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]

#441

Post by smnrchrds » Wed, Jul 22, 2020, 1:49 AM UTC

refurb wrote: post #234

bhupy wrote: post #74

Something I don't normally see discussed re privatization of US Postal Service is that it doesn't appear to be a novel idea. Singapore's postal service, SingPost, is a publicly traded company[1]. The UK's postal service, Royal Mail, is a publicly traded limited company[2]. Germany's postal service, Deutsche Post AG, is a publicly traded company[3]. Japan's postal service, Japan Post, is a publicly traded company[4].…

Whoa there! You’re asking a lot for Americans to know how anything works outside the US. It’s similar in Canada - a number of previously run public services were privatized (DMV equivalent, liquor stores, etc). And the level of service improved dramatically. I remember how awful the DMV was - crappy customer service, limited locations, terrible hours. Now I can go and register my car at 8pm on a Wednesday with a 5 mi…

> It’s similar in Canada - a number of previously run public services were privatized. And the level of service improved dramatically.

I disagree. At best, it has been hit or miss. Alberta used to have Alberta Government Telephones (AGT). It was later privatized as Telus. Saskatchewan kept SaskTel a crown corp. The level of service and prices are so much better in Saskatchewan as a result that some Alberta residents pretend to live in Saskatchewan so they can get a Sask mobile plan.

And don't get me started on 407.

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

#442

Post by chroma » Wed, Jul 22, 2020, 1:49 AM UTC

sudosysgen wrote: post #177

imgabe wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the belief is that a competitive business would be incentivized to offer a better service than a government monopoly. This doesn't work out though in rural areas where it's unprofitable for a business to open a branch or provide service. This would be the case for postal service in large parts of the country just like it's the case for Internet providers.

In that case, why not make suggestions to make the government service better and more efficient instead?

Doesn't that argument apply to all the people wanting to abolish any government agency? eg: Why not make suggestions to make DEA/ICE/NSA/TSA/FDA/CDC/etc better? The same goes for those wanting to defund the police. The answer is clear to anyone whose bugbear I just mentioned. Some believe that some of these government programs can't be fixed. They're harmful on net, and the sooner they're eliminated, the better. I doubt many would agree on that when it comes to the postal service, but the core of the argument is sound.

Anyway, let's look at ways to make USPS more efficient. The pandemic has caused a 30% decrease in shipment volumes. If USPS wants to stay solvent they can furlough employees, lay off employees, and/or increase prices. Postal workers are unionized, so there's little chance of reducing employee expenses. That means they have to raise prices and/or ask for money from the government (which comes from taxes). Trump wants them to increase prices before he'll give them more money. This is because right now, Amazon (along with many other businesses) is shipping tons of packages via USPS. USPS loses money on each package they ship, so this is effectively a transfer from taxpayers to Amazon. Here's Trump quoted by Politico:[1]

> “The post office, if they raised the price of a package by approximately four times, it would be a whole new ballgame,” the president said during the signing ceremony for the latest coronavirus relief package. “But they don’t want to raise it because they don’t want to insult Amazon, and they don’t want to insult other companies, perhaps, that they like. The post office should raise the price of the packages to the companies. Not to the people, to the companies. If they did that, it would be a whole different story.”

Now let's look at the PDF. It mentions that Koch has funded a libertarian advocacy group called Americans for Prosperity. This group has come out against H.R. 6800, which authorizes $3 trillion of spending.[2] Of that, $25 billion goes to USPS.[3] That's less than 1% of the spending in that bill! Perhaps Americans for Prosperity aren't trying to kill the post office. Perhaps they simply don't want the government's budget to grow by another 15% of GDP, especially since much of that is likely directed towards special interests.

The bill also gives another $200 million to pay for salaries of workers in the federal prisons and it gives $187.5 billion to metropolitan areas (this money can't be spent outside of metro areas). Scanning through, I also see some stuff about discouraging the importation of drugs & medical equipment. It's a total mess.[4]

What I think is actually happening is that some people want to get another $3T of spending passed (mostly to enrich their constituents & ensure their re-election). To do this, they're using public support for the postal service (and public disdain for the Kochs) to try and sway voters. It's a sleazy tactic but it often works (as evidenced by how many upvotes this post has).

1. https://www.politico.com/news/2020/04/24/trump-us-postal-ser...

