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Comment by larrys | Hacker News Reader

Then you end up with the "postal service".

Which is wildly successful and doesn't cost us taxpayers a dime. If our "leaders" stopped actively sabotaging the USPS, it could be doing even better.

>Which is wildly successful and doesn't cost us taxpayers a dime

You might want to double check your info on that one. The US Postal Service lost $32 Billion over the past four years.

USPS losses:

* 2011: $5.1 Billion

* 2012: $15.9 Billion

* 2013: $5.5 Billion

* 2014: $5.5 Billion

2011/2012: http://money.cnn.com/2012/11/15/news/economy/postal-service-...

2013: https://about.usps.com/news/national-releases/2013/pr13_087....

2014: https://about.usps.com/news/national-releases/2014/pr14_059....

My understanding was that almost all of that is due to the insane benefits and pension requirements placed on the USPS in 2006. Happy to be corrected if I'm offbase.

The same ones private corporations are required to follow.

The US doesn't require private corporations to offer a pension at all. If they do voluntarily, it's almost always a 401k. The USPS' pension funding forced on it by a "starve the beast" Congress is much different.

The US gov't sure as hell requires private corporations with pensions to make sure they are fully funded. The pension might be optional, but running an underfunded one is not.

Really?

From http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/21/business/pension-plans-inc...

"AFTER years of poor investment returns, the pension funds of the United States’ largest companies are further behind than they have ever been.

The companies in the Standard & Poor’s 500 collectively reported that at the end of their most recent fiscal years, their pension plans had obligations of $1.68 trillion and assets of just $1.32 trillion. The difference of $355 billion was the largest ever, S.& P. said in a report.

Of the 500 companies, 338 have defined-benefit pension plans, and only 18 are fully funded. Seven companies reported that their plans were underfunded by more than $10 billion, with the largest negative figure, $21.6 billion, reported by General Electric."

Private corporations are not held to the same standard as the USPS for pension funding.

As the article you linked says, they're underfunded because the investments didn't perform as well as expected.

If there's something else to it, by all means feel free to state precisely the difference between how these pension funds from the random article you googled operate, and the USPS's requirements. There might be, but the article you linked doesn't imply that.

Show me a private corporation that is legally required to fully pre-fund pensions 75 years in advance for every employee, including all potential future employees, and I'll eat my hat.

That's not what the USPS is required to do.

What's insane about the requirements? They actually have to pay for what they promised?

They have to pre-pay 75 years worth, including future employees

It's not 75 years and it's not for future employees.

http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/unraveling-the-myth-that-t...

50 years still seems like a lot, but I'm not from the US, so I don't know whether it really is for pre-paying health benefits?

it's 50 years, which is functionally equivalent in the insanity. Imagine if you had to pay 50 years of taxes upfront

The reason that was put into place, is that if they don't fund those pensions now, there will be no ability to do so in the future - their business is evaporating.

The business may be evaporating, but the service is going to continue. It turns out that getting documents and packages to any given citizen is really, really important for the function of governance.

In many ways, stripping the post office of their monopoly had the opposite of the intended effect, because it removed the pretenses that let people pretend that it was somehow magically different and special compared to other essential government services just because it sold stuff.

If they held off on paying those obligations until later, they'd be unable to pay them. It's that simple. The math would not have worked out. Reduce the size of their business by 1/3, increase the size of obligations substantially due to employees retiring and drawing against those pensions, and it becomes a very large tax payer funded pension plan.

The USPS has already become increasingly dependent on commercial spam mail to keep going.

You are correct, it was insane - no other corporation is required by law to act in that way: http://thinkprogress.org/economy/2011/09/28/330524/postal-no...

So, an average of approximately $65 per taxpayer per year. I'm personally ok with that.

The USPS started operating at a loss because Republican lawmakers passed the Postal Accountability and Enhancement Act, signed into law by George W Bush, requiring the USPS to prefund retirement benefits.

http://about.usps.com/who-we-are/financials/annual-reports/f...

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2012-08-02/understand...

It was only wildly successful until our leaders "sabotaged" it by forcing it to obey standard actuarial practices. (Unlike the rest of the govt, the USPS is now required to fully fund it's pension plans.)

See this comment for a more detailed explanation: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6710602

Also, it's pretty hard not to be "wildly successful" when you get a legally enforced monopoly. Comcast is also "wildly successful", but we certainly don't want to expand that model.

Yes and no. It's a monopoly that can't charge what it takes to stay afloat. Raising prices or changing delivery schedules requires an act of Congress! No member of Congress wants to have to answer for that, so the price of sending a letter hundreds - if not thousands - of miles, to be hand-delivered remains under one-half of one dollar $USD. THAT IS INSANE.

It's been argued, deftly, that even with a decline in volume for mass mailers, raising the price from $0.49 to $1 would not only put the USPTO all the way in the black but enable them to meet obligations for years to come.

But convince Congress that it's a good idea...

Wait a second. I thought they would be profitable if it weren't for the pension funding? If so, then $0.49 per stamp is high enough.

