Thanks for the comment.

Thanks for the comment. I know postal banking is seeing a bit of a resurgence with very capable scholars like Mehrsa Baradaran advocating for it. That said, I am still leery of the idea.

My colleague Steph Miller briefly lays out some of the problems with postal banking here: https://www.americanbanker.com/opinion/postal-banking-didnt-work-in-1910-and-it-wont-now

Additionally I worry that the post office would:

Be less accountable than banks because the Post Office enjoys sovereign immunity absent a waiver.

Be able to directly garnish benefits unlike banks.

Be less effective at underwriting because of an even stronger implicit government bailout than the one already enjoyed by banks.

Further insert the government in picking winners and losers if it tries to provide services like small business loans.

Those concerns not withstanding, even if we were to bring back postal banking (or some other government bank) we shouldn’t do that to the exclusion of improving the private banking system.