Save the USPS
2pml.com
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This strategy starves USPS of package revenue for profitable routes while inundating them with packages to unprofitable addresses.
If USPS needs to raise money, they can start by charging Amazon a surcharge to defend against this type of arbitrage.
Also packages continue to grow as revenue for USPS: https://about.usps.com/newsroom/national-releases/2020/0807-...
> Meanwhile, Shipping and Packages revenue increased by $2.9 billion, or 53.6 percent, on a volume increase of 708 million pieces, or 49.9 percent, compared to the same quarter last year.
So apparently they're charging a good amount. There's also the Postal Regulatory Commission which has reported that USPS does make money on the contract with Amazon.
It continues to be that the biggest drain on the USPS is the declines in first-class mail and billing mail. Junk mail is also declining.
most (all?) rural packages should go out with the regular (usually daily) mail carrier, so the marginal cost of also delivering amazon packages to rural addresses should basically be zero for USPS.
for the really remote areas, i don't think you can choose any time-bound delivery you want, like next-day or two-day. they would only quote you what they'd be able to manage with the normal, likely less frequent, delivery schedule for the area (like weekly).
so i can see how USPS misses out on lucrative urban deliveries, but not how they lose money on rural deliveries. amazon absolutely does gain by not delivering to rural though.
It's part of the USPS pricing structure that the dense urban environments subsidize the sparse rural ones.
It's not a question of "just one more package" being basically zero cost. In the aggregate there is incremental cost to delivering more packages, and that cost is higher for rural packages than urban packages.
Apparently, the rate structure just assumes a certain urban/rural mix without accounting for a trillion dollar company with enough capital to arbitrage the lower urban delivery cost.
The answer is just so elusive!
Yes, Save The USPS! But how? Voting? Electorialism is too slow to meet urgent demands. There's nothing I or any of my friends can do to save the USPS.
The article mentions "The USPS’ financial woes have three main causes, one acute and two chronic." The acute woe is COVID-19.. fine, that was unexpected. But the other two financial woes are chronic. After decades of both Republican and Democratic administrations and legislatures, the chronic issues still exist. So, it seems like we need other solutions to "Save The USPS."
These are chronic issues that not even an Obama administration along with a majority in Congress did anything to cure these issues. What makes you think either party will do anything to prevent its demise?
When he came in to work today 2 multi million dollar sorting machines were padlocked.
He was told by the facility manager that they are selling them for scrap.
1 of the machines is very new and in the past when they replaced machines they sold them to postal services in other countries. They’ve never scrapped them.
He is certain removing these machines (they are enormous machines) will drastically reduce their capacity.
https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/n7wk9z/the-post-office-is...
> When he came in to work today 2 multi million dollar sorting machines were padlocked.
He should take a photo and pass it on to the media.
> He was told by the facility manager that they are selling them for scrap.
If anyone manages to buy them, the smart thing would be to hold onto them to sell them back to the Biden administration.
I would guess that the vast majority of mailed ballots would be for local delivery and sorted by the mail carrier at the point they are picked up, and never hit one of these regional distribution centers.
And ballots on the way out would be pre-sorted.
Completed ballots are only occasionally mailed in the same zip code, and often not the same city, as they tend to be mailed in to county election offices, not the precinct balloting locations (which often aren't permanent government facilities and when they are still are not permanently associated with the elections office.)
So, yes, machines that sort non-local (not same zip) mail would handle most mail in ballots.
And the postal service has been notifying state officials that (despite it never being a problem before) it's “delivery standards” do not support delivery ballots on the timelines in each notified states law for mail ballotsm
And the President has openly stated that he is opposing Postal Service funding to block use of mail-in ballots.
It's not even something that is trying to be hidden.
I think it's reasonable to question how many ballots being sent to local county offices would cross paths with one of these five regional processing facilities.
Even the Motherboard article acknowledges this;
"Paul McKenna, president of Milwaukee Area Local 3 of the American Postal Workers Union, said that some of the DBCSs staying will have about 50 more stackers added to them, meaning the machines can sort mail to a larger number of destinations. This will help alleviate the pressure during high mail volume periods like the Christmas rush—when there is simply more mail in general to all places—as well as provide advantages during lower-volume periods like the dead of summer. But it won’t necessarily help the unique challenge of election mail. In that case, the mail surge stays local."
