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Comment by jlebrech | Hacker News Reader

I often thought the postal service SHOULD be a public service but it's publicly funded at a loss then no.

This isn't an obvious conclusion; what if a public service yearly loses a certain amount of money, in order for the public to save twice as much? This is a reasonable interpretation of this case, which would make the isolated loss advantageous in the big picture. Of course, this is a separate concept from seller losing jobs.

Think of it this way: every one of the 350 million americans chip in 0.22$ a year to get their iPhone cable for 1.80$ instead of 40$.

Still sound bad?

To me this sounds an amazing deal. 78M a year is not a lot of money on a federal yearly scale. It's pocket change, in fact. The savings to everyone who orders anything is quite big so it seems like a fantastic investment.

USPS revenue yearly is over 70 billion aka a thousand times more. Their problem is the six billion accrual of unpaid mandatory retiree health payments. 80M is irrevelant.

Why do some people write the dollar sign after the number? Similarly, why do some people write the percent sign before the number? I initially thought it might be a locale thing (like swapping commas and decimal points), but I've seen a lot of Americans doing it too.

For currency, I think it's just a mental consistency. I type 1%, I say one percent. I type $1, I say dollar one?

I understand it's not correct at all. But I can internally justify why people type "1$" when they're thinking "one dollar".

Just be glad it's not "$1 dollar".

Oh to be a fiat currency!

It is a locale thing.

> Why do some people write the dollar sign after the number?

For foreigners, that's easy, that's how you write currencies in other languages.

For American doing it, I guess it is just a typing artefact. You think "ten dollars", you write "10$", there is no autocorrect for that kind of things so you let is slide.

Could also be a holdover from using cents. I have always seen the cents symbol used after the number so 70¢ is a shorter way to write $0.70

As a matter of principle, yes. It's a redistribution of wealth from everyone to a select few (in this case, people who need iPhone cables). The least fortunate will not always be the greatest beneficiaries of the subsidy.

> It's a redistribution of wealth from everyone to a select few (in this case, people who need iPhone cables)

Surely you're joking and I'm bad at picking up on satire.

First, this particular scenario is exactly the other way around! By not doing this, every single consumer pays a lot more than they otherwise would so that this one guy's obsolete middle-man business model is protected. Why the hell should we all be chipping in to insulate his comfy middle class lifestyle from global markets? Especially when his business model already depends on offshoring manufacturing jobs anyways... protecting this guy's job is an extremely weird place to draw the line in the sand!

Second, this case is particularly egregious. I literally don't know a single tax payer who doesn't need iPhone or USB-C cables. And a lot of non-tax payers even have a smartphone.

A smartphone is the single greatest expense for many extremely poor people, who use their second hand phones to apply for jobs, keep in contact with family, google homework questions, as a calculator, find services, etc.

> The least fortunate will not always be the greatest beneficiaries of the subsidy.

Anecdata time.

There's an on-and-off homeless guy in our neighborhood who has a phone he uses to find places to eat/sleep, apply for jobs (getting to a physical location across the city is expensive -- better to apply online), find bus routes to job interviews, and make small change doing surveys/selling good stuff he finds on the curb during university move-out/finding random yard work on Craigslist/etc. And also, of course, for free entertainment. He doesn't even have a data plan -- he bums wifi off the local coffee shop. A smartphone is a computer that he can conceal and keep close to his chest when sleeping in the park or a shelter.

Thousands of homeless folk definitely benefit from cheap iPhone/USB cables, from cheap smartphones, etc.

In principle I agree that subsidies don't always benefit the worst off. In this case, they do however, since the downward price pressure is mainly on low priced, lower quality segment consumer goods.

You could make the argument that while the costs of the goods are now lower and consumer surplus goes to most americans, they're out-competing US made products, that would generate wages for the worst off. Then you'd be arguing for protectionism though.

What does it mean for something to be a public service if it isn't publicly funded at a loss.

It should be a public service, but a service to Americans, not foreign merchants.

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