I Wish The Government Would Grow Some Balls

Without an intervention from the government, the Post Office is ultimately destined to die a slow and expensive death.

Granted, we get a subsidy from them to keep open non-profitable branches in rural and deprived areas but this subsidy won't last forever and is kind of missing the point.

It would take a bit of political balls to implement as they would be a cost involved and no immediate and tangible pay off but the way forward is a Postbank.

There are a good few reasons why this would be a winner.

Firstly, it would help combat financial exclusion. A lot of the proles out there can't get bank accounts from the major high street banks. One of the main reason is that the banks don't like to publicise the basic accounts they do (ie. the accounts which only allow withdrawals if you're in credit, don't allow cheques, standing orders etc) as they're a loss maker. Granted Post Office Ltd would need to subsidise these accounts but it would help some of the poorest people actually get a foot on the financial rung. It would help save them money as they'd be able to get money out from the post office without being charged per withdrawal (the most deprived areas of Britain have the largest amount of fee-incurring cash machines) and it would help them get a credit rating and allow wages and benefits to be paid in directly. Granted very few of these shit-munchers would actually have jobs so it would be mostly benefits being paid in but, heh, you never know, one or two of them might get jobs.

Secondly, it would help restore confidence in the banking sector again. Currently, people don't trust the major banks as they've all been shown to be greedy, risk-taking, lying, money grabbing bastards. They've been bailed out with billions of tax payer money that we're all going to have to pay back some way or another. Thanks to them, we're going to have reduced public services and higher taxes for years to come. Despite this, the banks are rapidly returning to their high risk, huge bonus and non-lending culture. Given that we own a lot of the banks, you'd have thought that someone in power would have had a quiet word with them and told the bastards to sort it out. Fat fucking chance. I'm not saying that a Postbank would be a hell of a lot better but it's worth a stab.

Thirdly, it would help secure the Post Office network. If we had a bit more business then there'd be fewer non-profitable branches and we'd need less of a subsidy and everything would be hunky-dory. As it is, they'll be a gradual decline in the size of the network and by the time someone thinks to do something about it, it'll be too late to reverse the trend. Sadly, government and Post Office management seem to be happy managing a slow decline rather than giving the business a kick up the arse and getting it going again. Some of the things that management are doing are a step in the right direction but it's all a bit too half-arsed to turn things round properly.

Finally, (and this is the most important reason) it would make me more money.

So if you want to help make me richer, go to the number 10 petition site and sign up.