It really depends on the details. Are those processing facilities serving urban areas of some swing states? Even if it's just 1% of the ballots, those ballots could be the ones that decide the election.
> Even the Motherboard article acknowledges this;
>> ...some of the DBCSs staying will have about 50 more stackers added to them, meaning the machines can sort mail to a larger number of destinations....
It's not that clear, that same article also says this:
> The postal workers Motherboard spoke to said having machines removed, replaced, or modified is nothing new, but this time it seems to be more widespread, include a larger number of machines at their respective facility, and potentially impacts the facility’s ability to process large numbers of mail, including ballots, in a short time span.
Given other statements made by this administration, people are right to be extremely skeptical of the motivations here. At a minimum the optics of making this change now are extremely bad. Even if there's a rational, honest reason for this change; the project should be postponed until December for that reason alone.
Anyone that thinks letter volume isn't in just a temp slump is lying to themselves to justify what's going on.
The problems at USPS have little to do with anything mentioned and everything to do with well established facts:
- USPS is mandated to prefund employee healthcare and pensions for 75 years in advance
- USPS cannot add a fuel surcharge to pricing (as FedEx and UPS can) to maintain profit levels
- USPS is required to provide service to people and businesses in remote areas even when it may be highly unprofitable
- USPS is governed by Congress and the Postal Rate Commission (PRC), which restricts potential avenues for expansion into other products and limits competition with other companies (such as UPS and FedEx). Congress has been influenced by competitors to get the USPS to abandon new products such as online payment systems, phone cards, money transfers, postal meter cartridges, etc
- USPS is required to invest exclusively in government bonds while private companies can invest in a wide variety of securities to improve profitability
- USPS is forbidden by law to lower prices to get more business
The quality of commenting has really fallen at HN. It’s starting to feel like a raging boomers Facebook wall filled with conjecture, gossip and conspiracy theories. Let’s stick to the facts please.
SOURCES: https://cms-colorado.com/its-time-to-allow-the-usps-to-compe...
https://www.fool.com/investing/general/2013/03/04/how-the-po...
What does that have to do with the USPS’s mandate to deliver mail?
All of your points are presented as facts. Can you explain how they have anything to do with the current discussion about keeping the USPS’s capability to deliver mail and ballots ?
> What does that have to do with the USPS’s mandate to deliver mail?
Postal money orders are already a thing: https://www.usps.com/shop/money-orders.htm.
Your points speak instead to a longer-term question of whether the constitution should be amended to privatize the USPS, or to change its mandate.
These are distinct questions, the latter we've struggled with for decades and does not explain recent measures.
Now infrastructure has been politicized.
What is next, closing interstates?
> “They need that money in order to have the post office work so it can take all of these millions and millions of ballots,” Trump said in an interview with Fox Business’s Maria Bartiromo. “If they don’t get those two items, that means you can’t have universal mail-in voting because they’re not equipped to have it.” [1]
Discussions around USPS funding or better alternatives are well and good, but from these words of the very top of the executive branch that’s not why USPS is being sabotaged here, today.
I see an awful lot of motivated reasoning in this discussion. I hope those people can look at this more critically and save their desire to abolish the USPS for a more appropriate time, done in a more appropriate manner.
[1] https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/aug/13/donald-trump...
Guy you're replying to didn't really make an argument, no, but it's worth ridiculing someone for posting Jon Oliver, because it is a thing to be ridiculed. That's about as bad a linking to a Bill O'Reilly op-ed as far as I'm concerned.
The article also talks about the USPS's role supporting e-commerce businesses. I don't buy it. E-commerce businesses use a number of other delivery services, and I don't buy the idea that they would fold if the USPS went away. The USPS is just one of many options for them. The majority of the stuff I buy online is delivered by UPS and FedEx, and Amazon drivers.
