Greeeeat, turn the fucking postal service into a flat-rate criminal usury house. They already have the facilities in place. Yeah, run this bitch for president.

A seemingly genuine gangster...It's sentiments like yours EDB, that make the sane wanna run screaming from Amerika

I think it is a good idea, but I still don't get why poor people don't have bank accounts. Is it an educational thing?

@chingalera, I must say I'm not surprised that you would be one of the few people that could only see a negative here and get outraged by it. You have this inane ability to not listen to what people actually say, instead only hearing what you want to hear and make up bat shit insane nonsense over it based on your own bias.
I'm not against debate (although I do not enjoy participating, usually), and I enjoy hearing multiple views and reasoning behind them, when they are well thought out and make me consider my own view. Your babbling has never done that. At first it was amusing, but it soon became tedious and annoying.

And I've had enough, which is unfortunate because once in a blue moon you are capable of friendly or considerate banter, but these are all too infrequent. I shall be adding you to my ignore list, and I hope that someday you'll begin to consider what you say and consider another's opinion before going off half cocked.

Good day, sir.

In all fairness though. I don't see why we can't reduce USPS delivery service to once a week or at the very least to 2-3 times a week.

While I like the fact that we have a cheap mail delivery service, now that we're in the internet age, I don't see the need for service 6 days out of the week anymore.

He has yet to specify exactly why the republican are against this? I can't see, as he says that republicans are against helping people.

If pay day loan stores are charging that criminal rate then why doesn't some other capitalist step and charge 1/2 as much? 1/3 as much?

As far as Warrens idea it sounds good but is it feasible? Would the post office start getting robbed? Would they not a safe and stuff like that?

I think Warren's idea is a good one. There are post offices in other countries that have a banking service (not sure about 'payday' loans). It promotes a savings culture from early age.

Many poor people don't have bank accounts because the banks won't give them one. Even if they did, traditional banks don't have 'payday' loans either. (The places Cenk is talking about are a separate entity- not subject to all the same bank regulations, and that's why they can charge outrageous interest, because they are all high-risk loans).

He explains why Republicans are against it in the beginning of the video--they're looking to bankrupt the Postal Service (thanks, lobbyists) and this plan will save it instead.

As to your next point, no true capitalist is going to accept less profit. These places charge that much because they can. They're located in inner city or other low income areas where, if people don't have bank accounts, they also aren't likely to have transportation to shop around for the best interest rate. Which is why this plan is brilliant, because not only are the post offices already conveniently located, they're not running on a purely capitalist agenda (i.e. they're not seeking to maximize profit as their primary motive for being in business).

As to the last point, yeah, there would probably have to be modifications made to post offices so that they can store larger sums of money. But robbing a post office (or just messing with postal workers in general) is a federal offense, meaning you would get the FBI coming looking for you, not some keystone cops.

Yeah, there's a postal bank here in Japan and it is incredibly convenient. You even get an ATM card that's usable anywhere in the country. Just as you said, it promotes savings (they pretty much only deal with savings accounts). They do offer a variety of loans, although I don't know off the top of my head if they offer payday loans. Generally, those kinds of high-risk loans are served by shady places similar to the kind you find in the U.S.

Payday loans EDB, in the United States: Fast-money strip-center locations have been popping-up all over in every city now like warts on a leper, for the past 25 years, operating in a regulatory blind spot. They loan you money at an exorbitant, unfair interest rate fully expecting and banking on the person loaned not being able to pay back the loan according to contract then penalize with fines when the debt can't be repaid. Criminal organizations have relied upon USURY as a means of extracting money from helpless or uneducated and desperate people for centuries. Mafia organizations the world over have relied on this practice since they began. I don't expect the federal government to do anything much different as much of their activity has been criminal for quite some time.

Inhumane, predatory, sick.

SO it looks perfectly reasonable at face value??I call bullshit when I see it before it happens usually... Cenk here sees it as a wonderful way to create revenue out of thin air by taking the model of the payday loan places that already exist over, not unlike a mafia organization takes over territory of another criminal's organization.

If you think I'm skeptical you are correct, if you think I am wrong that is your prerogative. If you choose to block my comments or 'ignore' them, I don't care at all-It simply proves the point I make continually here, that those who chose to place their hands over their ears, or their heads in a sand-bucket are minion, and the few dissenting opinions are met with torch and pitchfork, either because of the language used to do so is too caustic, or perhaps that the truths in my babble that are too horrible and painful to consider are much easier to deride and deny or to even consider, to damaged sensibilities combined with an ego the size of Asia.

I also consider that your stance on guns and gun ownership as equally skewed, as is much of your political rhetoric. But hey, there are a lot of folks here who think the way you do. I happen to be one of the other people.

And again, Cenk, yer a pompous git whose ego is also bloated beyond fat, and your smarmy, smug delivery makes me want to hack-up my lunch.

You mean that there's a demand for a bank type institution to actually do what banks do: store savings and grants loans instead of taking your money, creating a huge sum of money from that, then invest that in to options and derivatives that is basically gambling, then losing it all and getting everything back as bailouts? Really, who would've guessed a traditional bank is a good thing when it doesn't run on "profit now" ultra-capitalist principle.

It's something that is very common elsewhere in the world. There usually is a demand for very simple, traditional basic banks that can't swindle with overdraft charges, credit cards pushed to people who can't handle them, just the basic bank you store money temporarily.

There are regulations in place that allow such banks to be exist and these banks are the real backbones of the economy, increasing growth in the smallest sectors that immediately invest that money back in to the economy. It might even be state backed bank or a group of citizens, it might be mandatory by law etc. Usually every country has one. It promotes equality, social mobility and keeps the cash rotating much longer than what investing towards investment banking does. The latter is just a cancer, it doesn't really do anything but it skims the most wealth and that wealth does not move anywhere, it stays in that imaginary system.

In USA, regulatory system is so stripped out that freerange capitalism is really showing how bad it is when it's left running things. Capitalism is like fire: good servant, poor master.

bored..

siftory lesson :

http://videosift.com/video/Colbert-Interviews-Elizabeth-Warren

*controversy

Adding video to channels (Controversy) - requested by MrFisk.

I don't get you chinga... payday loan places are legal, technically, but we all despise them because the fees are so inhumane, predatory, sick... as you say. Now USPS would get in on that market and drive those fees down, making the market less exploitative, taking money out of the hands of rich predatory assholes, putting it in the hands of working poor where it belonged in the first place, and saving an institution in one fell swoop... and you're.... against it? Or...?
I can understand being skeptical because it's not in front of your face working right now... but so far you haven't said why you don't think it would work. (If that's even your point... seems more like you're just plain agin'it.)

@chingalera Cenk is a person like you or I trying to figure a way out of this mess; I don't think the personal attacks help your argument. Most of us are wrong from time to time. It's one of the things that makes us human.

Now the real point: I have an issue with the "reasonable rate" being undefined. Payday loans are predatory and being in the business, regardless of rate, is a scary proposition. If they would double as a credit union I wouldn't have as much of an issue, but without an outright profit motive we can't do a thing in this society anymore. Even this proposal seeks to usurp the existing payday loan profits for the governments coffers... just at a more "reasonable" rate. There is no rate on a payday loan is reasonable; cashing a check should not cost interest.

Which leads to a greater point: We live in an era where we cannot implement decent ideas for the greater good of humanity because the current market can't bear it. What have we wrought here? Who/what are we serving?