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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]

#481

Post by relaxing »

brendoelfrendo wrote: post #462
missedthecue wrote: post #427

Earlier quoted context omitted.

it is more expensive because it must be shipped as a parcel rather than a letter. They can't ship it as a letter because it's not legal to.

I guess I don't understand the logistical difference, then, because that sounds like a semantic difference to me. What stops FedEx from saying "we ship this parcel for the same price as USPS ships a letter"?

One major restriction is a prohibition on offering delivery on a regular (daily) schedule. The relevant statutes also call out restrictions on price of postage as a multiple of the going postal rate, as well weight of the parcel. The USPS also has exclusive access to mailboxes.

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

#482

Post by runako »

treis wrote: post #473
brendoelfrendo wrote: post #462

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I guess I don't understand the logistical difference, then, because that sounds like a semantic difference to me. What stops FedEx from saying "we ship this parcel for the same price as USPS ships a letter"?

They're prohibited by law: https://www.law.cornell.edu/cfr/text/39/320.6 There are minimums they can charge and some speed requirements.

Per the USPS, it looks like there is an opening in law:

https://about.usps.com/publications/pub542/pub542_ch5_001.ht...

USPS has to get paid the going rate for postage. But given that no private carriers are within a factor of 10 of USPS pricing, that seems like it's not the barrier here. (Also: much easier to make the argument that the $1.00 letter service from FedEx could be $0.45 if Congress would update the relevant law.)

This really looks like the private carriers have carved off the profitable part (rapid delivery) and leave USPS with the hard, unprofitable part (delivery to 100% of addresses, for $0.55).

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

#483

Post by bhupy »

quickthrowman wrote: post #478
bhupy wrote: post #470

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> When it comes to delivering first-class mail for cheap, I assume there’s a minimum population density that allows for such a thing to be done cheaply (similar to now) and profitably. This is a bold assumption that needs backing, because it would suggest that Germans or Britons would be paying 2 orders of magnitude more on sending paper mail than Singaporeans. It also presupposes that private corporations must absol…

> This is a bold assumption that needs backing, because it would suggest that Germans or Britons would be paying 2 orders of magnitude more on sending paper mail than Singaporeans. It also presupposes that private corporations must absolutely turn a profit on every piece of mail that they deliver to every destination, but that’s not how most enterprises work — there can be sustainable loss leaders. It also presuppose…

> Germany, UK, and Japan are all roughly similar in density, and I bet it costs a bit more to mail a letter in Germany than Japan. I also bet it’s profitable in that population density range. It clearly is, since they’re operating private companies!

And on what basis are you betting that an operating private company in America can’t achieve the similar pricing outcomes? Is it pure conjecture?

> Also, 55 cents is not a regressive pricing scheme against the urban poor

Sure, and if that’s your argument, then why can’t a private corporation charge the same and maintain a national parcel mail network if it wanted to? There are loads of industries (airlines, payments, ridesharing) where margins are razor thin, but because of high revenues, there is plenty of incentive to serve remote areas.

> One last thing, USPS ends up doing last mile delivery for a lot of UPS and FedEx packages

While that’s true, this services represents the minority of UPS and FedEx’s total footprint. UPS/FedEx/DHL/Amazon still directly deliver the majority of their packages, even to remote addresses.

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

#484

Post by treis »

coliveira wrote: post #472
treis wrote: post #445

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>MYTH: the USPS is required to fund pensions for the next 75 years, for workers who haven’t even been born. >“[T]he PAEA required the Postal Service to calculate all of its likely pension costs over the next 75 years, and then sock away enough money between 2007 and 2016 to cover most of them.” The Week, April 16, 2018. >FACT: the actuarial valuation methods used by the USPS are based only on accruals attributed to p…

This is saying basically the same thing in a different language. > In this method, yes, the actuary calculates the value of all benefits to be paid out in the future, due to past and future service, and then subtracts out the value of the future accruals, to calculate the actuarial liability. I.e., the USPS has to raise the money to fund liabilities for 75 years, and it had to do so in 10 years, which essentially mea…

No, it's very different.

Your cite says they had to put aside money for all their pension costs over the next 75 years. Including people they haven't even hired yet.

My cite says that they had to calculate pension costs payable over the next 75 years that they already incurred. That's a much smaller number and matches the requirements for private companies.

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

#485

Post by Rebelgecko »

Avshalom wrote: post #466
Rebelgecko wrote: post #383

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which legal obligations that it's competitors don't have? If you're talking about the requirement to pre-fund their pension fund, my understanding is that UPS and FedEx (and all private corporations) were already required to do so. I think it's more accurate to say that PAEA removed an artificial advantage that USPS had. OTOH, FedEx responded to MAP-21 and similar pension funding laws by getting rid of their pension…

USPS is required to serve every one every where. FedEx/UPS punt their shit to the USPS when it comes to rural america.

It's not particularly rural, but it's the opposite case where my parents live. UPS, FedEx, and various courier services will typically deliver right to their house. However USPS doesn't deliver mail to their address. They have to pick it up themselves from the nearest post office

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

#486

Post by claudeganon »

nerfhammer wrote: post #438
claudeganon wrote: post #404

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree entirely, but the premise was that more labor went into Altavista’s indexing than Google’s, which is inaccurate. Google was better at capturing the value of labor external to itself, which was far more labor than was ever used to build Altavista.

hmm this may be a good point. is it really capturing value or is it creating value? people made links because they wanted to make links anyway. the value of links to a search engine doesn't exist without a search engine, and the existing value of links isn't diminished by that (except for the specific case of a manually curated link directory, e.g. the original yahoo).

