Time To Go Postal?
Here's a really interesting idea from a column in the New York Times: postal savings.
Back in days of yore, when dinosaurs roamed the earth and Wall Street didn't own our collective asses, U.S. post offices offered customers the opportunity of holding small individual savings accounts. During WWII, these accounts thrived with close to $3 billion (according to the article, $30 billion in today's money--still less than 5 percent of what the bailout is costing us!).
The most attractive passage for me was the one that posited that these postal savings accounts could help reduce our dependence on foreign banks. Because whatever path we choose to slog out of this horrible mess, it's going to have to come from US--not more borrowing and debt.
We no longer own our own country--it was sold out from under us. Could this be a way for us to slowly buy it back?
Is it perhaps time to put our money where Wall Street's mouth isn't?
Back in days of yore, when dinosaurs roamed the earth and Wall Street didn't own our collective asses, U.S. post offices offered customers the opportunity of holding small individual savings accounts. During WWII, these accounts thrived with close to $3 billion (according to the article, $30 billion in today's money--still less than 5 percent of what the bailout is costing us!).
The most attractive passage for me was the one that posited that these postal savings accounts could help reduce our dependence on foreign banks. Because whatever path we choose to slog out of this horrible mess, it's going to have to come from US--not more borrowing and debt.
We no longer own our own country--it was sold out from under us. Could this be a way for us to slowly buy it back?
Is it perhaps time to put our money where Wall Street's mouth isn't?
posted by Aaron at 4:21 PM
2 Comments:
In grade school we used to have every Wednesday when they brought out a yellow bank bag and hung it on the door of each room. The teacher passed out brown envelops and we put our change in it. over the years I watched as my account rose up to 12 dollars. Then the bank changed owners and they stopped collecting money. By now that 12 dollars may be up to 20 dollars but the bank has chnaged hands several more times. Like the CEO of AIG I'm shit out of luck. ed
Not to mention the employees of all these organizations! There's no golden parachute for them...
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