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

inthepublicinterest.org

291–300 of 575 posts

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

#291
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.)

"It's just mind blowing why we should care about companies more than people." So food is really important and vital. Should the government be in charge of growing and distributing food? Of course not. This experiment has been tried with horribly deadly results. The basic fact of the matter is that the market is far more effective at fairly distributing goods and services. If you look at the major sources of inequalit…

Doesn't the US healthcare system, when compared to other countries, stand as a direct example of how private companies aren't inherently better at equitable essential service provision?

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

#292

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's no incentive for public companies to serve rural areas.

Why do you think the Royal Mail serves rural areas?

Because the Postal Services Act 2011 mandates it, as does the EU, and it has been a source of financial difficulty in any case.

The UK is the size of the state of Oregon and about five times as densely populated. The UK also has a much more powerful central regulatory apparatus -- there is no US body that has as much power over private carriers as Ofcom has over Royal Mail.

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

#293

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"...any significant value is already sent via Amazon, FedEx, DHL or UPS" And then those things are handed off to the USPS for "last mile" delivery to the millions of rural addresses that UPS and FedEx don't delivery to directly with their own vehicles. USPS serves some very critical purposes, and ensuring mail 'works' for all citizens, even those with deep rural addresses, is one of them.

I live in a rural area. The nearest USPS delivery is at a post office 11 miles away. UPS and FedEx deliver to my front door. It has been the same in two other rural areas I've lived in. New Mexico, California and Arizona. I've never lived in a place that USPS delivered to that UPS and FedEx did not.

UPS and Fedex can be 3x the price to deliver to remote areas. I work for e-commerce company and we ship Usps to certain zip codes with USPS. I am sure USPS loses money on these shipments especially to Alaska where the surcharge can be up to $30 with UPS.

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

#294

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...

A billion ways.

Here's just one: run at a loss until your competition is driven out of business. Then raise prices once you're a monopoly again. (This isn't a hypothetical either, but a standard practice.)

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

#295
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 problem with certain types of libertarians (which the Koch brothers believe(d) they are) is that they overdo the market fundamentalism to the point of turning it into religion. At that point, anything that is not "of the market" turns into a religious war, with all the stupidity of all religious wars.

Markets are phenomenal things for the majority of goods and terrible things for a few goods (like common defence, the judiciary and pollution control). The post office is in the latter case - some people need to subsidize the system in order for (say) rural deliveries to take place.

The benefit of having a single universal system is important in a world where an enormous amount of things that are necessary to a functioning society (say, jury summons, or voting pamphlets or other government paperwork) need to be accessible to every single citizen in the democracy.

Eventually the Internet can replace most of these things, but then the government of a democracy needs to ensure that literally every citizen has free and reasonable access to the internet without meaningful burden, lest it disenfranchise the poor and the rural.

Oddly, the whole "defund the post office" thing seems to be mostly a Republican issue. I say oddly, because the Democratic base tend to be from more densely populated states and from larger cities in those states. These people are least likely to be affected by a lack of post office as commercial delivery services can supply the majority of their mailing needs in a pinch. The people most affected are people in large states like Texas, especially those outside of the cities, where it's less economical to deliver to.

Not to mention all of the other federal services that post office provide that would ultimately go away if the post office did. Things like passport processing, for example.

Honestly, I'm still kind of amazed at how people can be convinced to so consistently call for things that are against their own interests in the name of some abstract idea like "religion!" or "the market!.

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

#296
post #234
post #74

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].…

Whoa there! You’re asking a lot for Americans to know how anything works outside the US. It’s similar in Canada - a number of previously run public services were privatized (DMV equivalent, liquor stores, etc). And the level of service improved dramatically. I remember how awful the DMV was - crappy customer service, limited locations, terrible hours. Now I can go and register my car at 8pm on a Wednesday with a 5 mi…

In Sweden we have quite the opposite experience.

Privatization of the postal service has led to much worse service, closure of postal offices, long delivery times in less densely populated areas (read non profitable), and Loss of mail; to make profit, the companies hire the lowest grade, temp-workers they can get their hands on. Sometimes these people figure it is easier to burn or throw away mail rather than to do the actual work of delivering it.

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

#297
post #201

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don’t know too many billionaires who can have me arrested and incarcerated for the rest of my life.

What a silly remark. How many billionaires do you know? Billionaires are gods amongst men - why would you think they couldn’t dispose of you by public or private means?

It’s not silly at all. I’m far more afraid of the government who has the power to lock me up for the rest of my life (as has the system set up to do so) than some random billionaire.

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

#298
post #292

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why do you think the Royal Mail serves rural areas?

Because the Postal Services Act 2011 mandates it, as does the EU, and it has been a source of financial difficulty in any case. The UK is the size of the state of Oregon and about five times as densely populated. The UK also has a much more powerful central regulatory apparatus -- there is no US body that has as much power over private carriers as Ofcom has over Royal Mail.

> Because the Postal Services Act 2011 mandates it

Exactly.

> there is no US body that has as much power over private carriers as Ofcom has over Royal Mail

I thought regulating inter-state commerce and especially mail was something the US federal government has historically done?

In fact isn't there even a federal law enforcement agency specifically for it?

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

#299

There are various advocates for allowing the USPS to return to the banking business. They would put the exploitative check cashing stores out of business. Ellen Brown's has written a copy pieces advocating for postal banking. What We Could Do with a Postal Savings Bank: Infrastructure that Doesn’t Cost Taxpayers a Dime - https://ellenbrown.com/2013/09/23/what-we-could-do-with-a-po... (2013) This piece concludes by su…

I don't think the Federal Government has any mandate that allows it to start a for profit business, on some whimsical political wind. The USA is designed to allow people to make a living, and it has limitations that prevent it from getting in on someone's lucrative business. Laws supporting free+fair markets on the other hand, are meant to make it possible for private citizens to compete...

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

#300

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

you are bot forced to use the usps, you are not actually using it, so you are not paying the rest.

these sort of imbalances generally disappear in aggregate (sometimes your letter goes to a farm) and/or are worth the simplicity anyway, should you ever choose to take part.

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