2. https://americansforprosperity.org/afp-issues-key-vote-alert...

3. https://www.linns.com/news/us-stamps-postal-history/heroes-a...

4. The full text of the bill can be read at https://www.congress.gov/bill/116th-congress/house-bill/6800...

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

#443

Post by harimau777 » Wed, Jul 22, 2020, 1:49 AM UTC

isthispermanent wrote: post #355

tclancy wrote: post #279

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This completely ignores things like the Tragedy of the Commons. Similarly, it ignores the idea some things may be a fundamental right. If the mail is completely privatized, who makes sure I can mail things at all regardless of my wealth? And some day you may ask why wealth should be a barrier to entry to anything.

I don’t think wealth should ever be a barrier to entry for anything. The idea of privatization and inclusion are not mutually exclusive.

That hasn't been my observation. Can you explain more how you envision this working?

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

#444

Post by ericmay » Wed, Jul 22, 2020, 1:49 AM UTC

jonathankoren wrote: post #78

ericmay wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The question is why can’t we? Why can’t the USG print and mail out ballots using these services? I don’t think they are fundamentally less secure, and if they are than we can just have them add on the capability of doing secure delivery.

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.

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

#445

Post by treis » Wed, Jul 22, 2020, 1:49 AM UTC

coliveira wrote: post #411

treis wrote: post #360

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>USPS is required by a law created by republicans to pre-pay their retirement fund for the next 75 years The USPS is required to pre-pay the pension costs they have incurred. It's not pre-paying the retirement fund for 75 years. It's putting money aside so that you have the money to pay your 25 year old worker the money you promised them when they're 100.

Incorrect, please do some research and see that it is not like this. For example, here is the article from Business Insider: "[the law] required the post office to calculate all of its retiree pension and healthcare costs for the next 75 years, including for people it hadn't even hired yet, and put away enough over the next 10 years to cover them. To put this in perspective, that'd be like you only working from age 1…

>MYTH: the USPS is required to fund pensions for the next 75 years, for workers who haven’t even been born.

>“[T]he PAEA required the Postal Service to calculate all of its likely pension costs over the next 75 years, and then sock away enough money between 2007 and 2016 to cover most of them.” The Week, April 16, 2018.

>FACT: the actuarial valuation methods used by the USPS are based only on accruals attributed to past service, no different than any other such valuation.

>The Postal Service Retiree Health Benefit Fund (PSRHBF) is a USPS-specific fund, and its 10-K report specifies that it uses the “aggregate entry age normal acturarial cost method.” For pension benefits, employees participate in the CSRS and FERS general civil servant pensions, using the same method. In this method, yes, the actuary calculates the value of all benefits to be paid out in the future, due to past and future service, and then subtracts out the value of the future accruals, to calculate the actuarial liability. In addition, the Civil Service Retirement and Disability Fund calculates a projection of liabilities 75 years into the future in its annual report, but this does not mean that 75 years’ worth of future accruals are advance-funded, only that the long-term sustainability of the system is measured over a 75-year period.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/ebauer/2020/04/14/post-office-p...

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

#446

Post by DevKoala » Wed, Jul 22, 2020, 1:50 AM UTC

ceejayoz wrote: post #433

DevKoala wrote: post #415

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Marketing mail volume for 2019 was 75 Billion https://facts.usps.com/table-facts/ At a subsidy of 10 cents per envelope shipped, the US government is funding a $7.5 Billion / year worth of marketing operations for private companies and scammers of all sorts. Also, according to those stats less than 10% of the mail throughput is used for the benefit of the citizens. Where you informed on this before engaging?

It sounds like you're agreeing with me?

Perhaps, I believe I was confused with the "55 cents.." reply.

I agree that private entities should be treated differently. It was never the objective of the service to work the way it works now.

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

#447

Post by quickthrowman » Wed, Jul 22, 2020, 1:51 AM UTC

manigandham wrote: post #330

quickthrowman wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why should we listen to someone who probably doesn’t ever open their own mail or pay a bill or send a package regarding the postal service? They don’t have to deal with the change they’re advocating for, they have the resources to actually change things. > Dangerous path there, buddy. Their opinion should count as much as any regular person. I’m not arguing for silencing anyone, merely limiting their outsized influen…

Why should we listen to you? Most people don’t experience the change they advocate for. Removing money from politics is a good thing but I’m wary of outright saying certain people don’t matter. That doesn’t lead anywhere good.

