111–120 of 156 posts
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.
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Universal service obligations have been some of the least effective tools used... After all what constitutes not servicing? How would a state run service be better?
> How would a state run service be better? See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subsidiarity
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How does that square with their universal service obligation? Which county is that?
Most extremely rural areas don't have home delivery and never have. It's been this way for literally centuries.
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That'd be mostly a net-positive since mail-in voting seems to be hard to get right in your country. Better to get rid of it in all but the most pressing cases - those who can not leave the house, overseas military and such - and have people go to the voting booth themselves, show their ID, get a ballot and fill it out using a writing implement. Do the count locally at the end of the day and send the ballots to a cent…
> That'd be mostly a net-positive since mail-in voting seems to be hard to get right in your country Strawman. You might have the belief that it’s hard to get right, but that seems based on the American news sources you are consuming from your spit in the world. In reality, there are very little issues with this.
The real strawmen are the reasons given for not requiring ID when casting your ballot. Here in Sweden there is nobody who complains about having to show ID when casting your votes, nor was this ever a problem in the Netherlands.
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The USPS is about $100 billion short in funds for retiree healthcare. Operationally they're slated to run out of cash shortly and that's going to get worse as they have to directly fund more and more retiree health care.
... specifically because they were forced to pre-fund pensions to an absurd degree by a Republican Congress. And the sole purpose of this was to damage the USPS so that it looked like it was doing much worse than it really is, so that they could push for privatizing it.
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…
This push toward optimization in the US, gradient descent to the LCD - seems harmful to average people.
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> USPS does last mile delivery for a lot of rural places. Not in the rural places I've lived, including my current one for 20 years. UPS and FedEx deliver to my porch. USPS has never been here. I drive to my PO box in the nearest town. I think that in this whole county they only deliver to post offices.
And if that's the case, then what it indicates is that USPS in your area is chronically understaffed and underfunded. Like...c'mon, this is not hard stuff to understand. There's no motive for the USPS to be neglecting last-mile service in your area if they have the resources to provide it. And this is absolutely caused by Republican efforts to destroy it. Because that's what they've been doing for decades, specifical…
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How does that square with their universal service obligation? Which county is that?
I'm not who you're replying too, but I also live in a place with no delivery to the home, despite UPS and FedEx doing so. Everybody in our town gets a free PO Box - I suspect that's how the service obligation is covered. Once a year we have to prove that we still live here to keep the free box.
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Is it? I don't think I would miss the junk mail delivery service if it went away entirely.
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?
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
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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…
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…