The Billionaire Behind Efforts to Kill the U.S. Postal Service [pdf] • Hacker News Board

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

#561

Post by ericmay » Wed, Jul 22, 2020, 11:35 PM UTC

jonathankoren wrote: post #555

ericmay wrote: post #444

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

Is there a middle ground? I'm sympathetic to this, but at the same time I'm also sympathetic to not having a USPS in order to deliver only with unprofitable routes and to deliver spam mail.

What do you think we should do?

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

#562

Post by djur » Thu, Jul 23, 2020, 3:55 AM UTC

AnthonyMouse wrote: post #556

djur wrote: post #509

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

The US government does not send election mail, because it does not conduct elections. Elections are conducted by state governments. Election mail should be a free service provided by the US government in exchange for states adopting certain mandates, such as universal voting by mail with no postage assessed to the voter.

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

#563

Post by darawk » Thu, Jul 23, 2020, 5:01 AM UTC

claudeganon wrote: post #522

darawk wrote: post #512

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 e…

I don't really understand your point. Obviously the whole network is important. Einstein's contributions would not have been possible without the society around him to produce food and shelter, the centuries of mathematics and physics research he built upon, etc..

Nobody is claiming that these people did something completely on their own, or did not draw upon immense wealth created and produced by others. The point is that each individual person's marginal contribution to the global utility function is not equal. Einstein built upon the work of others but the edifice he created is worth more than the one I have created. He increased the social utility function more than me, so we can say that his work is more valuable than mine. This is completely orthogonal to whether or not he had help.

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

#564

Post by tim333 » Thu, Jul 23, 2020, 8:43 AM UTC

seebetter wrote: post #475

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…

Why can't a person open a bank account? I mean, I can't because I sold some bitcoin via Bank of America 4-years ago. Someone stole my info, I reported it as fraud and BoA reported me for fraud -- and all my bank accounts closed. And they refuse to fix it.

Are you blocked from all US banks?

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

#565

Post by harimau777 » Thu, Jul 23, 2020, 11:54 AM UTC

linuxftw wrote: post #536

harimau777 wrote: post #440

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A problem with this strategy is that libraries are often used by the homeless in order to study and apply for jobs. Librarians also provide expertise in sourcing knowledge that isn't available online; particularly with the way that Google search has evolved. Larger libraries also provide archivist roles and even small libraries may serve to archive local news and history.

Everything is a cost/benefit analysis. Do libraries provide some services that home internet can't? Yes. Does that make them overall a better investment? No. There's already unemployment agencies. Maybe they can setup computers to assist the homeless. Or you know, the homeless shelter could have a computer for job searching.

Certainly it would be possible to re-create the services provided by libraries elsewhere; but at that point haven't we just re-created the library?

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

#566

Post by sudosysgen » Thu, Jul 23, 2020, 4:41 PM UTC

mindcrime wrote: post #526

sudosysgen wrote: post #493

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 th…

Not really. If you have to state your conclusions as axiomatic then your philosophy has no point, at all.

If you have to axiomatically state that private property is good and government is bad, then I don't really see why anyone would have to follow your arguments, because not only are such axioms ridiculous, as seen by the attempt to create a rationalization for it. If the argument according to which the state is illegitimate has as a consequence that so is private property, but you still axiomatically state that private property is legitimate, you've also invalidated the original argument that the state is illegitimate, and now your entire worldview is based on two absurd axioms, and not any logic.

A moral philosophy or political economy is only ever valid and worthwhile if it is based on axioms/values that the rest of society share. For example - negative freedom is good, positive freedom is good, prosperity is good, and so on, which you'll find that people tend to agree with inherently. I don't think that there's anyone for which "private property is good" and "the state is bad" is an axiom.

