121–130 of 508 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Oh great, now I get to buy the same item from Walmart at 20x the price. If I can even find the one I need.
Wal-Mart merchandise is not shipped via international post. This UPU situation has no influence here.
". . . all USPS international GEPS contracts will be terminated September 31st." Do courts just do the reasonable thing when contracts stipulate deadlines on dates that don't exist?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Huh? I'm not sure what this has to do with taxes or government spending. The USPS doesn't get tax money; it's financed by its customers, like any other business, it just happens to be wholly owned by the federal government. Postal rates are high because they're forced by the UPU agreement to deliver Chinese mail for almost nothing, so they pass the costs on to US customers.
The USPS has been getting money from taxes to offset the debt they run each year. For many years now they have been in the red. Fortune wrote about it back in 2015[1] and you can read the 2018 financial results[2]. Some tax money goes to the USPS. [1] https://fortune.com/2015/03/27/us-postal-service/ [2] https://about.usps.com/news/national-releases/2018/pr18_093....
The second just reflects Congress's attempts to deliberately hobble the USPS in 2006 by requiring them to suddenly pre-fund their pension obligations.
https://www.uspsoig.gov/blog/be-careful-what-you-assume
https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2018-04-04/congre...
> The law requires the Postal Service, which receives no taxpayer subsidies, to prefund its retirees' health benefits up to the year 2056. This is a $5 billion per year cost; it is a requirement that no other entity, private or public, has to make.
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I support this, and I'm a rabid leftist. Things should cost what they cost. The only time government should interfere with pricing is to force companies to price in externalities.
That does not sound like a rabid leftist? - You don't want rent control? - I guess whatever non-Pigouvian portion of tax/subsidy is also out of bounds?
I don't want rent, period. Housing and means of production are a basic need and should be provided outside of markets.
> I guess whatever non-Pigouvian portion of tax/subsidy is also out of bounds?
Following my system, there would be no money, no taxes, and government would be limited to coordinating between regions for large projects.
This actually sounds like a good thing. It costs Chinese shippers almost nothing to send stuff directly from China, while it costs me quite a lot to send stuff within the US, largely because I'm subsidizing all the Chinese shippers. Moreover, for me to send any parcel (even very small ones, like 2 oz.) outside the US costs a small fortune these days, again because I'm subsidizing the Chinese shippers.
But hey, look on the bright side... at least there is someone you can sue when your widget blows up.
Can someone shed light on the subsidy structure behing the current model, are shipments from China being subsidized by shipments from other countries or is there government money involved ? In any case this kind of subsidy is not necessarily bad for developing countries, and it was probably instrumental in China's phenomenal economic growth, but it is now in the conquering superpower category, it's time it loses this…
The Universal Postal Union rules for how international mail is paid for were established at a time when most mail was letters, and most letters would need a reply by letter.
So on average, every international letter delivered in Country X behalf of the Country Y postal service would be balanced by one letter delivered in Country Y on behalf of the Country X postal service.
No exchange of money between countries needed, and if a country had daily/weekly mail delivery or dense/sparse population or expensive/cheap postal employees or rich/poor citizens or tax/subsidy on post or efficient/inefficient processing that was no other country's business, so long as the number of letters balanced.
In the modern age, the number of letters doesn't balance, because no-one places their AliExpress order by mail.
> This is great news for U.S. sellers, especially eBay sellers. Exactly the intended consequence. Why should US taxpayers subsidize shipping costs for products to come from China? It made no sense at all in today's economy unless the only thing you care about is paying less for your goods regardless of the consequences, which I don't think is a majority position of adults today.
The actual consequence will be Chinese sellers using US warehouses and drop-shipping from there. Others send over a container with each ordered good and slap a local post’s label on it. Possibly that local post’s label is attached in China and the container just gets dropped off at a USPS DC by the private freight forwarder. It’s already fairly common. Overall, a few more US jobs, and maybe more USPS revenue for what…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Huh? I'm not sure what this has to do with taxes or government spending. The USPS doesn't get tax money; it's financed by its customers, like any other business, it just happens to be wholly owned by the federal government. Postal rates are high because they're forced by the UPU agreement to deliver Chinese mail for almost nothing, so they pass the costs on to US customers.
The USPS has been getting money from taxes to offset the debt they run each year. For many years now they have been in the red. Fortune wrote about it back in 2015[1] and you can read the 2018 financial results[2]. Some tax money goes to the USPS. [1] https://fortune.com/2015/03/27/us-postal-service/ [2] https://about.usps.com/news/national-releases/2018/pr18_093....
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Huh? I'm not sure what this has to do with taxes or government spending. The USPS doesn't get tax money; it's financed by its customers, like any other business, it just happens to be wholly owned by the federal government. Postal rates are high because they're forced by the UPU agreement to deliver Chinese mail for almost nothing, so they pass the costs on to US customers.
The USPS gets a monopoly on its gigantic market from the government. That is an enormous government subsidy. It is very much not like any other business.
USPS will deliver, door to door, a letter from Nowhere, MT to Remote, GA for $0.55, even though they take a loss on it. Try to get Fedex to match that.