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What does privatization of the US Postal Service mean?

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Re: What does privatization of the US Postal Service mean?

#21

Post by comrade1234 »

eru wrote: post #8
comrade1234 wrote: post #6

The postal service was in the constitution from the beginning - Washington signed it. But the wording is a bit weird - obviously there's supposed to be a postal service but now with how bad tings have become, who knows.

Huh, where's the postal service in the constitution? As far as I can tell your constitution allows the federal level to regulate postal services, but it does not require the establishment of government snail mail.

"The Congress shall have Power...To establish Post Offices and post Roads;"

The wording "shall" is what I meant by weird wording. But no roads? No post offices? Whatever. The constitution is extremely flawed and should be abandoned.

Re: What does privatization of the US Postal Service mean?

#22

Post by callc »

Avicebron wrote: post #17
cobertos wrote: post #14

Doesn't USPS also play a key role in a lot of other services? * ID verification * Vacant home notifications * Registered mail I have a hard time seeing a private company scrupulously handling these operations when the incentives to manipulate them could be very large.

Yes, it also had a mandate to deliver mail. So people living in the middle of nowhere New Mexico can do something like run a small business through delivery (this was on the radio the last time this nonsense was floated). It's actually kind of beautiful, something that I can't imagine would work with a privately owned system.

The beautiful thing is a society deeming universal (gasp!) access to mail to be important.

The ugly part is profit driven mindset, and a “you live in an unprofitable area to mail to, sorry” obvious outcome

Re: What does privatization of the US Postal Service mean?

#23

Post by shimman »

Avicebron wrote: post #17
cobertos wrote: post #14

Doesn't USPS also play a key role in a lot of other services? * ID verification * Vacant home notifications * Registered mail I have a hard time seeing a private company scrupulously handling these operations when the incentives to manipulate them could be very large.

Yes, it also had a mandate to deliver mail. So people living in the middle of nowhere New Mexico can do something like run a small business through delivery (this was on the radio the last time this nonsense was floated). It's actually kind of beautiful, something that I can't imagine would work with a privately owned system.

They'd end up charging you the amount of money you'd make sending the package, that's how all these forms of rentierism work: Uber, Amazon, Apple, Shopify, etc. Private taxes they want to force onto people.

Must fight it at any opportunity. I can't imagine the economic value something like USPS brings to the country, likely trillions of trillions over it's lifespan. Something the corpos would never admit.

Re: What does privatization of the US Postal Service mean?

#24

Post by limagnolia »

Grombobulous wrote: post #4

I read the whole article, and it had a lot of informed discussion within it, but ultimately that discussion felt a little pointless. The crisis is manufactured, the debate of “what to do” or “what would happen if privatization happens?” does not need to be a discussion. The USPS is a no-brainer public service and the only reason there is any question of its value is due to the severely broken, dysfunctional, corrupt…

Is it? I don't think I would miss the junk mail delivery service if it went away entirely.

Re: What does privatization of the US Postal Service mean?

#25

Post by galleywest200 »

limagnolia wrote: post #24
Grombobulous wrote: post #4

I read the whole article, and it had a lot of informed discussion within it, but ultimately that discussion felt a little pointless. The crisis is manufactured, the debate of “what to do” or “what would happen if privatization happens?” does not need to be a discussion. The USPS is a no-brainer public service and the only reason there is any question of its value is due to the severely broken, dysfunctional, corrupt…

Is it? I don't think I would miss the junk mail delivery service if it went away entirely.

USPS does last mile delivery for a lot of rural places.

Besides that junk mail might actually increase if a private company was paid to take it to your house since they would have a profit motive - more junk mail delivered means more profits.

Re: What does privatization of the US Postal Service mean?

#26

Post by Guvante »

eru wrote: post #7
Grombobulous wrote: post #4

I read the whole article, and it had a lot of informed discussion within it, but ultimately that discussion felt a little pointless. The crisis is manufactured, the debate of “what to do” or “what would happen if privatization happens?” does not need to be a discussion. The USPS is a no-brainer public service and the only reason there is any question of its value is due to the severely broken, dysfunctional, corrupt…

> The USPS is a no-brainer public service and the only reason there is any question of its value is due to the severely broken, dysfunctional, corrupt Congress. Huh? Even Germany managed to privatise their snail mail, and approximately no one would want to renationalise it. What makes USPS a 'no-brainer public service'? What's the big benefit of having government snail mail? Mail delivery service is not a public good…

Germany is 4% of America in size. A single US state with decent population density wouldn't need a nationalized system either.