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

#567

Post by coliveira » Thu, Jul 23, 2020, 5:34 PM UTC

treis wrote: post #547

coliveira wrote: post #544

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is very difficult to debate with someone who doesn't understand the very logic of how pensions work. No company in the world will pay the NPV of a future pension. Like any other person or institution, they will start making contributions over time to meet the requirements of that pension 20, 30, 50 years from now. To require otherwise is absurd. For example, suppose you are retiring 30 years from now. You cannot a…

>You cannot assume that you have to calculate the NPV of the required pension in 30 years and then contribute that value today ? Did you not read my post where it said: > The best answer is something like 1/5 of the NPV of their pension. Of course nobody is required to pay the entire NPV of the pension today. For an employee that is retiring in 30 years they are required to pay 1/30th of the NPV of their pension each…

Let's run the numbers and see if it works the way you say: In 2005, the last year used by the 2006 congress law, the unfunded liabilities of USPS were determined as between $50 and 59 billion [1]. In 2006, congress required USPS to make 10 payments of $5.5 billion. This doesn't meet your characterization os a 1/30th of NPV each year! It is basically paying to whole NPV in a staggered 10 years pre-payment plan.

1: https://about.usps.com/who-we-are/financials/annual-reports/... (page 26)

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

#568

Post by jonathankoren » Thu, Jul 23, 2020, 8:43 PM UTC

ericmay wrote: post #561

jonathankoren wrote: post #555

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

Is there a middle ground? I'm sympathetic to this, but at the same time I'm also sympathetic to not having a USPS in order to deliver only with unprofitable routes and to deliver spam mail. What do you think we should do?

Nothing. It’s a manufactured problem by people wanting a lucrative government contract. The very premise is absurd. No one complains that the fire department doesn’t turn a profit. Doing things that the private sector won’t has always been a core function of government.

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

#569

Post by claudeganon » Fri, Jul 24, 2020, 5:19 AM UTC

darawk wrote: post #563

claudeganon wrote: post #522

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 e…

I don't really understand your point. Obviously the whole network is important. Einstein's contributions would not have been possible without the society around him to produce food and shelter, the centuries of mathematics and physics research he built upon, etc.. Nobody is claiming that these people did something completely on their own, or did not draw upon immense wealth created and produced by others. The point i…

My point is that your conception of individually-oriented social utility is based on hierarchical forms of epistemology that the people you cite themselves did not embrace. It’s a projection of Capitalist logic and forms of valuation that has little to do with how these networks work or form new knowledge.

Identifying individual variations in social utility is less important than furthering the network’s growth and ability to produce further improvements, in aggregate. This is why most serious researchers don’t work in industry and why the business world is dominated by inanity and con men.

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

#570

Post by darawk » Sat, Jul 25, 2020, 8:01 AM UTC

claudeganon wrote: post #569

darawk wrote: post #563

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't really understand your point. Obviously the whole network is important. Einstein's contributions would not have been possible without the society around him to produce food and shelter, the centuries of mathematics and physics research he built upon, etc.. Nobody is claiming that these people did something completely on their own, or did not draw upon immense wealth created and produced by others. The point i…

My point is that your conception of individually-oriented social utility is based on hierarchical forms of epistemology that the people you cite themselves did not embrace. It’s a projection of Capitalist logic and forms of valuation that has little to do with how these networks work or form new knowledge. Identifying individual variations in social utility is less important than furthering the network’s growth and a…

> My point is that your conception of individually-oriented social utility is based on hierarchical forms of epistemology that the people you cite themselves did not embrace. It’s a projection of Capitalist logic and forms of valuation that has little to do with how these networks work or form new knowledge.

Are you rejecting the concept of variation in aggregate utility? I don't think that you need any sort of capitalist epistemology, or hierarchical vision of society to explain the presence of utility variance.

> Identifying individual variations in social utility is less important than furthering the network’s growth and ability to produce further improvements, in aggregate. This is why most serious researchers don’t work in industry and why the business world is dominated by inanity and con men.

Identifying individual variations in utility is how you maximize network growth. That is precisely the reason capitalism is structured the way that it is. Direct resources to people and entities who are growing the network, in proportion to how much they are growing it. That is the distilled essence of capitalism.