311–320 of 575 posts
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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?
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"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?
EDIT: though it does still provide the best care in the world, if you're able to pay for it.
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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?
Moreover, it's a completely neutral service - a ballot from Berkley, CA is treated identically in terms of priority as one from Amarillo, TX.
In a world where UPS gets to serve however they see fit, it's perfectly legal for the company to prioritize one over the other in terms of prompt delivery or to prioritize care that the mail arrives unmolested.
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"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?
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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.
And we can’t consider an idea validated until it is brought to market.
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> 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…
I didn't mention public vs private. This isn't what the debate is about, although telling that you brought it up unprompted, because most of these programs are government funded and are not private schools (there have been programs where public students are funded to attend private schools...these existed decades ago, and are not anything like today's programs...those did work too though btw, it just wasn't possible…
True, and yet as someone who is extremely liberal on social issues and cannot possibly find a home on the right, I still feel uncomfortable among many on the left who don't worry as I do about the potential for stagnation in the absence of competition. It's different than it was back in the 80s but there is still a divide.
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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.
I think it's fair to have the discussion, but it would make sense that any company that wanted the same privileges as the USPS would have similar obligations. Essentially, if we were to allow competition, we want all entrants to be fully self-sufficient and not dependent on USPS. For example, if they want access to consumer mailboxes in an area, they need to cover 100% of the addresses USPS covers without routing pac…
That strikes me as unreasonable. We don't impose that kind of a requirement on package delivery on one's porch...why should we impose that requirement on paper mail delivery in one's mailbox? In no communication enterprise do we ever require 100% coverage. Markets finds some equilibrium with global, national, and local players coexisting. The same can be true for state-run enterprises.
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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…
> Of course not. This experiment has been tried with horribly deadly results.
I assume you're referencing famines in communist countries, etc. In those instances, the government had a monopoly on food growth and distribution.
Your example is irrelevant because the USPS is just one of numerous mail carriers (UPS, FedEx, etc).
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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…
A billion dollar market is not the same a billionaire . You need the former you don’t need the later .
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> It's just mind blowing why we should care about companies more than people. Theres a middle ground here, ya know? At the end of the day we need companies that turn a net-profit by offering goods and services that ultimately lead to the tax revenue to fund those libraries, post offices and schools. > So what if it's harmful to competition? Again, it's a ideological positon. In the mind of people like the Koch brothe…
UPS, FedEx, DHL, all exist and make money.