Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

inthepublicinterest.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

341–350 of 575 posts

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

#341

Post by sarchertech »

DuskStar wrote: post #312
EdwardDiego wrote: post #291

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

The US health care system isn't a good example of anything except regulatory capture. (It's a bad example of a ton of things, including both "government run health care" - thanks VA - and "free market health care") EDIT: though it does still provide the best care in the world, if you're able to pay for it.

[flagged]

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

#342

Post by TulliusCicero »

missedthecue wrote: post #273
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.)

"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…

Getting rid of public schools would just make things even more unequal. Poor parents would be simply unable to pay enough for decent education for their kids.

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

#343

Post by alasdair_ »

syedkarim wrote: post #321
missedthecue wrote: post #273

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"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…

"which is why killer cops never go to prison but their victims get million dollar damage payments" Yes, the civil justice system is more private-party focused, but you have conveniently left out why victims obtain judgements in civil courts when cops are not convicted in criminal courts. In civil litigation, a judgement is made based on the preponderance of evidence. In the criminal courts, the standard is "beyond a…

>you have conveniently left out why victims obtain judgements in civil courts when cops are not convicted in criminal courts

The primary issue is qualified immunity, coupled with the DA needing to rely on cops to do their jobs, leading to a massive conflict of interest. Unless the exact circumstances in one case occurred previously (and it was explicitly ruled illegal), a cop is let off due to the way qualified immunity works.

If a cop faced the same criminal trial as a regular citizen, they would very likely go to jail as most cases that go to trial result in a conviction.

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

#344

Post by thesagan »

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…

When there's competition to foster. Unfortunately, the pendulum has been swinging towards market concentration, duopolies, and even monopolies.

See: Health insurance industry

Also see: Internet service providers

Also also see: Publishing

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

#345

Post by manigandham »

ericmay wrote: post #30
alexbanks wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How do I do mail in voting via Amazon, FedEx, DHL?

The question is why can’t we? Why can’t the USG print and mail out ballots using these services? I don’t think they are fundamentally less secure, and if they are than we can just have them add on the capability of doing secure delivery.

USPS has a mandate to serve everyone no matter where how remote. No private commercial company can do that.

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

#346

Post by missedthecue »

gameswithgo wrote: post #300
dungdang wrote: post #256

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Literally no one else on earth can ship first class mail aside from the USPS. It is a federal crime. The USPS has a government enforced monopoly on the delivery of mail which is why UPS can only deliver packages.

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

#347

Post by gibsonf1 »

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…

What a silly idea, that a free market would be better and more efficient delivering mail than the government which loses billions a year? Fedex delivers anywhere you want - I'm sure they would love to deliver mail too with their network as would UPS etc. and you know how reliable they are as opposed to USPS.

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

#348

Post by nxc18 »

seizethecheese wrote: post #268

We are building a just-in-time distribution network on top of USPS (Bottomless - YC W19) We're able to deal with their slowness because we predict demand in advance using data from a smart scale. It's quite astonishing how unreliable USPS is. We frequently see packages get routed to a totally incorrect part of the country, derailing shipments for several days. Also, it seems like even USPS doesn't know when their pac…

Do you have any comparisons to other services? I’ve most often seen UPS route things bizarrely and I’ve had several packages delivered a day or two late.

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

#349

Post by woodruffw »

tptacek wrote: post #269
woodruffw wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Since the OP failed to mention the other reasons: ideological purity and profit motive come to mind. Edit: I failed to mention that the libertarian groups, at least in the US, are also a consistent reservoir and breeding ground for reactionaries. Another plausible explanation is that a lot of (ultra-wealthy) people have even worse politics, but launder their views through "free minds, free markets."

How is privatizing the Post Office "reactionary"? The origins of the USPS are in a pre-Revolutionary grant from the British Crown. It's always been a public service. And what is "worse politics" but a begging of the question? Ok, privatizing the Post Office is worse than keeping it public; I agree. The question is why they believe that.

> How is privatizing the Post Office "reactionary"? The origins of the USPS are in a pre-Revolutionary grant from the British Crown. It's always been a public service.

It isn't; the reactionary comment is a more general one about the relationship between self-labeled libertarians and political positions that are disguisable within the libertarian framework.

Being anti-postage and anti-national ID for disenfranchisement purposes are good examples of this; reactionary groups encourage normalizing these views under the auspices of libertarianism.

"Worse politics" is in that context; wealthy people have a (correctly!) estimated interest in lots of political positions that less monied people find unpalatable (cf. voter suppression, maintaining systems of wealth and power that stem from racism). (Right-)libertarianism provides a ideological veneer for these positions.

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

#350

Post by missedthecue »

_emacsomancer_ wrote: post #294
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...

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.)

This doesn't work. You can cut prices and lose money until the upstart firms go out of business, but you cannot raise them afterwards or guess what will happen?
Post reply on HN