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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]

#361

Post by boogies »

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…

> these provide a helpful service to people

To the people that run marketing and political campaigns, and utility companies.

Over 95% of all mail is not personal correspondence. ~50% is advertisements.

The UPS price probably reflects the fact it’s only allowed to compete with the USPS on an rigged, uneven playing field, through a legal loophole for “extremely urgent letters”.

And I wouldn't mind “killing” my local public library (despite spending hours playing Minecraft and Roblox there in my youth) in favor of the Internet Archive et al.¹, and public schools in favor of private schools that prioritize customer satisfaction over union agreements². And deunionize the police while we're at it: many of the violent acts and actual human killings BLM and others protest were perpetrated by repeat offenders kept in the force because of unions. After unionizing, police are 40% more likely to use violence.³

Camden, New Jersey fired their entire police force, hired a new union-less one, and decreased there murder rate while saving money that could then be spent on libraries, schools, etc. Private police have successfully served many communities.⁴

1: Edit: My area has private little lending libraries the size of large newspaper dispensers scattered around it, which work great because the area's dense and walkable; other less dense areas have libraries on wheels in the form of trucks and vans.

2: One of my favorite high school teachers was fired for lack of seniority because of union rules, and private and charter schools seem better by every measure I know of.

3: https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/Papers.cfm?abstract_id=3095217

4: https://reason.com/video/dont-abolish-the-police-privatize-t....

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

#362

Post by missedthecue »

LightBearer wrote: post #255
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...

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?

If your answer the question of how being a billionaire leads to monopoly is 'crime', I'll have you know that that can be done independent of billionaire status.

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

#363

Post by mertd »

gibsonf1 wrote: post #347
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.

Free market won't deliver to unprofitable zip codes, won't treat unprofitable diseases and cannot effectively account for negative or positive externalities created by a given business.

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

#364

Post by missedthecue »

conception wrote: post #247
isthispermanent wrote: post #224

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Public schooling has had a tremendous positive effect on the US and countries world wide. If it is failing, which it is not, it is for the same political reasons as the USPS is “failing”, which it is not.

How do you define failing?

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

#365

Post by missedthecue »

faitswulff wrote: post #237
isthispermanent wrote: post #224

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 is private industry's incentive to do better?

If you don't produce desirable results for your customer you go out of business?

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

#366

Post by djur »

chrisseaton wrote: post #298
djur wrote: post #292

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

The US equivalent to Ofcom is the FCC, which is not as powerful in statutory authority nor as aggressive in practice. Ofcom, among other things, regulates rates and service days for Royal Mail. I do not believe FedEx or UPS would accept this degree of regulation in exchange for the liberty to deliver letters to mailboxes.

What's also significant is that Royal Mail privatization is less than a decade old. From a policy perspective, it's still an experiment. It doesn't actually have any competition for letter delivery. That Royal Mail has survived despite the lack of a statutory monopoly does not mean that the same would be true of USPS.

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

#367

Post by treis »

quickthrowman wrote: post #250
AnthonyMouse wrote: post #221

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Agreed, there are no truly free capitalist markets in the US, except maybe black markets. Are you kidding? They're all the markets nobody talks about because they're working. Go to the store and buy a chair. There are a hundred different kinds. Any kind you like. The barrier to entry is low. There are many competitors. > The Post Office actually makes money The problem with the Post Office isn't that they don't mak…

> Are you kidding? They're all the markets nobody talks about because they're working. Go to the store and buy a chair. There are a hundred different kinds. Any kind you like. The barrier to entry is low. There are many competitors. I was operating under the assumption that a market that has tariffs on foreign goods [0] is not ‘truly free’ but perhaps you disagree. [0] https://myhfa.org/tariff-relief-doesnt-apply-to-…

>Do you expect a private company to service every single rural address that currently receives mail for the same or lower price?

I don't quite understand why that's something we need to do. Those that live in rural addresses that can't be efficiently delivered to can pick up their mail in town. Sure, it's less convenient but lack of conveniences is part of living in the country.

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

#368

Post by missedthecue »

posguy wrote: post #275
jeffbee wrote: post #243

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If there had ever been such a person, even once, it seems like we'd be celebrating them today. If you could send a guy back 200 years to keep all the coal in the ground, you'd do it.

There are very few that will celebrate De Beers implementation of this monopoly business model: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/De_Beers#Legal_issues

De Beers does not have a monopoly. Look up their market share.

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

#370

Post by simoom22 »

nerfhammer wrote: post #231
pryce wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

according to the labor theory of value google should be rewarded less than altavista depending on which performed more labor

I'm not an expert on the labor theory of value, but I do know that's not a valid interpretation of it. For one thing, I believe it applies only at a macro, or sectoral, level.
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