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The Billionaire Behind Efforts to Kill the U.S. Postal Service [pdf]

inthepublicinterest.org

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Re: The Billionaire Behind Efforts to Kill the U.S. Postal Service [pdf]

#241

Post by antiutopian »

bmitc wrote: post #20

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…

It's their class interest, which drives them to view the world in a certain way. So as others are saying, it's ideological. But that ideology isn't a coincidence, it comes from justifying the sort of "work" that they do, day in and day out.

Re: The Billionaire Behind Efforts to Kill the U.S. Postal Service [pdf]

#242

Post by coliveira »

nickff wrote: post #175
quickthrowman wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agreed, there are no truly free capitalist markets in the US, except maybe black markets. The USPS is damn good at delivering the mail, I don’t trust any private company to treat a first-class letter with the care the USPS generally does. The Post Office actually makes money, but they’re legally required to fund a new hire’s entire projected pension at the time of hiring which lets Republicans point at how the post o…

What you're saying about pension payments is all wrong. They have the same obligation to fund promised benefits as any private company (which is different from government entities), and they haven't been making the payments.[1] [1] https://www.forbes.com/sites/ebauer/2020/04/14/post-office-p...

The situation of pensions is that the USPS is required by a law created by republicans to pre-pay their retirement fund for the next 75 years, something that no company in the world does. Not only this, but the money they pay is being diverted to the general government accounts, so it is possible that in the future the pension money is not there anyway, if the government decide not to provide the money in the future. The law had two draconian results: the USPS has to operate in the red, and the government has additional revenue that facilitated the tax cuts proposed by republicans.

Re: The Billionaire Behind Efforts to Kill the U.S. Postal Service [pdf]

#243

Post by jeffbee »

posguy wrote: post #235
missedthecue wrote: post #204

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How? How can a billionaire prevent competition without siccing the government on them through tariffs, regulatory hurdles, licenses, etc...

Buying up all the land that contains a particular resource then guarding it, thus permanently locking said resource away is one way to monopolize a market vertical.

If there had ever been such a person, even once, it seems like we'd be celebrating them today. If you could send a guy back 200 years to keep all the coal in the ground, you'd do it.

Re: The Billionaire Behind Efforts to Kill the U.S. Postal Service [pdf]

#244

Post by yingw787 »

bmitc wrote: post #20

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…

I think the wealthier you are, the fewer "real" problems you have, so sometimes you end up making up problems or creating problems for yourself to chew on.

I think the happiest rich people have a "wall" to push against and a "chair" to sit in when they're tired. Bill Gates has the health policy stuff to work on during the day, and his family to come back to in the evening. Jeff Bezos has Amazon to run, Elon Musk and Jack Dorsey have their companies and people to be around, average people have a job.

If you don't have that "thing" to chew on, if you just sit in on a board meeting and sip cocktails on a beach, it's easy to become lonely and feel like life is meaningless. You become like Notch and end up in a depressive spiral where you simultaneously have everything and nothing.

Not a psychologist or anything, just an interesting observation. No man is an island. Until he is, then he's Robinson Crusoe.

Re: The Billionaire Behind Efforts to Kill the U.S. Postal Service [pdf]

#245

Post by djur »

ip26 wrote: post #171
bhupy wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Right, and that exposes the reality that the USPS is at best, a state run subsidization scheme for rural mail delivery. But if that's the case, why subsidize it indirectly through selectively inflated prices, which regressively hurt poor people in urban markets)? Sounds like if the problem is that rural mail is socially important, we ought to subsidize it directly.

The USPS is entirely self-funded and they're still trying to kill it. Good luck getting appropriations for it.

Right. The problem with the USPS is that it's both been exposed to "market competition" and also has legal obligations that its competitors do not have. The cost of those legal obligations now far outstrips the value of their statutory monopolies.

Re: The Billionaire Behind Efforts to Kill the U.S. Postal Service [pdf]

#246

Post by treis »

mthoms wrote: post #168
treis wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>The major problem the USPS has is the 2006 law requiring them to prefund employee pensions at the time of retirement, which no other business has to do. This is a common talking point, but is factually incorrect. (1) The USPS hasn't made any of those payments since 2013. Their current financial woes aren't caused by the requirement since their not making the payments. (2) Pensions are required to be fully funded. In…

Citation? The linked article says: > The agency would be in a much stronger financial position had Congress not passed the Postal Accountability and Enhancement Act (PAEA) in 2006, which “requires the Postal Service, which receives no taxpayer subsidies, to prefund its retirees’ health benefits up to the year 2056,” on a 50-year basis. > According to the Institute for Policy Studies (IPS) in 2019: “If the costs of th…

There's two separate things here:

(1) Book profit: it appears that they're arguing if you ignore pension cost the USPS is profitable. But that's a meaningless point. Its like saying if you ignore what they spend on gas then they'd be profitable. Obviously you can't just ignore costs when calculating profit. These pension obligations are real costs that have to be accounted for.

(2) Cash flow: This is where pension prefunding comes into play. The USPS is running out of cash and if they didn't have to save it would take them longer to do so. But since they're not actually making the payments the law doesn't impact their cash position.

