Although banking has always been entwined with government objectives, in the current US system the government supports bank profits while not requiring much from banks in return: Nearly half of the population is unwanted by traditional banks, and thus forced to turn to high-fee check cashing and lending services. Baradaran gives a capsule history of banking in the US and argues for a resurrection of postal banks, which could help the unbanked and provide modest amounts of credit without the life-destroying interest rates that current lenders to the poor charge. ( )

(will have to read this eventually: "To repeat, the credit union industry, created to serve the poor, now fought against a law requiring it to serve the poor.”")

And I have always favored Credit Unions due to their mandate to serve...

(will have to read this eventually: "To repeat, the credit union industry, created to serve the poor, now fought against a law requiring it to serve the poor.”")

And I have always favored Credit Unions due to their mandate to serve...

A thorough and understandable explanation of the history and current operation of the banking system in the United States. The book is well documented and her reasoning is persuasive. The forces against this simple logic are those with money, so . . . ( )

If one of your brethren becomes poor, and falls into poverty among you, then you shall help him.... You shall not lend him your money for usury.
-- Leviticus 25: 35-37

I should disclose right upfront that I know and am friends (probably closer to acquaintances, since we share several friends and geography prevents us from actually breaking physical bread) with Mehrsa. But she didn't give me the book. I bought the HB version of her book and the audio version as well because I was genuinely interested in these subjects.

Financial policy is one of my hobbyhorses, and the literature (JR, The Big Short, Flash Boys, Cosmopolis, The Bonfire of the Vanities, etc), both fiction and nonfiction, that surrounds money I find super interesting. Some of this is probably due to my background. I started off my working life as a policy analyst in an eastern state and now work as a financial advisor out West. My job used to be to analyze policy proposals and new regulations. Now, I work in the financial industry.

Anyway, I've decided this year to try and read three or four nonfiction book on the financial industry. I started with Bad Paper, read this one, and will hopefully get to Dark Money and The Money Cult before the end of the year.

In this book Professor Baradaran lays out the theoretical and historical basis for a public option (the US Post Office) to serve the large segment of the American populace that is underserved (read this book and you will be shocked by just how underserved AND just how many) by traditional banks and credit unions. This large segment is often preyed upon by the payday lending and check cashing industries which, from my own vantage point, are industries that add very few positives to the US economy. As we see income disparity grow, and the poor disenfranchised not just from civic life and political participation, but also banking, we are sowing the seeds of trouble for our democracy.

This book carefully lays out the problems, the history, solutions of the past, current alternatives and roadblocks to change, and points to probably the most viable policy option. Given the nature of Congress' polarization and inability to act on some of the most basic responsibilities of governing, I don't hold much hope of change in the near future. But as demographic changes swell the underserved, as certain parties (like banks) continue to shrink their tent, at some point there might be enough energy and support for real, public option, banking reform*. And at that point, this book will be VERY important.

Professor Baradaran is not Michael Lewis. She didn't weave her book into the life of some fascinating character that drives the narrative through the channels of postal banking. One of the byproducts of the Michael Lewis era of financial reporting is there is this unspoken expectation of the sexy and the sensational. There needs to be narrative arcs and glitter, and perhaps even a banker in a strip club. I'm saying that only partially in jest. The reality is that form of reporting has its place and certainly is enjoyable. And while I often love Lewis' ability to dance through a financial derivative with a bit of prep-school swagger and keep his audience semi-erect during a lesson on dark pools, most banking policy AND most banking issues are, by design, not meant to be read on the beach or seen on the Big Screen.

Mehrsa is not writing New New Journalism. This book won't get optioned for a movie. Sorry Mehrsa. :( This is a book that ends with 86 pages of notes. That is one page of notes for about 3 pages of text. This is a well-crafted, scholarly, peer-reviewed, piece. Her logic, arguments, and writing are tight. Tight. The pieces of this book seem to fit like some Incan stonemason's master puzzle. No Mortar. No knifable clefts. Solid and clean. This book is, at heart, a policy brief. But here is the analogy I used with my wife last night:

There is a story about Velvet Underground's first album told by Brian Eno. While Velvet Underground and Nico sold only 30,000 copies in its early years, "everyone who bought one of those 30,000 copies started a band." This book is NOT destined to compete with a Michael Lewis bestseller. It won't get optioned. But like money deposited in a bank with a very low reserve rate, some books (and some albums) are big idea multipliers. And who knows, perhaps, everybody who reads this book will also start a band.

*Also, if you read this book, you should also check out the Post Office Inspector General's white paper Providing Non-Bank Financial Services for the Underserved ( )