They can make a profit by paying their workers less. This is really about the USPS workers' union vs. Congress.

And your company could make more by paying you less. But that would be unfair, wouldn't it?

That's exactly what every profitable company does: pay their workers less than they otherwise could. The only alternative is to distribute all profit among employees. (And some people who believe that profiting from other people's work is immoral advocate just that.)

Not at all. In fact I would expect them to do so were it not for competitive offers from other employers.

If it was wildly successful, how did we end up with tons of private competitors with a large market share (FedEx, UPS, DHL, OnTrac, etc). The U.S. Is one of the only countries where the state run postal service isn't sufficient. In Switzerland, for example, there is only the Swiss Post. Most countries, to my knowledge, operate with just one major postal network.

Because Microsoft, Dell, Apple, etc. can all exist and be wildly successful at the same time?

That awkward moment when you realize DHL is a German company.

There's also a number of alternate services for the post in a number of other countries. FedEx is not a duplicate of the post - it's for sending small but high value things extremely fast. And between FedEx One Rate and FedEx Smart Post, it's pretty clear that they view USPS as a competitor to be respected.

There are many niches within the general category of "post". USPS's focus (and monopoly) is on first-class and bulk mail.

How much cost/time does it cost Swiss Post to ship a package 4000km ?

It's at least 3x the price of USPS:

https://www.post.ch/en/private/a-z-of-subjects/prices-sendin...

Erm. What are you comparing here?

I read your comment as 'Given USPS can send a package over 4000km in the same country, let's compare that with international charges in Switzerland'¹. Is that correct? Because that would be a liiiittle bit misleading in my world and I'd like to compare Swiss international charges with a USPS delivery from New York to Reykjavik please.

① Apologies if that isn't the case. But 4000km just felt too close to the east coast to west coast distance.

> If it was wildly successful, how did we end up with tons of private competitors with a large market share (FedEx, UPS, DHL, OnTrac, etc).

Because the US Postal Service is viewed as a utility, and required to service every address in the continental US (as well as most of its territories). Fedex, UPS, and other private carriers are under no such obligation, and so can extract profits from the most profitable routes or services, leaving USPS with more less profitable services to provide (first class, bulk mail).

If you don't think the USPS provides a phenomenal service for the price they charge, you're insane. I can send an ounce of paper across a continent for $0.50-$1.09.

Diseconomies of scale.

The last mile of shipping is the most expensive. In the US, there are tons of last miles that are thousands of miles from very large cities.

Switzerland is a tiny country relative to the US, so it's much cheaper to deliver mail.

I might misunderstand postal services here. Is that mail/letters only? Or does it include parcels?

Because as far as I'm aware, Switzerland opened up to DHL et al. I'm not sure about mail/letters tbh.

All of those companies that you listed are profiting off of USPS capacity.

http://www.wsj.com/articles/u-s-mail-does-the-trick-for-fede...

> Which is wildly successful and doesn't cost us taxpayers a dime.

If you count in taxbreak and other benefits, it actually does, especially USPS finance is in decline.

Which only survives by selling our addresses and delivering 100s of billions of pieces of spam to our mailbox. The legitimate mail for which i ostensibly exists is drying up quickly.

> Which is wildly successful and doesn't cost us taxpayers a dime.

You have to be kidding! The USPS is a disaster and barely works. I'm about to cancel my prime membership because Amazon started using the USPS although Amazon have finally got the message at least for my account and rarely use them now. Look up Prime and USPS if you want to see pages and pages just how bad service is with the USPS.

I used to think people like you had to be lying, because my service with the USPS in the Minneapolis area growing up was absolutely stellar. The value on the dollar was by far the best, and the friendly counter agents would help you figure out how to ship something the way you want.

Then I moved to Chicago and understood why the USPS gets such a bad rap. Lines a mile long, counter agents that can be called uncaring at best, tons of misdelivered/undelivered mail, etc. It was like two entirely different services.

I'm since back in Minneapolis and the USPS here is just as reliable as UPS or Fedex. 9 out of 10 packages arrive on time, which is about average for all of them.

Huh. I live in the cities and have always been happy with USPS and am always baffled by other peoples' complaints about it. Interesting to know it's because our local service is outstanding.

What if I told you that USPS was probably carrying some of your Prime packages for Fedex and you just didn't know about it?

http://www.wsj.com/articles/u-s-mail-does-the-trick-for-fede...

SmartPost and SurePost? Yeah, if I see that I call Amazon and tell them to cancel the order because basically I will not get the package. They simply refuse to bring packages to my door, even though according to the regulations they have to. I've tried talking to the local post master, but he avoids me ('he's in a meeting', 'I'll have him call you', 'Yeah, don't wait because he'll be awhile'). What's funny is that Amazon now has a special Sunday delivery service through the USPS and somehow they get delivered, but any other day of the week they do not.

It's so bad, confusing and illogical sometimes I just laugh at the situation. But, it's only a situation that can happen in a government agency.

Wow that's outrageous if that's the case. If it's really bugging you keep going up the chain.

poor b8, 1/10. Please try harder.

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