Sixty-four unions and community groups are demanding a banking public option—at the post office.

[BlueCaliDem]

3. The Netherlands has something like this. Formerly known as the Postbank (Post Office Bank),

it offered banking at competitive rates and ease that were far better than any commercial bank in Holland (ABN-AMRO, RaboBank). I hope this goes through because if it does, I'll happily open an account with them in order to support the USPS.

By the way, a correction. The article writes: "Congress imposed in 2006 that retiree healthcare benefits for the next 75 years be fully pre-funded within a decade, a standard far more demanding than those required by any other retirement systems."

It should read: "The Republican Congress imposed in 2006 that retiree healthcare benefits for the next 75 years be fully pre-funded within a decade, a standard far more demanding than those required by any other retirement systems." Because it were Republicans, in their zeal to privatize everything after getting fat campaign checks from both UPS and FedEx, pushed for this bill.

Major media coverage points to the rise of email or Internet services and the inefficiency of the post model as the major culprits. While these factors may cause some fiscal pain, almost all of the postal service’s losses over the last four years can be traced back to a single, artificial restriction forced onto the Post Office by the Republican-led Congress in 2006.
http://thinkprogress.org/economy/2011/09/28/330524/postal-non-crisis-post-office-save-itself/