There is substantial demand for delivery services, so much so that multiple for-profit companies including UPS and FedEx are able to survive without government help. If the USPS is having trouble thriving in that environment, it must be doing something wrong.
I'd like to see an argument for saving the USPS that does not depend on nostalgia.
Regardless, having voting go through private companies isn't good enough. They aren't bound by the Constitution the same way USPS is.
These are not comparable entities.
It's relied upon by millions of people to deliver ballots in an election being held in a pandemic less than three months in the future. How about we disassemble it in a non-partisan way a little later?
Besides, the law is no guarantee. The USPS loses plenty of packages. You have no real recourse. What are you going to do, take them to small claims court? Make the government count your ballot anyway (assuming they believe you)? Good luck with that. Such guarantees mean nothing the real world.
USPS operates with many government mandates that don't apply to private companies.
Some of the financial woes are actually inflicted by the government. For example, the government mandated that the USPS pre-fund retiree health benefits well into the future, in a way that no rational private company would ever consider. This alone has contributed significantly to their cash flow problems:
They even provide a convenient chart of how their profit/loss looks without the pre-funding requirement, at least up through 2010: https://about.usps.com/who-we-are/financials/annual-reports/...
Then let's remove those mandates before asking the taxpayers to pump more money into a failing system. The system won't magically fix itself. If we allow it to continue to demand more and more money, there won't be any incentive to fix the underlying problems.
We could have a very similar conversation about the pension obligations of Ford or General Motors, but I doubt people would be as enthusiastic about bailing them out as they are about the USPS.
I highly doubt a private mail corp would get the job done. Consider healthcare.
Just some thoughts that seem much more realistic than crippling the post office to steal an election:
1) Bulk pre sort mail is down due to reduced marketing budgets during covid.
2) Paper bill volume is down due to adoption of online payments.
And also: why save the USPS? It’s current form seems completely and totally broken to me. The VAST majority of what I get is bulk pre sort literal garbage. We’ve got thousands of trucks driving around every day delivering trash into peoples homes. Why?
We need a postal system (obviously) but that doesn’t mean that this specific iteration of the postal system is the right one. We are a bunch of hackers. How would you improve the postal system if you had the power to do it?
The solution is simple, fully fund the USPS then stop relying on marketing mail income and focus on delivering packages and letters like it's the 21st century. Have the most cutting edge routing equipment / IT staff for package tracking ever.
And who determines if it’s junk mail or not?
As far as junk mail, just stop providing marketing mail contracts. Any sufficiently large mailing campaign needs approval and it’s fairly easy to create guidelines prohibiting marketing material.
We will need a robust eCommerce infrastructure in the coming years and that will require servicing areas in the U.S. that will never be profitable to do so for a private company.
The topic is politicized quite a bit and I thought that it was important to explain why it has been over the centuries. That shouldn't deter us from its importance to our retail infrastructure. The suggestion is that we tolerate USPS losses so that we can continue to build strong and sustainable commerce businesses. Amazon doesn't exist without the services that USPS provided the company in its formative years.
What percentage of the population lives in these areas?
It seems like you're conflating two distinct issues.
1) Providing access to ecommerce to people living in remote/sparsely populated/rural areas.
2) Generally subsidizing delivery costs for ecommerce businesses.
Also, yes, USPS is uniquely capable to democratize shipments and last mile delivery to these underserved areas. eCom is still early (~15% of all retail). As it reaches 30 and 40, this will become more relevant. That's all I'm saying.
Thanks for listening.
I mean you could levy this argument in favor of anything you wanted. Early computers were prohibitively expensive except for very wealthy households. Now you can get 1000x the computing power for a fraction of the cost. You would have been out there making the same argument for having the government build Apple IIs for everyone at cost.
You're basically arguing that innovation or having a better run system is fundamentally impossible in the area of logistics and delivery in general and so we need the government to step in.
And we can go with your opinion that EV subsidies weren't necessary and take that as fact.
Agricultural subsidies. Coal receives subsidies, too. Battery research funded by the DoD (military). Kodak and its ~760 Million dollar loan through the Defense Production Act.
