191–200 of 575 posts
It's funny how it's painted as malice and conspiracy, while the arguments on the other side are grounded in research and theory. The Kochs are the left's Soros conspiracy.
Is that those two french brothers who tried to publish fake physics papers?
I'm speechless.
Something I don't normally see discussed re privatization of US Postal Service is that it doesn't appear to be a novel idea. Singapore's postal service, SingPost, is a publicly traded company[1]. The UK's postal service, Royal Mail, is a publicly traded limited company[2]. Germany's postal service, Deutsche Post AG, is a publicly traded company[3]. Japan's postal service, Japan Post, is a publicly traded company[4].…
It is not a novel idea to privatize the postal service. It can be lucrative business, especially if focused on the right areas. The legacy system is based on the fact that it is public service, equally offered to all citizens, regardless of their gender, race, religion and location. So, it is not a business. A business would focus on the most profitable aspect of the postal service. It would likely not serve some are…
If you want universal postal service to rural areas (not profitable markets), then simply provide it and understand it has a cost like the military and education (as noted above)?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
On the other hand, privatized delivery poses the same problem as private control of the internet in the absence of net neutrality. If there was no USPS to compete with, what's the stop Amazon and other major retailers from coming to agreements with delivery companies to charge higher fees for "non-partner" deliveries.
The Sherman anti-trust act
Earlier quoted context omitted.
The chart doesn't show the relative volumes of mail. For every priority mail package at $14.95 that same $14.95 buys HUNDREDS of pieces of junk mail. The terrible thing - you CANNOT opt out of the junk mail, at least in the past (hopefully this has changed). I have no interest in the USPS as a result. What type of business that is supposed to be providing a service FORCES its future and current customers to kill tree…
What are you talking about? There is a volume column right in the chart. It shows that for every piece of first class mail there is roughly 1.5 pieces of marketing mail
And with EDDM you cannot get out of this spam blast.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I don't share that view, but i do think that there is a fraction of hardcore liberterians that truly believe we'd be better of without many of the government-founded services such as libraries, schools etc. Just to be clear, we don't have any problem with schools or libraries. We just think the model of having governments collect taxes and then pay for those things is broken. In consequentialist terms, it's broken be…
In deontological terms, taxation is not theft, because theft is the unlawful taking of property, and taxation is lawful. To argue otherwise requires a fundamental rejection of the legitimacy of the state, and most people are not going to accept that premise, which is why libertarian rhetoric in practice tends to rely on casuistic arguments about waste-fraud-and-abuse, red tape, and so on.
The amount of narcissism these people (the Koch's, for example) have is just astounding. If you're a billionaire, what could possibly be a reasonable explanation for why you even care about the post office? Why are these people so hell bent on hurting people to feed their own narcissism? The USPS could be improved but struggles primarily due to active efforts to kill it off. But it's a wonderful idea of a service tha…
> The USPS, libraries, public schools provide basically guaranteed service to anyone, anywhere. Libraries are a public service. They're free. The people who use them don't have to pay anything for it, which is a boon to those who otherwise couldn't afford it. It's basically a public subsidy for access to books. The postal service is a business. There isn't supposed to be any subsidy, you pay for it through postage, a…
Or is it more likely that the private carriers would expect and demand a rump Post Office to carry the mail they find unprofitable?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
There's no incentive for public companies to serve rural areas.
You're being downvoted because most people believe it when FedEx or Amazon or UPS say they serve 100% of Americans. There's no way they would do so if they had to have the same footprint as the USPS. Is Amazon going to run ships around the Great Lakes to deliver mail to vessels moving between ports? Is FedEx going to send a truck an a four-hour round-trip to deliver a single letter to someone on an indian reservation…
No, because using planes to deliver to regional distribution centers is much more efficient.
> Is FedEx going to send a truck an a four-hour round-trip to deliver a single letter to someone on an indian reservation for 50¢?
The USPS does not deliver mail directly to the majority of reservation residents. Most have to fetch their mail at the closest office, which could be upwards of 1 hr away from them. This is because most reservation residences don't actually have an address (which also prevents them from registering to vote, which is another related issue).
> Is UPS going to charter bush planes to deliver mail to remote outposts in Alaska, Samoa, Guam, and the Northern Mariana Islands?
The USPS doesn't either. The USPS's Alaska Bypass has a minimum order weight of 1000 lbs, it's designed for retailers. The USPS does not serve normal consumers in very rural areas with standard mail features.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Please provide more detail. I find the USPS to be one of the best things about this country. Every morning I get an email with photos of the mail I will receive, and a listing of the packages that are coming my way. I can’t remember the last time they’ve ever lost anything of mine. I’m sure not everyone’s experience is like mine - I’m curious how they can be so bad that they create a sense of loathing.
As I said, regularly losing mail. Regularly misdelivering mail. A lot of effort to get someone to even acknowledge the problem or even myself. My mailbox stuffed with junk mail all the time (even if I have permanent sticker telling them not to do so). I've even talked to the USPS delivery person and told her not to do so. Next week, same issue. Rinse, repeat. I've never, ever, ever had a problem with Fedex or UPS. Th…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Correct, and that is why schools in many places in the world don't do a great job of teaching students. No competition, no consequences (and compare that to the position students are in...they have to compete like hell, the people teaching them can usually kick back in a unionised job). Btw, I don't support privatised education either, and the evidence on various programs where it has been tried (charter schools in t…
> Are they better than the status quo though? Yes. No question. The socioeconomic situation in the U.S. is so poor that some of the top things public schools offer their attendees is food, water, shelter, and socialization. The people benefiting from these aspects have 0% of attending private schools. The fact that public schools are struggling with their educational duties is a political one and not one inherent to…
They would have a >>0% chance of attending private schools if they were each given their share of the public school budget.
I am not convinced that would be a good thing — my big concern is that a lot of 'private schools' would pop up which would just hoover up the vouchers, much as one sees with for-profit higher education.