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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]

#251

Post by mthoms »

ralph84 wrote: post #77
Avicebron wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Except demanding that all people in the US to be reliant on the successful use and ownership of a sufficiently reliable computing device is a very real form of discrimination. Arguments of cheapening electronics can be made, but just the issues that many people are having with remote learning is pretty strong evidence to the contrary.

Subsidizing access to computing devices would be much more beneficial to society than subsidizing junk mail and online shopping.

Is it being subsidised though? Or is it actually the other way around?

I've not seen any citation which claims the junk mail part of the USPS is unprofitable.

To be clear, I hate junk mail. I've just seen this claim made a few times without citation.

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

#252

Post by arnonejoe »

cgh wrote: post #164
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 also likely because they are trying to suppress mail-in ballots. These are overwhelmingly used by people who can't get to a polling station because eg it is too far away and they don't own a car - in other words, they are poor.

Whats wrong with sending a ballot via UPS?

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

#254

Post by runako »

trothamel wrote: post #41
abruzzi wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And the bigger deal (to me) is that none of the competitors are really competitors in the key area of the USPS--first class mail delivery. Can UPS, FedEX deliver a letter (or a bill, or check, or...) for $0.55?

Given that they're forbidden by law from doing so (without first paying the postage to the USPS), no. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Private_Express_Statutes

If I understand that correctly, one of the private carriers should be offering to deliver letters at ~$1.10 per ($0.55 to USPS plus $0.55 internal cost). The closest I've seen is closer to $10.

The USPS tithe isn't the bottleneck, but it would definitely make sense to unwind once a private carrier could break the $2/letter barrier.

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

#255

Post by LightBearer »

missedthecue wrote: post #204
_emacsomancer_ wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The existence of billionaires is far more harmful to competition than government is.

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

Artifically low prices, endless and expensive litigation (unless you count that as government siccing), corporate espionage, bribery, acquisition, extortion, etc.

Is it really that hard to think of what you could do with a coporate money and know government intervention?

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

#256

Post by dungdang »

gameswithgo wrote: post #228
dungdang wrote: post #189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

i do care about people. myself included. why do i, paying insane urban rent, subsidize a farmer who already gets my tax dollars to grow too much corn? it costs probably $10 to deliver a letter to his farm. he pays ¢42. i pay the rest. his letter should be $10. mine should be a penny. you know - the actual cost of delivery, paid by the actual person. fuck the post office.

you do not pay the rest.

when the cost of his letter is 10x more than he was charged, and the of mine is 10x less than i was charged, i don't pay more? seriously you don't understand? wow.

we go to dinner. you get a side salad, and i get a steak and some wine. we split the bill down the middle. cool? i'm not trying to diss you. i want to be friends with you.

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

#257

Post by djur »

bhupy wrote: post #146
reaperducer wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

These are all excellent arguments in favor of keeping the US Postal Service, but insufficient/inadequate arguments in favor of maintaining the USPS's legal monopoly on first class mail.

The problem is that the political factions in the US who are in favor of eliminating USPS monopolies are also almost universally opposed to the government subsidizing USPS.

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

#258

Post by acdha »

paulgb wrote: post #50
InTheArena wrote: post #13

The USPS's primary revenue source is as a Spam delivery service. That basic problem is why it has refused to modernize. Anything with any significant value is already sent via Amazon, FedEx, DHL or UPS, or hand-delivered (in the case of really valuable stuff). See: https://www.insidesources.com/outbox-vs-usps-how-the-post-of... The USPS has to be reformed and it needs a new purpose in life, other then stable governme…

From that article, it's not clear what USPS is getting the blame for here. Reading between the lines, it sounds like a startup asked them to reroute their customers' mail to them, and USPS said "no we don't do that"? They ultimately found a way around it but shut down due to lack of sign-ups[1], so it seems like USPS saved themselves some time. [1] https://techcrunch.com/2014/01/21/outbox-shuts-down/

Any time I read something like this, the safe assumption is that this is how they’re telling their investors that the problem wasn’t a couple of recent business school grads trying to get rich quick parachuting into a business they don’t understand:

“[we] knew that the USPS would not be able to work out its own problems, so perhaps naively, we hoped to partner with USPS to provide an alternative to the physical delivery of postal mail to a subset of users, hoping this would spur further innovation and cost savings.”

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

#259

Post by posguy »

dungdang wrote: post #230
posguy wrote: post #219

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How much does it cost to provide accurate pricing? Often the cost of metering can drastically outweigh the economic value of a simple, easy to understand/predict shipping service. This is why flat rate packaging is so popular across FedEx, UPS and USPS.

umm, no. it's illegal. a competing post service was launched, with variable rates, and the gov shut it down. by law, your rate has to be flat.

What are you on about? UPS and FedEx will happily charge you more to deliver to high cost locations, whereas getting a 50lb parcel overnighted from one low cost location to another is usually around $30 if you have a volume rate.

There is hefty price discrimination against high cost to serve customers baked into UPS and FedEx's model, and smaller couriers like DHL and Amazon Shipping happily blacklist large parts of the USA due to price.

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

#260

Post by bouchard »

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…

What you fail to take into account is that with a privatized postal service, non-profitable routes will stopped being serviced even if it's essential to the population.
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