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

521–530 of 575 posts

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

#521

Post by jahaja »

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…

> Meanwhile, in countries like Sweden, there is a lot of privatization in the rail and transit industry

The important thing is that there's hardly any of a dozen privatized large sectors that have actually improved at all, there are however multiple examples how things have become worse, with increased consumer prices and worse coverage in unprofitable areas of the country.

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

#522

Post by claudeganon »

darawk wrote: post #512
claudeganon wrote: post #486

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 i…

This misses the point of the example, though. The point is that not all labor has the same value. Albert Einstein's thoughts produced a lot more social utility than mine do, for instance.

Even Einstein, despite his immense genius, wouldn’t fail to acknowledge the social utility and necessity of all the mathematicians and scholars whose work informed in his own. He certainly wouldn’t express the sentiment “they were doing all that math and physics before I came along anyway.” Quite ironically, he was also a strident socialist, so I doubt he’d disagree with the labor theory of value either.

I used the example of the library cataloging because I think it’s an apt parallel. These systems, invented by librarians for organizing all of the world’s information, prior to the internet, have contributed immense social utility and enabled work that would be otherwise be unimaginable and impossible. But no librarian would claim that Melvil Dewey’s accomplishment was greater than that of all the works that have been catalogued. Page rank itself was derived from measures of academic citation impact scoring by Eugene Garfield, who I likewise imagine would’ve felt the same, despite being a successful entrepreneur on similar terms.

The sort of hubris behind thinking that abstractions of a network are more valuable than the network and its labor itself perhaps explains why libraries remain an incredible resource and Google search gets worse and worse, year after year.

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

#523

Post by rayiner »

jahaja wrote: post #518
rayiner wrote: post #334

Earlier quoted context omitted.

“Caring about companies more than people” is empty rhetoric. People care about companies and competition because companies create the things people want and need. Indeed, lots of people believe that schools, for example, should be subject to competition. Places like Sweden have school competition via vouchers.

> Places like Sweden have school competition via vouchers This system is also unique in the world and the results since its institution have been woeful. Massive increase in segregation, inflation in grades, bankruptcies where the pupils suddenly doesn't have a school. All because they need to market themselves as "good schools" to make the largest amount of profit. For the same reasons they tend to establish themsel…

It’s not unique. More than 2/3 of OECD countries have some sort of school choice. https://www.edchoice.org/engage/faqs/how-does-school-choice-...

> OECD’s reports show that, of the 53 participants, 25 countries’ governments (nine of which have top 20 PISA scores overall) provide vouchers and/or tuition tax credits for students to attend private schools (see accompanied table).

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

#524

Post by jahaja »

rayiner wrote: post #523
jahaja wrote: post #518

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Places like Sweden have school competition via vouchers This system is also unique in the world and the results since its institution have been woeful. Massive increase in segregation, inflation in grades, bankruptcies where the pupils suddenly doesn't have a school. All because they need to market themselves as "good schools" to make the largest amount of profit. For the same reasons they tend to establish themsel…

It’s not unique. More than 2/3 of OECD countries have some sort of school choice. https://www.edchoice.org/engage/faqs/how-does-school-choice-... > OECD’s reports show that, of the 53 participants, 25 countries’ governments (nine of which have top 20 PISA scores overall) provide vouchers and/or tuition tax credits for students to attend private schools (see accompanied table).

Not combined with state vouchers and for-profit schools.

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

#525

Post by missedthecue »

faitswulff wrote: post #455
missedthecue wrote: post #365

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

And if the businesses in question are rent-seeking oligopolies?

They aren't in any case. Total red herring

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

#526

Post by mindcrime »

sudosysgen wrote: post #493
mindcrime wrote: post #479

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Right, so your entire analysis is useless. You're not rejecting the state because of any real principle, but rejecting it axiomatically. And then, you also axiomatically decide that private property is fine. This doesn't come from any social analysis. Also, Lysander Spooner literally is against private property. He was part of the Socialist Internationale. The validity of his rejection of the state on basis of unjust…

Everything is "just axiomatic" at some level of regress, so calling something "axiomatic" isn't much of a dismissal.

As for Spooner: I am not saying I agree with his analysis on everything (same for Bastiat as far as that goes). I'm just pointing out that those two represent some useful sources of thought on the illegitimacy of the State. That was intended mainly for people who weren't already involved in studying this particular issue.

The question of "what is property" is an interesting and fundamental one for sure. I'm still chewing on that, honestly. Some days I think I know, other days I'm convinced I was wrong before. Lather, rinse, repeat.

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

#527

Post by missedthecue »

coliveira wrote: post #391
missedthecue wrote: post #340

Earlier quoted context omitted.

there is no such thing as a free lunch

Just because something is not free doesn't mean that a private organization should be entitled to sell it. In many cases this just becomes an additional friction to everyone. For example, health care is something that everybody needs and is not free. But this doesn't mean that paying a private company is the best option. Companies need to profit from health care to exist, which in turn drives up costs for everyone an…

You are under the impression that a profit motive drives up prices? Would we be in a better situation if the government was in charge of growing and distributing all food?

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

#528

Post by missedthecue »

_emacsomancer_ wrote: post #491
missedthecue wrote: post #350

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

You'll become Walmart?

Walmart has low prices on everything. If they are charging monopoly prices, why is their margin 3%?

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

#529

Post by treis »

coliveira wrote: post #495
treis wrote: post #484

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

What is the part of "calculates the value of all benefits to be paid out in the future, due to past and future service" that you don't understand? Congress required all possible benefits present and future be calculated (subtracting only future accruals, i.e., gains in investments) and then that money had to be raised over 10 years. That is never required from companies, which have to fund only the portion of pension…

>What is the part of "calculates the value of all benefits to be paid out in the future, due to past and future service" that you don't understand?

Because pensions go up with years of service you have to account for the worker continuing to work when calculating pension liability. As an example, say a pension vests after 5 years. What should the pension cost be for an employee in year 2? The best answer is something like 1/5 of the NPV of their pension.

That's what they mean by "benefits to be paid out... due to .. future service".

>That means the postal service is now paying for the future health care of retirees it has not yet hired,

Did you not see the part of my cite where that is specifically called a myth?

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

#530

Post by treis »

Discombulator wrote: post #514
treis wrote: post #434

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This "cost" is manufactured It's not manufactured. They are making promises that have a net present value of X dollars. That's a real cost they are incurring and it has to go on their profit/loss statement. >Up until 2006, the USPS funded those obligations on a pay-as-you-go-basis, No company is allowed to do that. All companies are required to fully fund their pensions: >The funding requirement under PPA is simply…

I am at this point not convinced that you are actually trying to understand, but if you read the text you linked, it says: > If a plan is fully funded, the minimum required contribution is the cost of benefits earned during the year. The USPS however, needs to fund not only the current year’s expenses, but also all expenses for the 50 following years. No one else needs to do this.

That's not what is required. Here is the text of the law:

> In this subsection, the term `Postal surplus or supplemental liability' means the estimated difference, as determined by the Office, between-- ``(A) the actuarial present value of all future benefits payable from the Fund under this subchapter to current or former employees of the United States Postal Service and attributable to civilian employment with the United States Postal Service; and

They have to fund the benefits that employees have earned. Not all of the pension cost that will be accrued over the next 50 years. That requirement is the exact same as private sector pension plans.

Post reply on HN