At this point, I'm moving away from the original point. I'm now swerving into subsidies and loans. Although they still stand to benefit private companies for endeavors that might not otherwise be profitable, I think there are far better examples.
Let's talk about CERN. ️
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Institutes_of_Health#...
I'm not saying there isn't a role for government in providing funding for or even management of large ambitious projects but for something like the post office I don't see the value. Even back when it was created, courier services were not some fantastical pie-in-the-sky endeavor like building a massive particle accelerator and research lab.
The author of the article has basically said he just wants the tax payer to subsidize ecommerce businesses.
And yes, it's basically subsidizing e-commerce. As I have shown through my examples, these types of subsidies are not new. Nor is it merely a subsidy for e-commerce. The USPS handles government mail, ballots and voter registration, delivering medication, etc. These functions should never rely on a for-profit private business. Mail delivery is a major part of the US infrastructure and USPS is crucial in standardizing costs for that.
It is not acceptable to dispense with essential voting infrastructure. Full stop.
Right now? Pandemic.
In general? Because in-person voting is desirable only if your goal is voter suppression and people voting party lines only with minimal investigation of the individuals on the ballot.
The suggestion that Amazon wouldn't exist without the USPS is ridiculous.
Its problems: https://ips-dc.org/how-congress-manufactured-a-postal-crisis... (when the Republican Party held the White House, Senate, and House simultaneously)
Who's involved with causing them: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/aug/13/donald-trump...
Anyway, I think this thread was eventually removed from the main feed.
Was it not confirmed yesterday that the USPS is being purposefully sabotaged by the current administration? Or was it facing problems previously, and the current administration decided to use the existing problems to its benefit? Is it not well within the federal government's power to simply increase funding, or does the USPS function like any other business?
I am not trying to spark a political debate here, I am genuinely curious.
It's not "political" any more, and it's not a matter of opinion. America's electoral system is officially under attack.
That's a huge stretch from using the USPS to rig an election. Both sides are accusing the other of trying to take advantage of the sudden surge in interest in mail-in voting.
edit reply: you can't on the one hand argue that mail is a reliable way to run an election and on the other argue that a politician is trying to use it for their advantage. Not giving up, he didn't say he was using it. He said the Democrats would use it. Either way, these arguments underscore just how hackable and exploitable mail in voting is.
He admitted it on TV. Give it up.
“If we don’t make a deal that means they don’t get the money. That means they can’t have universal mail-in voting. They just can’t have it. Sort of a crazy thing,”
He is explicitly trying to remove the USPS's ability to handle voting by mail.
We're talking about what trump said.
Trump said the post office needs two bills that fund it to be passed for it to be able to adequately handle universal vote by mails, and if he doesn't make a deal with the people trying to pass those bills, then the post office doesn't get the money it needs to be able to do that:
>>> “If we don’t make a deal that means they don’t get the money. That means they can’t have universal mail-in voting. They just can’t have it. Sort of a crazy thing,” Trump said on Thursday.
This is technically correct, the best kind of correct. If 100 people actually vote for Smith and 101 people actually vote for Jones, and you count 99 of the votes for Smith and 98 of the votes for Jones, you have not counted any fraudulent votes.
The test of a democracy is whether it is representative, not whether it counts only non-fraudulent votes. Avoiding fraud is a very important means to the end, but it is not the end itself.
Here is an analogy for the HN crowd: If my site is broken, and I need to do a deploy to fix it, and we have a rule that says that every commit must pass tests and tests take 4 hours to run, then great, the rule is making sure that no code that's failing tests hit prod - but the rule is certainly not helpful in bringing prod back online. The rule is a means to the goal of making sure that prod works. It's a good rule, of course. Nobody is questioning the merit of testing your code or saying that untested code is a good thing. But you cannot justify missing your SLAs by saying "All of our code needs to be tested in order for us to know that our site works."
Quite the opposite, mail in ballots create an irrefutable and unfalsifiable paper trail for each vote.
Republicans (and Trump) are against them because they know the more people vote (ie. the more democratic America is) the less chance they have at winning.
Here’s an example:
https://www.vice.com/amp/en_ca/article/n7wk9z/the-post-offic...
