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

inthepublicinterest.org

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

#411

Post by coliveira »

treis wrote: post #360
coliveira wrote: post #242

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The situation of pensions is that the USPS is required by a law created by republicans to pre-pay their retirement fund for the next 75 years, something that no company in the world does. Not only this, but the money they pay is being diverted to the general government accounts, so it is possible that in the future the pension money is not there anyway, if the government decide not to provide the money in the future.…

>USPS is required by a law created by republicans to pre-pay their retirement fund for the next 75 years The USPS is required to pre-pay the pension costs they have incurred. It's not pre-paying the retirement fund for 75 years. It's putting money aside so that you have the money to pay your 25 year old worker the money you promised them when they're 100.

Incorrect, please do some research and see that it is not like this. For example, here is the article from Business Insider:

"[the law] required the post office to calculate all of its retiree pension and healthcare costs for the next 75 years, including for people it hadn't even hired yet, and put away enough over the next 10 years to cover them. To put this in perspective, that'd be like you only working from age 18 to 28 and then expecting to live on that income until you were 103 years old."

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

#412

Post by NoNotTheDuo »

derwiki wrote: post #180
tdeck wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> C.B. Richard Ellis (CBRE), the company holding the exclusive contract to negotiate sales for the $85 billion postal real estate portfolio, has sold off 52 postal properties for at least $79 million less than their fair market value. Worse, the buyers included its own business partners and shareholders, including Goldman Sachs. CBRE is chaired by Richard C. Blum, the husband of US Senator Dianne Feinstein, a family…

It’s probably not fair, but I give her a lot of credit for stepping up when Moscone and Milk were gunned down. Yea that was a long time ago and this is unrelated. Doesn’t excuse it; I just try to remember what she has done for SF as a whole.

She stepped right up and took the opportunity to fly a confederate flag THREE times - all to curry favor from the Democrats. Even worse, especially in the light of current events, is that she attempted prosecution of the black activists that kept taking the flags down!

https://lawandcrime.com/politics/feinstein-once-pushed-for-t...

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

#413

Post by coliveira »

kelnos wrote: post #405
missedthecue wrote: post #340

Earlier quoted context omitted.

there is no such thing as a free lunch

True, but the question is always: what level of profit is reasonable? A corporation, absent regulation, will charge as much as the market will bear. If they can charge twice as much but only lose a quarter of their customers, they'll do it. Such a situation with something like water would be a disaster. People would die.

We already have this situation going on in the health care industry. Companies will raise prices as long as profits can be increased. A large amount of the US population can't afford to have access to health care anymore.

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

#414

Post by woodruffw »

tptacek wrote: post #399
woodruffw wrote: post #349

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 disenfranchiseme…

Ok, but even if I was to agree with you about wealthy people supporting structural racism, how do you connect that back to wanting to privatize the Postal Service?

> Ok, but even if I was to agree with you about wealthy people supporting structural racism, how do you connect that back to wanting to privatize the Postal Service?

Poor people (including, disproportionately, minorities) are more likely to depend on public services! They're also more likely to be hired by public agencies and receive good salaries and job protections[1]. They're less likely to live in areas that private companies are financially incentivized to service regularly; they're more likely to not be at home for deliveries or not have a workplace that allows them to accept deliveries. A public system doesn't plug all of these holes, but it goes a long way.

[1]: https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2020/05/14/the-state-o...

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

#415

Post by DevKoala »

ceejayoz wrote: post #173
DevKoala wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How do you know it is spam?

It’s not worth spending 55 cents to mail it?

> Marketing mail volume for 2019 was 75 Billion

https://facts.usps.com/table-facts/

At a subsidy of 10 cents per envelope shipped, the US government is funding a $7.5 Billion / year worth of marketing operations for private companies and scammers of all sorts.

Also, according to those stats less than 10% of the mail throughput is used for the benefit of the citizens. Where you informed on this before engaging?

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

#416

Post by missedthecue »

kelnos wrote: post #339
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…

I think we can find quite a few examples, though, of things that are privatized but are horribly inefficient in the US (and are done much better in other countries). Healthcare is the primary example that comes to mind. And I'm honestly not sure where all the USPS hate comes from: I think they actually provide pretty damn great service[0], at a pretty damn great price. Their financial struggles are mainly due to Cong…

>I'm honestly not sure where all the USPS hate comes from:

I don't hate the USPS. I think it's mistake.

>You mention education, and the issues there mainly boil down to lack of funding.

Please spare me. The US spends an average of $15,400 per year per kid, which is an enormous cost. In NYC, it's even higher than this, yet their test scores and grades are worse than say Utah where the the cost is $5k per year per kid. Funding has, past an extremely basic level, no bearing on child academic performance whatsoever.

>Not sure I understand what you mean. In a civil trial, you still have the same lawyers represent you, and you get the same public-servant judges, etc. The state's word is final when a judgment is rendered.

In a criminal trial, only one party can file charges to begin with. The state. In a civil trial, anyone can file charges. Even after trial the inequality persists, which is why Roger Stone won't have to serve his full prison sentence. In a civil trial, the president/governor/mayor cannot pardon because he is not a party to the trial.

>In a civil matter, the state is a mostly-disinterested party

It is not a party, full stop. This is the advantage to the tort system.

>No, that's because criminal proceedings have a much higher evidentiary standard.

It's because the state simply chooses not to charge. Which is why the Director of National Intelligence did not get tried for committing perjury, and why Donald Trump hasn't been indicted with treason, and why it took Minneapolis to burn before Chauvin got charged with anything. The state has total control over criminal proceedings which is an enormous source of inequality.

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

#417

Post by bmitc »

cgh wrote: post #164
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 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.

That's very perceptive. Thanks for bringing that up. If that truly is part of the case, it's even more dastardly than I thought.

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

#418

Post by DevKoala »

mthoms wrote: post #186
DevKoala wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Like the parent mentioned, the service is exploited by companies to do their cheap spam advertising. Is it okay for taxes to cover this?

Do you have a citation for the assertion that this portion of their business is not profitable and being "exploited"? I'm genuinely curious.

https://facts.usps.com/table-facts/

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

#419

Post by missedthecue »

posguy wrote: post #386
missedthecue wrote: post #368

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

They had an effective monopoly, until their control of supply was broken: http://www.paulzimnisky.com/a-brief-history-of-de-beers

By market forces. Competition, when permitted to exist, produces net benefits.

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

#420

Post by cheez »

manquer wrote: post #310
cheez wrote: post #212

Earlier quoted context omitted.

India has a better solution: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-india-election-lone-voter...

It works in India because elections are federally managed , and poll workers are federal employees who have to do the duty . In US the rules are per state and complicated also while mostly paid poll workers are really volunteering for the job . The second part surprises me all the time , US May have lesser polling booths if they have lesser people volunteer to be poll workers . Despite collecting so much tax and have…

States are there to implement federal guidelines as well as their own. Nothing stops the US federal government from passing a constitutional amendment or a law that forces this type of setup. Aside from the corruption you mentioned lol
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