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

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

#281

Post by bhupy »

djur wrote: post #257
bhupy wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Okay, we can agree that those political factions are wrong / bad. I'm just trying to have a nuanced discussion on the merits of a public postal service vs a public monopoly on paper mail.

It's possible to half agree with those political factions while still wanting to keep government subsidized public mail.

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

#282

Post by beepboopbeep »

darawk wrote: post #26
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 ideological. They believe that the government should not be in the postal business. They probably believe that it's harmful to competition in various ways, and they are probably right in certain narrow contexts.

Yes but ideological means tt's a systemic crippling of government pillars in order to collapse the federal government or otherwise render it inept.

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

#283

Post by usefulcat »

sudosysgen wrote: post #177
imgabe wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the belief is that a competitive business would be incentivized to offer a better service than a government monopoly. This doesn't work out though in rural areas where it's unprofitable for a business to open a branch or provide service. This would be the case for postal service in large parts of the country just like it's the case for Internet providers.

In that case, why not make suggestions to make the government service better and more efficient instead?

Laziness? It’s easier to destroy than to create.

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

#284

Post by Zak »

sudosysgen wrote: post #177
imgabe wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the belief is that a competitive business would be incentivized to offer a better service than a government monopoly. This doesn't work out though in rural areas where it's unprofitable for a business to open a branch or provide service. This would be the case for postal service in large parts of the country just like it's the case for Internet providers.

In that case, why not make suggestions to make the government service better and more efficient instead?

The postal service is a good example of a government function that provides some services that cannot be made efficient.

My dad lives part-time in an unincorporated village in Alaska which has a population of 13 as of the 2010 census. Once a week, the USPS essentially charters an airplane to deliver mail there, for which senders pay the same rate they would to send mail anywhere else. The postage obviously doesn't come anywhere near covering the cost of delivery. Without this subsidized mail delivery, which is often used for groceries and other supplies, the full-time population would likely drop to zero. While it's likely that at some point in the future, if that kind of mail service continues to exist, drones will make it more efficient, it will always be much less efficient than delivering mail to people who live in cities.

It's reasonable to ask whether it's desirable to continue to subsidize people choosing such a lifestyle, and there's a good argument to be made that it is not. Many of the people who live in remote parts of Alaska have a rugged individualist mentality and a dislike for the idea of subsidies, but tend to get quiet when theirs are mentioned.

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

#285

Post by justin66 »

andrewlgood wrote: post #217
justin66 wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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). Hundreds of millions of people use first class mail to pay their bills, rent, etc. and for all sorts of other things where those other delivery services would be needlessly expensive. The "basic problem" is that the post o…

? Are you suggesting the USPS is simply a job works program?

No, but the person I was responding to might have been implying that.

I think it's a "stable" job, although the retirement benefits and so on that a USPS letter carrier gets, for example, are not what they once were, and the post office also relies more on "non-career employees" than they used to.

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

#286

Post by toolz »

pryce wrote: post #151
darawk wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's ideological. They believe that the government should not be in the postal business. They probably believe that it's harmful to competition in various ways, and they are probably right in certain narrow contexts.

Ideological is close; If you are a billionaire, you didn't perform a billion dollars worth of labor; you got that way being the recipient of profits of significant fractions of entire industries based predominantly on other people's labor. If you make money this way, untapped resources don't necessarily look like untapped oil fields, instead they might look like entire industries that (with friendly legislators) can…

A more charitable interpretation might be that someone who wants postal to be private might want a more focused central public organization. If our representatives aren't thinking about postal services maybe they'll be better at other, more important things.

Not sure if a charitable interpretation is warranted but I can imagine good intentions leading to the same actions.

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

#287

Post by j88439h84 »

disillusioned wrote: post #72
j88439h84 wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If USPS didn't exist, do you think FedEx start delivering to those places?

Possibly, but at astronomical rates. But almost certainly not, if they were well out of their routes or extremely far-flung, because there would be no ROI and private entities exist exclusively to generate profit. The postal service is a constitutional public service to benefit our citizens.

Those high rates for delivering to faraway locations are because it is costly to deliver to those places.

It is often useful to require individuals pay for services they consume -- and for that payment to reflect the cost of the service.

What is the benefit gained by socializing the cost of remote deliveries instead of linking the price with the cost?

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

#288

Post by reaperducer »

sdinsn wrote: post #197
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…

> Is Amazon going to run ships around the Great Lakes to deliver mail to vessels moving between ports? 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 t…

No, because using planes to deliver to regional distribution centers is much more efficient.

How do planes and distribution centers get mail to people at sea for months at a time?

The USPS does not deliver mail directly to the majority of reservation residents

You're not wrong. But there are plenty of people in remote places on the rez who do get mail hours from the nearest trading post. Just because they're not the "majority" of people doesn't mean they don't deserve to be served.

The USPS does not serve normal consumers in very rural areas with standard mail features.

Either you and I define "rural" differently, or you haven't spent as much time in rural places as I have.

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

#289

Post by _emacsomancer_ »

isthispermanent wrote: post #267
_emacsomancer_ wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

I would disagree. Billionaires and mega companies are able to pioneer and validate ideas that smaller companies may not be able to due to financial or operational restraints. But once an idea is validated smaller competitors come in and start picking off verticals. Shopify and it’s 100,000+ stores are around in large part due to Amazon not only validating and producing best practices for the e-commerce model but also…

> I would disagree. Billionaires and mega companies are able to pioneer and validate ideas that smaller companies may not be able to due to financial or operational restraints.

Sorry, you mean that billionaires and megacorps are able to profit off of ideas pioneered and validated by publically-funded research institutes? I don't see how their inability to do so would be a loss to society.

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

#290

Post by rectang »

hogFeast wrote: post #71
bmitc wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The same argument of being harmful to competition could be extended to schools and libraries and . It's just mind blowing why we should care about companies more than people. So what if it's harmful to competition? What merit does that have? (These aren't questions for you. They're rhetorical.)

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…

> the people teaching them can usually kick back in a unionised job

I agree with most of what you say about competition and I wanted to upvote, but this dig at unionized teachers really makes me angry.

Many, many teachers are extremely highly motivated because they love the students they see every day and cannot stand to do any less than their best for them.

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