”Motherboard identified 19 mail sorting machines from five processing facilities across the U.S. that either have already been removed or are scheduled to be in the near future. But the Postal Service operates hundreds of distribution facilities around the country, so it is not clear precisely how many machines are getting removed and for what purpose.”
The headline is what will be politically thrown around, but the true assessment of the facts won’t occur. How many sorting machines do they have, and why are they shutting some down? Is this routine? Have we clearly identified that it’s a budget issue?
We spent almost a year tracking Russiagate, so this kind of bullshit is par for the course.
The recent shakeup, slowdowns, and scrapping of needed equipment is a separate act of sabotage to interfere with mail-in voting.
I'm no expert but I recall the USPS acting like a bank, making money from savings accounts and other financial services. Would be interested in some of the various arguments for or against privatization/funding.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Postal_Accountability_and_Enha...
The USPS is not a business. It does not lose money.
The USPS is a service. It costs money to run, like other services in the country (Medicad, the military, the EPA).
If you're upset about the USPS losing billions here and there, wait till you hear about the military losing 750 Billion each and every year!
I live in rural America and let me tell you the USPS is a complete joke here. Everyone knows it, and we choose to use UPS/FedEx instead. I don’t have a mailbox anymore nor do I have a P.O. Box. Many neighbors are going this way, too. We don’t want or need their services anymore. They’ve become too unreliable.
Right? Or is the Post Office a special case?
And honestly I could probably be convinced that there is no responsible way to get ourselves out of the mess we put ourselves in over the last several decades and the only solution is a commander-in-chief willing to be irresponsible.
Trump recently appointed a new Postmaster General which is reportedly making a lot of changes. This is now a political issue because many believe the changes are politically motivated due to the upcoming election during a pandemic when, not surprisingly, a lot of people will vote by mail.
It's especially concerning because we are clearly on a course which will lead to exceptionally low confidence in the results of the election, no matter what happens. So even if the USPS isn't profitable, it seems worth while to at least prop it up for a few more months so we can have a fair election and (equally important) have the results be trusted by the people.
> “We are aware that some of the mailers may have directed the return envelopes to the wrong election offices.”
Nothing is fraud if you're naive/charitable enough in how you interpret things.
> Ballot-printing firms couldn’t keep up with demand, and the already rickety U.S. Postal Service didn’t move the ballots to and from voters quickly enough.
>> Patel said his campaign is looking at thousands of other votes that seem to be missing postmarks entirely—a post-office error
Read your own link.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-08-13/trump-app...
It will be interesting to see what they submit.
But besides all that: There is simply no scenario where allowing the USPS to half-fail improves the situation.
Even if the USPS was running perfectly, this election would still have unusually low trust, because of the pandemic and because of our especially toxic political climate. Adding a hobbled USPS to the mix makes things much worse.
Lots of people are saying Trump is trying to "muddy the waters" of the election. I suppose Trumps motivation may be debated, but I think the result is clear: A half functioning USPS will "muddy the waters" of the election result. Does anyone disagree that this will be the result? Even if (being charitable) that was not the intention.
> During an interview with Fox Business Network, the president said that he will block funding for the US Postal Service requested by Democratic lawmakers, citing his intention to prevent universal mail-in voting. Trump acknowledged in the interview that the USPS will be unable to process a large number of ballots from mail-in voting without the funding.
The USPS has been struggling for decades - at least since the 1980s. It had a near monopoly of written communication until then with a few high priced competitors for fast short messages (Western Union, Telex, etc). It was financially self sufficient with limited indirect subsides and support.
Then the fax machine arrived, then the overnight delivery services, then email and the internet. These developments ate into USPS’s business model which required huge volumes to support a vast and expensive infrastructure. For a time the rise of junk mail provided some relief but even that waned in recent decades.
Managment of the USPS was unable to deal with these changes for a number of reasons including government mandates and an inflexible unionized workforce. One persistent problem was huge pension liabilities arising from labor contracts. But the key issue was the high costs and diminished demand.