The links were the prerequisite of Google/page rank, so Google only realizes that value once they had been created. They added value to that labor by making visible and accessible a dimension of this underlying network to others, but then channeled that mostly to themselves and ultimately disrupted, perhaps even destroyed (depending on your perspective), the signaling they observed.

They were not alone in this, but it’s hard to compare their impact on the web to say, various forms of cataloging of works in library networks, and come away seeing them as impartially additive.

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

#487

Post by treis »

runako wrote: post #482
treis wrote: post #473

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They're prohibited by law: https://www.law.cornell.edu/cfr/text/39/320.6 There are minimums they can charge and some speed requirements.

Per the USPS, it looks like there is an opening in law: https://about.usps.com/publications/pub542/pub542_ch5_001.ht... USPS has to get paid the going rate for postage. But given that no private carriers are within a factor of 10 of USPS pricing, that seems like it's not the barrier here. (Also: much easier to make the argument that the $1.00 letter service from FedEx could be $0.45 if Congress would update the relev…

I'm not sure how you reached your interpretation. The USPS is not barred from urgent delivery and has a competing product. They're just not as good at it as the private companies are.

As for regular mail, they don't offer that because it's impossible to compete when you have to pay your competitor for every sale you make.

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

#488

Post by dragonwriter »

mindcrime wrote: post #479
djur wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In deontological terms, taxation is not theft, because theft is the unlawful taking of property, and taxation is lawful. To argue otherwise requires a fundamental rejection of the legitimacy of the state, and most people are not going to accept that premise, which is why libertarian rhetoric in practice tends to rely on casuistic arguments about waste-fraud-and-abuse, red tape, and so on.

and taxation is lawful. And that notion is what many of us reject. To argue otherwise requires a fundamental rejection of the legitimacy of the state Not exactly, although plenty of Libertarians do reject the legitimacy of the State out of hand. I find the issue to be more nuanced than that. If you hold, as Bastiat did, that "the law" (aka "the State") can be something like - but no more than - the "collective extens…

> If you hold, as Bastiat did, that "the law" (aka "the State") can be something like - but no more than - the "collective extension to our individual right to self defense" and that no mere aggregation of individuals can have a right to do anything that a single individual doesn't have a right to do, then you can conceptualize a State that does things like, say, protecting private property, but which can't lawfully require payment of taxes.

You can only do that for the specific case if you believe that either (1) the specific concrete details of property rights are matters of self-evident and immutable natural law, not contextual judgements that involve a balancing of interests, or (2) each individual is empowered to define and impose their version of property rights on others. Otherwise, a state with no power that isn't exactly that held by individuals comprising the state cannot define property laws, much less enforce them. (Technically, it can't define property laws in the first case, either, but it can recognize the concrete and specific elements of, and enforce, the laws that were carved on stone tablets by the invisible hand.)

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

#489

Post by quickthrowman »

bhupy wrote: post #483
quickthrowman wrote: post #478

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This is a bold assumption that needs backing, because it would suggest that Germans or Britons would be paying 2 orders of magnitude more on sending paper mail than Singaporeans. It also presupposes that private corporations must absolutely turn a profit on every piece of mail that they deliver to every destination, but that’s not how most enterprises work — there can be sustainable loss leaders. It also presuppose…

> Germany, UK, and Japan are all roughly similar in density, and I bet it costs a bit more to mail a letter in Germany than Japan. I also bet it’s profitable in that population density range. It clearly is, since they’re operating private companies! And on what basis are you betting that an operating private company in America can’t achieve the similar pricing outcomes? Is it pure conjecture? > Also, 55 cents is not…

> And on what basis are you betting that an operating private company in America can’t achieve the similar pricing outcomes? Is it pure conjecture?

Yes, pure conjecture based on the population density data. It’s conjecture on your part to assume it can be done profitably so I guess we’re at an impasse here.

> Sure, and if that’s your argument, then why can’t a private corporation charge the same and maintain a national parcel mail network if it wanted to? There are loads of industries (airlines, payments, ridesharing) where margins are razor thin, but because of high revenues, there is plenty of incentive to serve remote areas.

Two facts support my conjecture that the service of a privatized USPS would not include all current users or heavily impact them via price hikes: We haven’t even wired last-mile high speed internet to everyone, and we don’t have true nationwide cell coverage. What makes you think private mail will be any different?

> While that’s true, this services represents the minority of UPS and FedEx’s total footprint. UPS/FedEx/DHL/Amazon still directly deliver the majority of their packages, even to remote addresses.

At least some of this is subcontracted out to other regional companies, I have a friend that works for a company that has a contract to deliver Fedex packages. It’s functionally the same thing as the USPS doing it, just privatized. I have nothing against parcel delivery being handled by private companies.

I just wish we could all view the mail as a public good that benefits people and is worth keeping around. I feel first-class letters should be treated as something all people should have access to at a cheap flat rate no matter where they live in the US. I also feel that is unlikely to continue if the post office is privatized. We could instead focus on improving the existing system we have to benefit us all.

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

#490

Post by [deleted] »

rayiner wrote: post #477
woodruffw wrote: post #414

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 priv…

You don't need a public postal service to achieve those ends. Many European countries have partially or fully privatized their postal systems: https://www.cato.org/publications/tax-budget-bulletin/privat... . The government then pays a subsidy (which can be easily scrutinized) to maintain universal service obligations. Purposefully making public agencies inefficient in order to ensure "good salaries and job protectio…

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