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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]

#551

Post by oh_sigh »

riazrizvi wrote: post #299
teslabox wrote: post #25

There are various advocates for allowing the USPS to return to the banking business. They would put the exploitative check cashing stores out of business. Ellen Brown's has written a copy pieces advocating for postal banking. What We Could Do with a Postal Savings Bank: Infrastructure that Doesn’t Cost Taxpayers a Dime - https://ellenbrown.com/2013/09/23/what-we-could-do-with-a-po... (2013) This piece concludes by su…

I don't think the Federal Government has any mandate that allows it to start a for profit business, on some whimsical political wind. The USA is designed to allow people to make a living, and it has limitations that prevent it from getting in on someone's lucrative business. Laws supporting free+fair markets on the other hand, are meant to make it possible for private citizens to compete...

This is just completely wrong, and I'm not sure why you think your beliefs about the federal government have any bearing on the reality of what the federal government can or can't do.

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

#552

Post by dungdang »

quickthrowman wrote: post #538
dungdang wrote: post #500

Earlier quoted context omitted.

it's more be'efitial to have flat rent that doesn't price peoplenout of living in certain cities simly due to housing rates. housing is an essential service. soo how that works? locations have different expenses. farms have cheap land. they have expensive delivery cost. taking money from people paying high rent to subsidize farmers is not 'benefitial' to people living in cities. it's benefitial to farmers. how about…

> it's more be'efitial to have flat rent that doesn't price peoplenout of living in certain cities simly due to housing rates. housing is an essential service. All first-class letters of 1 oz or less are identical. Housing is not identical, which is why it’s fine to have varying prices for housing. Many places have rent controls in place. The utility of having flat rate letter postage for every citizen outweighs any…

you don't know it's a federal crime for anyone but usps to do letter service. you don't know a company was shut down by the feds for trying. you don't know the whole argument people have been debating now and for the last 150 years is to allow private companies to handle letters.

so you looked it up, saw you were wrong, and changed your argument to 'parcel service' = 'letter service.'

you were given examples of why people want letter service from private companies, and how urban citizens pay for rural letter costs.

your argument at that point us 'you don't pay for it, the money to cover costs comes from a magic place, but if you do, quickthrowman has determined it's worth it, so case closed.'

thank you for the entertainment.

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

#553

Post by Discombulator »

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.

Replying to myself to correct my comment: the pension benefits funding appears to be in general - and differently from what I stated - not much different to the private sector.

The change introduced by the 2006 PAEA impacts however the funding of health care benefits of retirees, which have to be funded at 100%. This is not required of private sector companies.

Additionally, to build up this future retiree health benefits fund, a very front loaded schedule of about $5.7B yearly between 2006 and 2016 was chosen. In fact, the USPS was not able to fulfill this schedule and defaulted on multiple payments.

Best source I have found: https://fas.org/sgp/crs/misc/R40983.pdf

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

#554

Post by dungdang »

maxlybbert wrote: post #351
posguy wrote: post #259

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What are you on about? UPS and FedEx will happily charge you more to deliver to high cost locations, whereas getting a 50lb parcel overnighted from one low cost location to another is usually around $30 if you have a volume rate. There is hefty price discrimination against high cost to serve customers baked into UPS and FedEx's model, and smaller couriers like DHL and Amazon Shipping happily blacklist large parts of…

I believe it’s a reference to the Private Express Statutes ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Private_Express_Statutes ). I don’t remember the law requiring flat rates, but the rates are regulated and effectively required to be more than the post office’s. FedEx, UPS, DHL, etc. can’t legally compete with the post office on price.

United States v. John C. Gilmore. the supreme court determined it was illegal, and the people providing letter service, which was cheaper than usps, were arrested.

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

#555

Post by jonathankoren »

ericmay wrote: post #444
jonathankoren wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because they don't deliver everywhere. That's one of the biggest operational problems. They don't deliver consistently to rural areas. These companies farm it out. See FedEx Smart Post https://www.fedex.com/en-us/shipping/fedex-smartpost.html

So we let private companies have the most profitable routes, our USPS serves to either deliver spam to the suburbs or perform expensive rural deliveries? I feel like something here needs to change. I’m not really advocating for getting rid of USPS, but if the only leg it’s standing on is delivering to rural areas, I feel like we need to take a look at different options.

Who is going to deliver to the unprofitable rural area?

It certainly isn't The Market(tm), because the for profit companies have explicitly rejected it. Or are rural people supposed to just suck it up, and lose a constitutionally mandated service for ideological reasons?

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

#556

Post by AnthonyMouse »

djur wrote: post #509
AnthonyMouse wrote: post #474

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The example you're using is election mail. That's paid for by the government. How is it possible for the rate they'd have to pay in a competitive market with low margins to make it non-universal and yet it isn't already? If you want to deliver to everybody then you have to pay the cost to deliver to everybody , one way or the other. Subsidizing it through more expensive postage (disproportionately paid for by the poo…

Yes, I agree that the US Postal Service should be directly funded by the US government, not through postage.

How is that in any way better than the US government just paying the market rate for postage when it sends election mail?

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

#557

Post by jonahbenton »

pseudalopex wrote: post #537
jonahbenton wrote: post #449

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The monopoly on first class mail point is well exercised; will also point out that turning the USPS into a public corporation with shareholders does not itself have any impact on governance. Facebook has shareholders, and Mark Zuckerberg does exactly as he pleases with zero accountability.

Facebook has an unusual share structure that gives Zuckerberg a majority of votes.

Yup. A "privatized" US Postal Service with shares sold on an exchange would offer buyers of those shares exactly as much control as Facebook shareholders have. Maybe even less!

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

#558

Post by vinay427 »

bhupy wrote: post #125
0xddd wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How do these companies perform compared to the USPS? Just knowing that they're privatized without any mention of customer satisfaction, cost, or other comparative metrics doesn't say much about whether it's a good idea. (I don't believe anyone's main contention is that it's "novel")

I think it's certainly worth comparing which model produces more superior outcomes. We ought to compare the per capita expenditure, and the median delivery time. But also regardless of which is better, why is it all-or-nothing? Why can't UPS/Amazon/FedEx/DHL ALSO co-exist with the USPS? Today, they are prohibited from delivering any first class mail to a mailbox, by law.

I think that would be fine if they also gave a mandate to deliver letters at a fixed price regardless of destination. Otherwise, USPS gets left being forced to serve costly and inaccessible rural destinations while private companies don't bother serving those customers or charge far higher rates there.

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

#559

Post by vinay427 »

missedthecue wrote: post #527
coliveira wrote: post #391

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

The analogy isn't appropriate, in my opinion. It's viable to start a new grocery business and consumers can exercise choices in which ones they frequent. These options are not nearly as viable for healthcare (particularly in emergencies or when seeing specialists) or postal services (when serving an area as broad as the US).

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

#560

Post by riazrizvi »

oh_sigh wrote: post #551
riazrizvi wrote: post #299

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think the Federal Government has any mandate that allows it to start a for profit business, on some whimsical political wind. The USA is designed to allow people to make a living, and it has limitations that prevent it from getting in on someone's lucrative business. Laws supporting free+fair markets on the other hand, are meant to make it possible for private citizens to compete...

This is just completely wrong, and I'm not sure why you think your beliefs about the federal government have any bearing on the reality of what the federal government can or can't do.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Youngstown_Sheet_%26_Tube_Co._...
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