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[Dunamisdeos]

I think the Post Office is a good example, though. While it functions exactly as needed (and exactly no more, and exactly no less) it is also illegal to compete with it. Post is a necessary public service that is needed for society to function, though. Taking over an industry would have some different consequences.

[Telgin]

What would be the negative consequences of government run banks?  I've literally only ever heard of people complaining about private sector banks.  I guess customer service might slip but people constantly complain about that too.

I guess one drawback is that I'd never hear the end of it from locals about how the government did it to start taking all of our money away and enforce socialism.  I mean, they do that already and claim that stuff like the COVID coin shortage was the beginning of it, but I'm sure it would get a lot worse.

Assuming the government isn't outright hostile (and that may be a big ask), what would the negative consequences be?  Considering how much money banks make, I can't see how it would be a drain on public funding, for example.

[McTraveller]

I think the Post Office is a good example, though. While it functions exactly as needed (and exactly no more, and exactly no less) it is also illegal to compete with it.

With what part of the USPS is it illegal to compete?  I think this would be news to Fedex, UPS, DHL, Western Union, Amazon, etc.  You can even use many of those services to send letters!

[Frumple]

here you go

the short form is they do, but expressly in agreement with the USPS when it comes to what the USPS has an actual, more or less full throated, legislated monopoly over

[McTraveller]

 But... they legally allowed the other companies to do their thing, except access to mailboxes and apparently "first class letters."  So I think it's not illegal by the usual meaning of the word.

[Frumple]

I'm not sure what else you'd call being unable to operate without express permission of the organization they're "competing" with. That ain't competition by the usual meaning of the word, either.

[Dunamisdeos]

They don't have a stranglehold on packages. They DO on mail, which I think is defined as certain classes of weight and size. Also nobody but them can use mailboxes, and you are required to have one. People have tried to start competing services and have been shut down.

Also, for some reason I didn't realize we were talking about banks. I'd have less of a problem with banks being taken over. That is more of a public service than a private industry IMO.

For instance, I wouldn't necessarily want to see certain industries driven by innovation or STEM wholly taken over by the government. I admit to being mildly drunk AF right now and unable to argue about it properly 

[Frumple]

It's one of those "eh, I'unno" things for me -- a lot of the problem is that innovations (and "innovations", that are horseshit barely existent changes given a fancy name to fleece the unaware with) from the private sector are largely wildly overblown and (particularly) inefficient. Much of the good shit (and especially the affordable good shit) is coming straight from gov't controlled or entirely/nearly entire funded labs and related efforts. Public sector is the fukkin' bomb when it comes to innovations the average person is actually going to get much use out of.

Some sort of not-directly-controlled innovation/R&D based sector to run concurrently with a largely/entirely gov't controlled one is probably a good thing, but... what we have now hasn't exactly covered itself in wonder or glory. Profit is actually a pretty shit driver for research and innovation, it turns out. It definitely incentivizes stuff (i.e. a great deal of marketing and management), but a lot of it is way less than ideal, and that's not getting into the ways it stifles such things, too.

Be fine with a small private sector that had to compete with a much larger government one, basically, especially if there were clauses to no-fuck-you anything particularly groundbreaking out of their hands, but the big shit we have now needs a hammer taken to its collective kneecaps until its head can be removed from its profit obsessed ass.

[Dunamisdeos]

Sobered up. So I feel like in relation to the bank thing, banks SHOULD be a "works exactly as it says on paper, no more no less", much like the post office.

Part of why banks suck is that they prioritize their own profits over the entire US economy, on account of how closely tied they are to its function. I am EXTREMELY NOT AN EXPERT, but I feel like all of the regular "oh no banks were extra corrupt this year, time for a massive recession" would at least happen less.

[Ziusudra]

"And I sincerely believe with you, that banking establishments are more dangerous than standing armies" - Thomas Jefferson, in a letter to John Taylor in 1816

[EuchreJack]

Uh, technically the banking industry works exactly like the post office.
The US Government controls the ability to print money, and the banks have to get their money FROM the Government.
The only real difference is that the US Government's bank doesn't often deal with private citizens, but rather lends to the banks that lend to the citizens.
But you CAN borrow money from the US Government under certain circumstances.  Farm Loans, Veterans Loans, HUD.

It might make more sense to discuss particular problems with particular banks, then discuss various ways to solve those problems, otherwise we're just bitching.

ALSO: I find it HILARIOUS that Economists, who presumably live in cities, are all about disbanding the Post Office with the logic "fuck rural people".
As I happen to live in one of those rural areas, I politely respond "Fuck those Economists".  Especially since they fail to understand that rural people tend to be poorer people. Just look at the cable companies and you can see how few fucks private enterprise has for rural areas.
I LOVE THE POST OFFICE.  Who else is gonna mail my shit for 53 cents?

[MrRoboto75]

its mostly repubs insisting the post office needs to be profitable, even in the middle of nowhere, that undermines the post office.  Not just city folk and their economics.

The postal service needs to just exist as part of basic infrastructure.

[hector13]

Cable companies don’t tend to service rural areas (or are otherwise very expensive) because they’re rural areas. All their shit is based in cities because that’s where the most customers are, in terms of density (so you can get more customers for the same lines) and numbers.

It costs money to build shit from there to service far away places, where there are fewer people in less dense concentrations, so it’s harder to recoup costs.

It’s not because they hate rural places or people, they just can’t make money there.

[Rolan7]

Yeah, it's not animosity it's just capitalism being... callous.

Mail is recognized as a necessity so the US Post Service has to deliver it to literally every address in the country, including the Alaskan boonies, at whatever cost.  It's a burden, but it's the nature of the Service.

Private delivery companies like FedEx, DHL, or the semi-infringingly named UPS (I experienced brand confusion for a LONG time) don't have that requirement.  I've heard that if they need to deliver something to a rural American then they'll often use the USPS for the worst parts of the journey.

That's not animosity, it's just capitalism being... callous.  Again.  What's beautiful to me is that the USPS remains a very competitive "company" despite having to provide such services.  We pay incredible overhead to these private corporations for package delivery and what do we get?  Sub-contracting the worst jobs to the public service who's legally obligated to do the hard work.  Brilliant stuff.

I'm not going to go full socialist here, but I think there are some services which might benefit from "capitalist efficiency" and some which absolutely do not.  Insurance of any sort should never be private, and utilities probably shouldn't either.  Competition doesn't lead to better outcomes for such necessities, it results in wrongfully denied claims and service losses.  I don't know if banks can benefit from competition or not, but I know that they sure robbed us blind with collusion in the Banking Crisis.

[Egan_BW]

Anyways let's give the USPS a trillion monies to build high speed internet everywhere because in the modern world that's a necessity too.