I’m arguing in favor of keeping mail delivery under the USPS because it’s one of the few functional democratic government services available. The government uses the USPS to send out many notices, payments, census forms, and so on. It’s a small miracle that one can place a postcard in a mailbox anywhere in the US and have it delivered to almost any address (some areas have mail service at a post office instead of home delivery). The utility of this service being available to everyone for the same price regardless of location is more valuable than any increased competition created by removing the USPS monopoly on first-class letters.

I’m arguing in favor of a system that everyone can access for a low cost, a service one could rightly consider essential.

Why should you should listen to me (or any other poster in this thread arguing in favor of keeping the status quo postal system) instead of the Koch brothers? I take the needs of everyone into consideration when formulating my argument instead of ideological or profit motives. Do you think it would be beneficial to the nation to saddle poor rural people with mail rates 10-50x what they are now when we have a perfectly functional system? I don’t, because it screws over the least fortunate to benefit.. who? It literally does not affect me if I have to pay .55 to mail a letter, but someone living on $700/mo that needs to use the private mail to mail a $10 letter will absolutely notice. Why destroy a functional and equitable system just so rich people in cities can pay less for postage? It’s not practical or fair.

I also clarified my position on the influence of billionaires and their opinions: They shouldn’t be ignored completely, but they should not be allowed to have the massive outsized influence they currently enjoy. Their opinion should count no more or less than anyone else.

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

#448

Post by wahern » Wed, Jul 22, 2020, 1:52 AM UTC

NoNotTheDuo wrote: post #412

derwiki wrote: post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s probably not fair, but I give her a lot of credit for stepping up when Moscone and Milk were gunned down. Yea that was a long time ago and this is unrelated. Doesn’t excuse it; I just try to remember what she has done for SF as a whole.

She stepped right up and took the opportunity to fly a confederate flag THREE times - all to curry favor from the Democrats. Even worse, especially in the light of current events, is that she attempted prosecution of the black activists that kept taking the flags down! https://lawandcrime.com/politics/feinstein-once-pushed-for-t...

The flag had been there for 14 years. The one witness account in the Snopes story says that the raising of the Confederate Stars and Bars was accidental, and occurred many weeks after Feinstein ordered the removal of the long-present Confederate battle flag upon a 3-day-long protest that ended with an official removal request which Feinstein immediately granted: https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/dianne-feinstein-confedera...

I don't think Feinstein is that politically craven. She has a spine, and a relatively rigid one at that. Rather, her poor judgment, such as it is, is all her own.

The Koch brothers and other anti-government radicals bank on the political disaffection that such historical revisionism generates. If every politician is a stooge, then there's no virtue in politics or government. Feinstein is no stooge, and while I wouldn't vote for her in most years, IMO she deserves respect as a strong, steadfast, and effective leader who almost incidentally blew--and continues to blow--many stereotypes of women out of the water. (And you can be all of those things, BTW, while also having flaws and a history of mistakes.) She definitely doesn't deserve a cheap character assassination.

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

#449

Post by jonahbenton » Wed, Jul 22, 2020, 1:53 AM UTC

bhupy wrote: post #74

Something I don't normally see discussed re privatization of US Postal Service is that it doesn't appear to be a novel idea. Singapore's postal service, SingPost, is a publicly traded company[1]. The UK's postal service, Royal Mail, is a publicly traded limited company[2]. Germany's postal service, Deutsche Post AG, is a publicly traded company[3]. Japan's postal service, Japan Post, is a publicly traded company[4].…

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.

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

#450

Post by bawana » Wed, Jul 22, 2020, 1:56 AM UTC

Perhaps we should allow a private arm of the postal service to enter another area important for communication: internet service. As it is now, internet service is restricted to one or two providers in most regions. Prices are ridiculously high compared to the rest of the world. And broadband in the US is denied to many low profit areas. Yet we are in a time of COVID sanctions, schooling and working remotely that all rely on the net. Broadband supply needs more competition. The postal service is already delivering snail mail. How is it they were never tapped to run the internet in the US but instead we allow oligarchs to bleed us like Baron Harkonnen in Dune?