Elon Musk Wants to Privatize the Postal Service and Amtrak | Hacker News Reader

Elon Musk Wants to Privatize the Postal Service and Amtrak

cnn.com

33 pointsteleforce5 comments

At least one aspect of the Post Office should have been privatised decades ago: the local USPS counter is the worst place to get any service they provide.

Want to buy a roll of stamps? Wait times at the USPS counter are rivalled only by the DMV. And like the DMV, they’re only open 9-5, meaning they don’t serve the 9 out of 10 employed Americans who would have to take time off work to get there before they close. Except Saturday—they’re open two hours on Saturday morning, but unless you’re first in line you’ll spend almost the entire time waiting while the pokey employee plays 20 questions with the customer in front of you who’s trying to mail an RC car to their nephew in Jakarta. Just when you think it’s your turn, the curmudgeon behind the counter will disappear in the back for minutes at a time, confident that no amount of customer dissatisfaction will affect his pay or retirement.

Meanwhile, the grocer and even the gas station in town will promptly sell stamps, bubble mailers, and print custom labels with quick service and generous operating hours - impossible for a government run office, but table stakes for a private retailer.

Privatize it!

I find they move along but there's just too few of them. There are 6 stalls at my local PO of which only 2 are staffed. Who would have thought that understaffing would cause problems?

The postal service is a complete failure. As bad as some 3rd world countries. I get the wrong mail all the time and other people get my mail. Not just at home, but at my po box as well. I've complained several times and nothing has changed for more than a month. Neighbors have the same problem. They're so stupid that they give my building the mail for the building next door.

Lets also factor in that they're spending more, but delivering way less mail. Its a joke.

We don't need it to be privatized, we just need all the management to be replaced and same with MOST the employees which are actually not fit to work at any real job and that's why the government hires them.

> I get the wrong mail all the time and other people get my mail.

I talked with my local postmaster about this. They do care about misdelivered mail and will correct an employee/contractor quickly if you let them know.

The problem is that the Post Office is now heavily relying on temp workers to fill delivery positions, but they do not pay enough to keep the positions filled, so there’s a lot of churn.

Your feedback won’t have much effect until your route is staffed consistently by the same worker.

Privatising the Postal Service is an ok idea, anyone can do that job (eg. FedEX, UPS, etc). Privatising Amtrak is a different kettle of fish, it is a natural monopoly on critical infrastructure. In that situation prices will go up if private investors buy it. Increased freight costs will inevitably be passed onto consumers. Anything privatised like this (eg. electricity transmission lines) has been shown to be a net loss for consumers.

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