The USPS gets a monopoly because it is required to go everywhere. If a private company doesn't want to go into Michigan it doesn't have to.

Without a monopoly protection USPS goes from being slightly unprofitable to very unprofitable by companies competing only in cheap areas.

Basically USPS needs $0.78 to mail a one ounce letter overall. However it doesn't need that much for you to mail within the same city, it is probably much less than that.

But they do need it if you send a letter across the country.

Re: What does privatization of the US Postal Service mean?

#27

Post by wwweston »

Grombobulous wrote: post #4

I read the whole article, and it had a lot of informed discussion within it, but ultimately that discussion felt a little pointless. The crisis is manufactured, the debate of “what to do” or “what would happen if privatization happens?” does not need to be a discussion. The USPS is a no-brainer public service and the only reason there is any question of its value is due to the severely broken, dysfunctional, corrupt…

> The USPS is a no-brainer public service and the only reason there is any question of its value is due to the severely broken, dysfunctional, corrupt

electorate.

Congress is composed of people who the electorate sends there.

Once there member choices are shaped by the people who contact and persuade them.

If the USPS is poorly funded or managed, it’s because US electorate either wanted that, or was inattentive about the relevant funding and management and cares more about other things.

And if the postal service dies or is captured and privatized, that’s a reflection of the preferences of voters, or a testament to the limits of their attention and intelligence to the point where they voted for people who did things they don’t want.

Most Americans also prefer to blame political folk devils to for the failures instead, and seem to be more happy with that than personal and community discipline that would be necessary to engage responsibly, though, so the system is arguably working to reflect people’s revealed preferences already.

EDIT: I should probably add that it’s not obvious to me that it’s poorly managed. I’ve enjoyed decades of adequate-to-impressive service via USPS over a variety of locations.

Re: What does privatization of the US Postal Service mean?

#28

Post by Swizec »

msandford wrote: post #20
materielle wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don’t know anything about Germany’s postal service. In the US, what the parent comment was getting it, is why are we even talking about this in the first place? What problem is privatization trying to solve? As an American, I have zero complaints about our postal service or how much we pay for it. Apart from the fact that I wish there were more branch offices and a few more workers at most locations. I don’t think…

My problem rate with Fedex or UPS is maybe 0.1% of packages. I can't remember the last time I had a delivery issue. Just this week I had a package that was supposed to be delivered by Monday that lost tracking and didn't show up until Wednesday. It might be "basically fine and good enough" but it's definitely not "amazing and completely beyond reproach" at least in my opinion.

> Just this week I had a package that was supposed to be delivered by Monday that lost tracking and didn't show up until Wednesday.

This is the sort of problem you solve with more funding not privatization.

Here’s how these privatizations work:

1. Cut funding for public service

2. Service becomes bad

3. Cut more funding because service is bad and unused

4. Service becomes worse

5. Privatize

6. Strip the service for parts, a bunch of people get rich, classic PE stuff but worse

7. Start extracting rents, you have a nice monopoly

8. Public has no or worse service for higher cost

Re: What does privatization of the US Postal Service mean?

#29

Post by AnimalMuppet »

comrade1234 wrote: post #21
eru wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Huh, where's the postal service in the constitution? As far as I can tell your constitution allows the federal level to regulate postal services, but it does not require the establishment of government snail mail.

"The Congress shall have Power...To establish Post Offices and post Roads;" The wording "shall" is what I meant by weird wording. But no roads? No post offices? Whatever. The constitution is extremely flawed and should be abandoned.

That's quite a non sequitur there. The wording is weird, so we should abandon the entire constitution?

Not so fast, comrade. Not so fast. You've got a lot of work ahead of you to fill in the gaps in your logic here, before any of us are going to agree with your conclusion.

Re: What does privatization of the US Postal Service mean?

#30

Post by charcircuit »

>much of what USPS does is unprofitable

The same could be said about many organizations within companies if you don't give them a proper budget. Once you start actually caring about being profitable it turns out that you can find how to do things in a way that is less wasteful. Cost acts as an incentive to reduce waste and if you remove it then there is no force to combat waste or unsustainable practices.

>It’s not that private entities won’t deliver postal service; it’s that they quite literally can’t.

If you paid someone $10,000 to deliver a letter to somewhere in the country I'm sure they could find a way to bring it there. It is not impossible.

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