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Comment by cenal | Hacker News Reader

How can it not be less expensive? The private companies don’t have to offer/fund the insane pension benefits that public sector employees get.

The public sector pension scandal is insane.

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Why does this thinking only apply to the post office? Obviously we could cut nominal costs of the far larger US military if we threw out its universal health care, housing, and retirement benefits. The only way this kind of thinking makes sense is if you simply don't believe that the mission if the postal service (or the army) is worth accomplishing. After you decide that, you can obviously just throw all their benefits under a bus because now you're just trying to drown the agency. You can achieve the same kinds of (short-sighted, naive) cost savings by disbanding the fire department.

Nor do the private companies provide complete nation-wide service. The charter and purposes of the USPS cover far larger ends than that of a profit-making company.

Not giving employees benefits does not necessarily lead to a better service

The USPS is uniquely shackled by a ridiculous requirement to prefund 75 years worth of pension and medical benefits, and is also barred from raising rates the help pay for it. There is no way any organization can operate that way.

You are correct the problem is that they are now allowed to set prices, but incorrect in that USPS is not required to prefund 75 years of pension and medical benefits. It is required to save for accrued benefits. Which is how it should be. If you purchased, today, a $2,000 annuity starting when you are 65, wouldn’t you want the insurance company to start saving for it now?

https://www.cnbc.com/2011/10/24/the-truth-about-the-post-off...

> Although accounting rules require the postal service to calculate future liabilities, including those for projected future employees, the law only requires pre-funding of obligations to actual current and past employees.

No, it's still stupid. The government creates dollars.

Asking individual agencies to save money for pensions just distorts monetary and fiscal policy.

When will people understand fractional reserve banking...

The federal government creates dollars. Ask the taxpayers in IL, NJ, CT, KY, Chicago, Detroit how their money printing presses are doing and if fractional reserve banking is coming to their rescue.

And it still results in devaluation of the dollar. You don’t get to pull resources from the future for free, especially if the expected economic growth doesn’t materialize.

> Ask the taxpayers in IL, NJ, CT, KY, Chicago, Detroit...

We're talking about federal agencies.

> And it still results in devaluation of the dollar.

We could probably use more inflation, to be honest.

Thank Susan Collins, Republican senator of Maine, for that one. She's up for re-election this year.

UPS has a very strong union and benefits so not really following your point here.

Suppose you were right, and a private service could outcompete USPS. Why haven't they already? There's many delivery services that go to residential homes now, and tons of spam mailers that would love to save a few dollars in those areas where a private service could do it more cheaply. I'd be shocked that if UPS or FedEx thought they could be more profitable than USPS they wouldn't start competing.

>Suppose you were right, and a private service could outcompete USPS. Why haven't they already?

They're prohibited by law from competing in regular mail delivery.

It's illegal to compete with USPS on normal letter delivery: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Private_Express_Statutes

Thank you, I did not know this! Also did not know that postal service was envisioned in the constitution.

I would think that if such services were thought to be of federal powers, that many more bedrock services that are essential provide to all of society, such as internet service, would also be written in today if the founders had started in 2000.

It's illegal: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Private_Express_Statutes

RIP Lysander Spooner

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