What does privatization of the US Postal Service mean? • Hacker News Board

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

#121

Post by 8note » Sat, Jul 04, 2026, 4:35 PM UTC

msandford wrote: post #62

Swizec wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 p…

1. They do a really bad job because you can't get fired 2. My package is delivered late yet again 3. I don't bother calling because the other 8 times I did I wasted an hour, nobody did anything (because nobody can get fired) and I didn't get any money back 4. Look how great we're doing! Complaints are down 5. Give us more funding because we're doing such a good job This is just as likely of a spiral if we keep it pub…

accountability is contacting your member of congress, no?

and getting them to be properly funded for providing an essential service rather than setting your quality of service by how profitable your area is

public systems have accountability through democratic means. make sure you vote for people that care about the postal service working well, rather than focusing on trans kids, and youll have a working post office

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

#122

Post by 8note » Sat, Jul 04, 2026, 4:43 PM UTC

Grombobulous wrote: post #80

eru wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can auction off the universal service obligation to willing bidders without having a state owned enterprise with a government monopoly. > Either way, from a national policy standpoint there are very good reasons to subsidize rural areas for basic infrastructure services like mail and internet. Please tell me a few.

Sure! Rural areas extract and produce many resources that urban areas depend on. Agriculture, fishing, oil, gas, uranium, wood, maple syrup, etc. You can’t get workforces to live in those places or businesses to operate there if there’s no roads, internet, mail, schools, hospitals, etc (or if those things are prohibitively expensive). Don’t forget that subsidy doesn’t always mean the difference between whether it’s e…

agriculture is the ultrawealthy though? i dont need to subsidize the very-rich

fishing isndone off the coast, and the fishing boats can land in town or in a city for processing. the ships leave seattle, then go out to alaska to catch fish, thrn come back to seattle with frozen fish

oil, gas, uranium, etc make money hand over fist and can bring people in and out of the mines on a 2 weeks on, 2 weeks off schedule. they dont need a rural village beside

i think the real reason is that local rich people in rural areas are far too powerful, and federal resources ensure that the people that live in rural areas are too wildly oppressed by the local nobility. we hope that one day the nobles will be overthrown and there will be more proper righta and freedoms out in the middle of nowhere

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

#123

Post by 8note » Sat, Jul 04, 2026, 4:47 PM UTC

wwweston wrote: post #52

vjvjvjvjghv wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"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." I hate this. There is plenty of research showing that the opinion of the broader electorate has almost no influence on most policies. Only lobbyists and donors count.

Elections still have consequences, right? I’d think the fallout between fall of 2024 and now illustrates that. And that was the choice of the electorate (unless someone can demonstrate results were tampered with). So voter choices count. There are differences in how individual congress members and coalitions handle policy, so who voters choose matters. Also, some of that research you’re invoking shows that most offic…

consequences isnt elected officials doing what voters want

trump voters voted for no war with iran. their guy won, and yet, war with iran

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

#124

Post by 8note » Sat, Jul 04, 2026, 4:50 PM UTC

PsylentKnight wrote: post #50

sanguinesphinx wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

yawn the old blame the victim. Get lost kid.

Why not both? Yes, there are systemic issues in the US. But 70% of the US either voted for Trump or didn’t vote at all in 2024. (Let me pause to pre-empt any bothsideism by saying that I think that’s silly and I doubt you’ll change my mind on that, but you can try) Continuing on - liberals tend to point at systemic issues, but personal responsibility is a thing too. I’m a bit tired of the “education this, social medi…

so i guess take some personal responsibility and go deliver some parcels so that the post office doesnt get privatized?

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

#125

Post by Eridrus » Sat, Jul 04, 2026, 5:10 PM UTC

7bees wrote: post #69

Eridrus wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the problem being solved here is largely one of waste. USPS hides 9bn of unfunded pension obligations every year and underserves urban areas to subsidize rural areas. Mail volume is also generally falling as everything moves to email, so it is getting both less profitable and less critical. The US is a rich country, we can afford to waste a lot of money and not notice, and of course one person's waste is anot…

I'm not aware of any organization that has the same requirements to fund its future pension obligations that the USPS has. That requirement was created by Congress as part of a sustained campaign to damage the USPS. It seems like your argument is actually that Congress should rescind that requirement, so that USPS can afford to better service urban customers while continuing to be a critical lifeline to rural areas.