The USPS has about a 100 billion dollars in pension liability that they can't pay. And they haven't actually made money in like 15 years. Tax payers are on the hook for that and the amount they're on the hook for goes up by billions every year.

From the postmaster general:

>. In order to ensure that we had sufficient liquidity to fulfill our primary statutory mission of providing universal postal service, we were forced to default on $33.9 billion in mandated prefunding payments for RHB for the years 2012 through 2016. Additionally, we did not make $6.9 billion in payments due to OPM in both 2017 and 2018 for normal costs and amortization of RHB, Civil Service Retirement System (CSRS), and Federal Employees Retirement System (FERS) unfunded liabilities. Without these defaults, the deferral of critical capital investments, and the aggressive management actions described above, we would not have been able to pay our employees, our suppliers, or deliver the mail.

>Due to the factors outlined above, we do not have sufficient cash to meet all of our existing legal obligations, fully pay down our debt, and maintain a sufficient level of liquidity to ensure continuity of postal operations and meet our universal service obligation.

https://about.usps.com/news/testimony/2019/pr19_pmg0430.htm

Re: The Billionaire Behind Efforts to Kill the U.S. Postal Service [pdf]

#247

Post by conception »

isthispermanent wrote: post #224
bmitc wrote: post #20

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 idea that it’s purely narcissistic is without merit. Privatization is about fostering competition to ensure better products are created. Just because the USPS works as is does not mean it couldn’t be better. This is a classic “I like things the way they are” problem. Where the other possibilities are unknown and inexperienced and so are not given equal weight to a decision. I don’t particularly care whether the p…

Public schooling has had a tremendous positive effect on the US and countries world wide.

If it is failing, which it is not, it is for the same political reasons as the USPS is “failing”, which it is not.

Re: The Billionaire Behind Efforts to Kill the U.S. Postal Service [pdf]

#248

Post by llsf »

andrewlgood wrote: post #192
llsf wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

The USPS has already lost a fair amount of business to email and overnight package services. It is interesting that the reason we cannot “opt out” of junk mail is because it would cause financial harm to the USPS. As for banking and check cashing businesses, why do we think it is appropriate for the government to actively compete in those businesses? What if they decide to set up a technology consulting business? A s…

I agree, we should just realize and agree that universal postal service cannot be profitable and accept the cost (tax), like we do for military expenses for instance.

Having said that, having a universal postal service requires physical presence in lots of remote areas. And those remote areas not only lack postal service, but also banking, tax services, and even why not grocery shopping. I do not see why we could not let the postal service provide those extra services, especially in the remote areas. People in big cities would likely have a different bank, they have access to a DMV near by, or supermarket. But, in a remote area, how a retired person can cash his social security ? renew his driver license ? Maybe there is a "service" opportunity that would make those remote post office more sustainable. I do not see why the postal office could not provide other services especially in remote areas where they lack. The physical location of the post office becomes a more valuable asset.

Re: The Billionaire Behind Efforts to Kill the U.S. Postal Service [pdf]

#249

Post by wishinghand »

isthispermanent wrote: post #224
bmitc wrote: post #20

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 idea that it’s purely narcissistic is without merit. Privatization is about fostering competition to ensure better products are created. Just because the USPS works as is does not mean it couldn’t be better. This is a classic “I like things the way they are” problem. Where the other possibilities are unknown and inexperienced and so are not given equal weight to a decision. I don’t particularly care whether the p…

> ...I’m inclined to align with privatization. Everything can be regulated to a degree that requires basic service levels.

When companies get big enough to serve the entire nation, a few million USD in fines won't make them stop.

> But you can’t fake incentive. What is the USPS incentive to do better?

It's an intrinsic goal, set by those who truly do want to serve better. You can hire for that. USPS would have an easier time hiring the right people if they weren't hamstrung by billionaires weakening their foundations.

Re: The Billionaire Behind Efforts to Kill the U.S. Postal Service [pdf]

#250

Post by quickthrowman »

AnthonyMouse wrote: post #221
quickthrowman wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agreed, there are no truly free capitalist markets in the US, except maybe black markets. The USPS is damn good at delivering the mail, I don’t trust any private company to treat a first-class letter with the care the USPS generally does. The Post Office actually makes money, but they’re legally required to fund a new hire’s entire projected pension at the time of hiring which lets Republicans point at how the post o…

> Agreed, there are no truly free capitalist markets in the US, except maybe black markets. Are you kidding? They're all the markets nobody talks about because they're working. Go to the store and buy a chair. There are a hundred different kinds. Any kind you like. The barrier to entry is low. There are many competitors. > The Post Office actually makes money The problem with the Post Office isn't that they don't mak…

> Are you kidding? They're all the markets nobody talks about because they're working. Go to the store and buy a chair. There are a hundred different kinds. Any kind you like. The barrier to entry is low. There are many competitors.

I was operating under the assumption that a market that has tariffs on foreign goods [0] is not ‘truly free’ but perhaps you disagree.

[0] https://myhfa.org/tariff-relief-doesnt-apply-to-furniture-fr...

> USPS problem is a lack of competition

Do you expect a private company to service every single rural address that currently receives mail for the same or lower price? We can’t even get ISPs to wire the entire country.

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