It has been bailed out several times most recently in 2012. In the next few years another bailout will be needed or perhaps bankruptcy. A long-term solution would require a politically sensitive restructuring possibly including privatization. Many other countries have either completely or partially privatized their postal systems with generally good results.
And the amount of mail sent overall is down from about 212 billion pieces per year in 2005 to just over 155 billion in 2014. This number is even including parcels, which have gone up in proportion to paper mail. While the rise of online shopping has seen the number of delivered packages shoot up, those are capable of being delivered by UPS or FedEx in significantly populated parts of the country."
No more mail carriers, no more paper letters.
Packages handled by the private sector.
And digitized mailboxes for every person.
Something like: john.smith.uniqueid@uspsmailbox.com?
Why aren’t we doing this already? Are any countries doing this?
The legacy of the postal service is extraordinary, especially in aviation. Town names on water towers for example, that was for the mail pilots. Light beacons (that later became radio beacons,) were also a result of the mail pilots. Jeppesen (along with Jimmy Doolittle) was a pioneer of Instrument Flight Rules.
That being said, UPSP filling my mailbox with “to current resident” junk or pounds of unsolicited newsprint each week isn’t something I am sympathetic towards. I am ok paying $5 to mail a letter — I do it so infrequently as to make such an expense trivial. For poor people that still have to do things by post, it would be easy to provide a postal allowance tied to receipt of other government benefits (if you get food stamps, you also get actual stamps for example.) And the package side of USPS — they are profitable. But it doesn’t make a lot of sense to have 6 day per week letter service. If the argument is that USPS is subsidizing Amazon, I might argue they are subsidizing all of the junk mail senders as well. They shouldn’t be subsidizing anyone. The world isn’t going to stop turning with 5 day a week mail service and three day a week service to very rural areas. If a letter just has to get there quickly, normal mail isn’t the optimal way to do it anyway. It wasn’t until 1863 that mail was delivered daily so there is some historical precedence for less than daily service.
Reducing service days, charging correct rates that reflect cost, and improving efficiencies in both labor and processes would make the USPS both solvent while still being relevant.
Turns out operating in high density areas that turn a good profit and low density areas that don’t is difficult. It’s why UPS and FedEx don’t do it. But it’s what USPS was set up to do.
If I live on a mountain top why should I expect people to haul shit to me for free? Why would you expect them to be charged the same as someone who lives on the corner of Main and State?
Because they aren’t allowed to, because it is considered a public service that should be equally available to all.
> If i live on a mountain top why should I expect people to haul shit to me for free?
Not for free. You pay taxes. And you should expect it because it’s what USPS does.
Now sure, there can be a whole debate about whether or not it should be the way it is, but that’s not what you asked. As per your original post:
> Unless they offer a better service than private industry, they will be a money sink.
It is a better service and it’s a money sink by design: it’s a public service that is funded by taxes. If they didn’t have insane pension obligations they’d be in a much better state financially, but they’ve been kept in a stranglehold over that for many years now:
I literally used the word "should" in the portion of my post that you quoted, but I see you were a little eager for electronic head pats.
There is no reason, in principle, why USPS can't eat up enough of the UPS/FedEx/Amazon market-share to at least stay afloat as a business without having to resort to the business tactics that people are most concerned about. (poor working conditions, anti-competitive behavior, etc.) But they aren't. They are chronically under-performing, and to me that is evidence in of itself that they are not serving their stated purpose right now.
Funding USPS for the rest of the calendar year is, in relative terms, not that expensive -- so, I would find your argument a lot more credible if you were willing to have the discussion about privatizing it in the new year.
It is obvious that I am making a prescriptive argument. I am under no illusions that they are able to enact these policies tomorrow. Their hands are tied by regulations.
You know what might make those regulations go away? Making them hurt a little bit. If it becomes clear that USPS cannot exist as an institution in its current form without being a perpetual sinkhole in which to dump taxpayer dollars directly, then they will have no choice but to adapt or die.
...Or I guess we could just keep throwing money at them and hope they get better because they super duper double pinky swear promised this time.
How about we establish regulations, and then privatise USPS and encourage other vendors?