USPS is also not paying for the pensions that they already incurred, and those are actually even larger ($20bn/yr).

Anyway, Congress did already rescind the requirement that USPS prefund the pensions (a 57bn debt forgiveness), but this is all just hiding the ball, the 9bn in pension liabilities being incurred now are real. Even if you don't prefund them now, an honest accounting says that these are part of your costs today.

A privatized USPS would likely get rid of pensions entirely.

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

#126

Post by Eridrus » Sat, Jul 04, 2026, 5:12 PM UTC

8note wrote: post #120

Eridrus wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the problem being solved here is largely one of waste. USPS hides 9bn of unfunded pension obligations every year and underserves urban areas to subsidize rural areas. Mail volume is also generally falling as everything moves to email, so it is getting both less profitable and less critical. The US is a rich country, we can afford to waste a lot of money and not notice, and of course one person's waste is anot…

it would be interesting to see the navy make a profit and have to pay for its own pensions for veterans rather than hiding it in the defense budget

I am not super interested in a pirate navy, thanks.

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

#127

Post by limagnolia » Sat, Jul 04, 2026, 5:13 PM UTC

8note wrote: post #119

fn-mote wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Junk mail is a net positive for postal service revenue. Even if you could eliminate it (major free speech concern), would it be a good idea? Who would pay extra when the can just throw out the junk in less than 2 minutes a week?

im uninterested in having to pay for said waste, and have to figure out whether the junk is recyclable or not its not just paper - all kinds of strange plastics too when i was in the states i despised that i was required to accept said junk mail under penalty of law and i think thats also a free speech concern. i have the right to not be part of an audience

I'm not sure that there is any law forcing you to accept it, but if you have a mailbox, it will get put into it. I don't think there is any law requiring anyone to have a mailbox, though.

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

#128

Post by rainsford » Sat, Jul 04, 2026, 5:25 PM UTC

hingler36 wrote: post #11

Pretty important asterisk concerning the privatization of the Japanese rail network: this privatization led to the closure of a lot of rural, unprofitable lines. IMO this would play out similarly for the USPS; it's not hard to remain profitable when you can just cleave off the parts of your public service that are in the red.

This is almost always the right answer to people who claim the government should be run like a business in a tone that suggests they believe they're the first person to ever have thoughts. Businesses and governments operate under wildly different constraints, the most significant being the general need of government to provide a broad range of services even where it's inefficient.

Now people could make a reasonable argument that they actually do want government to run like a business by getting rid of costly functions or services with low ROI. But at least in the US this almost never seems to be the case and proponents of the argument just think government has a ton of excess waste that can be cut with no impact on services.

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

#129

Post by thayne » Sat, Jul 04, 2026, 5:35 PM UTC

eru wrote: post #72

thayne wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Post is a natural monopoly, at a national scale. It is much more efficient to have a single centralized service doing all mail delivery than several competing services doing the same. It isn't completely non-rivalrous, but the marginal cost of delivering a parcel diminishes as the number of parcels delivered in an area goes up.

> Post is a natural monopoly, at a national scale. It evidently is not. There's multiple providers.

1. FedEx and UPS are not at all competitive for delivering non-package mail (letters, bills, etc.). Or even small packages.

2. Commercial providers rely on USPS to deliver packages in some situations.

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

#130

Post by stackbutterflow » Sat, Jul 04, 2026, 5:37 PM UTC

brandensilva wrote: post #111

hingler36 wrote: post #11

Pretty important asterisk concerning the privatization of the Japanese rail network: this privatization led to the closure of a lot of rural, unprofitable lines. IMO this would play out similarly for the USPS; it's not hard to remain profitable when you can just cleave off the parts of your public service that are in the red.

The irony here is the red Republican states are the ones voting for this who will be most impacted by it.

There's no irony because they'll never put two and two together and republican politicians will use the frustration to get reelected.