it's course via education and campaign finance reform, particularly starting at the local level in an effort to eventually promote it federally.
Initially they were an alternative, but no longer given current case-law relating to corporate sovereignty and other legal frameworks/interpretations that allow dual faces when its most beneficial (i.e. your a person when it suits, your a corporation and not your responsibility when you'd go to jail as a person).
I've been paying close attention to the rail workers which have been largely absent from media and ruminating on what normally happens when you tell people that they cannot strike and must continue to work without pay increases in the face of staggering inflation over the span of 20+ years.
> Do you think if we start shouting ...
I think, at least from my studies, evil has a way of shooting itself in the foot, and compulsion; coercion and deceit all fall into that definition, at least when it comes to cascade failures and their resulting outcomes (historically, thinking of the Cultural Revolution under Mao).
You can only really do whatever is within your sphere of influence, given the consolidation of power outstripped my generation, there isn't much to do besides prepare for the worst.
If it is inevitable as most cascade failures become at some point, at least insofar that it happens regardless of anything you do, those that are prepared have greater opportunity to survive.
Engines either burnout or stall when the balance of factors disrupts normal operations.
I'll take a look at Timothy Snyder, I hadn't heard of him.
I'm familiar with LL, I liked Lawrence Lessig's presentation on tweedism. Really to the point.
As for your comment about Companies and the economy not functioning without labor. That is true, but its a troubling area because for a time they can function without labor. This is part of why AI/GPT related derivatives should be banned; but that's a topic for another day.
I think you will enjoy this if you didn't see it: https://www.reddit.com/r/CuratedTumblr/comments/13tpq18/hear...
This is a non sequitur from why we can’t have postal banking.
Imagine if every hacker news response was just a verbose "you're wrong." What low quality discourse.
If voting has been ritualized and is not very meaningful, where does power come from? If wages are determined by the relative power difference between labor and management, how is a laborer supposed to increase their wages? Would you expect labors wages to increase without an increase of power first? What if labors power goes to near zero? If we wanted to stop gerrymandering, where does that power come from? If we wanted to stop Pelosi from trading, how do we do that? If we wanted to bring back the per-Reagan tax rates, how do we do that?
It is about power.
We can't get a government that represents us because we do not have power. Corruption in our government represents a lack of the public's power at large.
We can't have public works because those works benefit the public at the cost of business. The government represents businesses because they have more power than the public. Businesses literally vote on candidates with money before the public at large votes. That's not a fringe idea. That is literally presented by Harvard Law professor and tech darling Lawrence Lessig.
So you think it's a non sequitur because you haven't asked the question "where does public power come from?" "How does a relatively powerless person exercise political force"? "What happens if voting is more of a ritual than a meaningful choice?"
Clearly it is a "sequitur".
https://www.fdic.gov/analysis/household-survey/index.html
https://www.pewresearch.org/internet/fact-sheet/internet-bro...
Even if they did, the banking industry is far too accustomed to its massively inflated ATM and overdraft fees.
I don't see the point in forcing the USPS into the banking market unless your goal is to invent new ways for them to incinerate money.
Now what?
Checks to pay for a kid's school trip, or a soccer club membership, etc are very much a thing in many of the EU countries with 50+ million inhabitants.
[0] https://www.statista.com/statistics/443677/cashless-payment-...
Bedsides being wrong, as another comment points out, you’re describing the EU’s largest economies.
[1] https://www.statista.com/statistics/443371/check-payment-in-...
[2] https://www.statista.com/statistics/1110744/share-total-eu-c...
Also, I am 36, and I live in a country (Denmark) that has entirely abandoned cheques, but I am still familiar with Danish cheques (even if I never managed one myself). Additionally, I still see them frequently when I am in France. (Though these days, the vast majority of cheques I see are US cheques, since my wife is American.)
Where cheque are still used, they verify and clear them the same day.
There are little reason to cash a check when everyone have a bank account
No-credit banking. That means the funds are not available until the cheque clears.
I'm only asking as many people who are "unbanked" are unbanked because no bank wants to do business with customers who play fast and loose with the rules.