If states made minimal requirements for coverage (i.e. if you deliver in Chicago, you have to deliver everywhere in Illinois) and other types of regs, there no real reason that Verizon can be private but USPS cannot be.
What about the military?
As for the military, it would be profitable if we could charge for services, ethically. However, I would argue that it pays dividends in a different ways and you know it.
Edit reply: the post office is less useful in 2020 than it ever has been in its existence. It used to be an absolutely critical piece of infrastructure as people relied on mail for bills, communication, magazine subscriptions, etc. Now over 90% of mail is junk advertisements. People consume digital media, pay bills electronically, communicate electronically, sign documents electronically, etc. There is less and less demand for the parcel business.
I'm not arguing that we should shut it down, but the prices should go up and the USPS should be able to set prices without an act of Congress and it should be able to vary postage based on distance traveled.
My argument about the Florida corp running the turnpike is that it's entirely possible to run a state owned enterprise in a profitable way. The Florida turnpike is one of the best maintained with the best amenities of any road I've ever traveled on, including excellent beautiful rest areas and Tesla superchargers at every stop. Congestion is quickly delt with rapid construction of new lanes. The surfaces are kept smooth and free of potholes.
Kinda like roads and the post office huh?
Roads represent a key problem with access, and of course, he military requires a level of commitment and responsibility far beyond what would be appropriate in the private market.
Mail delivery does not have such structural limitations as you can see literally from the existence of UPS and Fedex.
The question remains:
1) Why is USPS consistently bankrupt? 2) If we didn't have the USPS today, would the government create one?
Incorrect. UPS and FedEx do not deliver everywhere. If it is not profitable for them to do so (e.g. in rural areas), they do not deliver and instead give the package to USPS. This is the public service part.
> Why is USPS consistently bankrupt?
Google “USPS pension obligations”.
Republican many years ago passed a law that forced the USPS to allocate budget for many many decades of pension payments in advance, something no one else is forced to do. It was a deliberate act of sabotage by Republicans in the Bush years.
I don't care if it's not their fault or that their hands are tied by regulations. The mere fact that they are in trouble is evidence that they aren't serving their purpose in their current form.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Private_highways_in_the_United...
This shows that the roads are serving their purpose adequately.
"Everything needs to make a profit" is straight out of right wing talking points. The purpose, of course, is to psyop all of us into privatizing everything, so a few cronies can extract wealth from everyday things Americans need.
I finally started watching Star Trek because I kept seeing “Ferengi” mentioned in this context. I’m only a few episodes into Next Generation but so far the analogy definitely holds up.
Interestingly, in one of the episodes the Ferengi leader prioritizes his own personal gain (in the form of revenge) over profit and his fellow Ferengi are so disgusted by the behavior that he’s overthrown.
I believe this requires Congress. Hence why USPS is kneecapped. They’re legally obligated to fund them and also prohibited from taking the steps necessary to fully fund them.
Reliable mail service to every address in the country is one of the foundational building blocks of a developed nation. Those that argue against it to me seem irrational.
No private business, especially when you compare it to a company like Verizon, will ever provide the level of universal service the USPS has historically. Rural areas have absolutely been "left behind" for Internet access just as soon as the regulators stopped regulating minimum access requirements.
No thanks. I don't want the (imo, completely and irreversibly broken) US telco landscape extended to the physical mail delivery. Not to mention the constitutional rights you get shipping with the USPS vs. any private business.
Those who would argue, blindly, that this service must be provided by the government ... seem irrational.
Moreover, we are in a digital era, trying to reduce our paper usage.
I have not received a paper letter of material usefulness literally in years.
95% of my mail is junk mail - wasted.
The remaining 5% is the occasional letter from the government, of the bank, reminding me of what I have already received online.
By any reasonable stretch, the USPS is largely just a 'junk mail service'.
Society may benefit frankly from the end of this waste and the end of paper mail for most procedures. What remains for the most part is just packages and a few letters there's no reason decent regulation couldn't have it managed by private entities.
Many services are difficult to quantify and/or cannot exist merely by charging only those who directly benefit from them.