The Billionaire Behind Efforts to Kill the U.S. Postal Service [pdf]

https://www.inthepublicinterest.org/wp-content/uploads/ITPI_USPSPrivatization_July2020.pdf

by Firebrand • 6 years ago

365 524 6 years ago

armitron3• 6 years ago

Having lived in four different US states and in a number of European countries (currently resident in Germany), all I can say is good riddance.

USPS is by far the worst mail service I have ever encountered. It's so bad that there's absolutely no doubt in my mind that one can do a lot better, assuming one is allowed to compete. And even though they proudly say they receive NO money from the federal government, they do receive subsidies in the hundreds of millions.

jdm2212• 6 years ago

What do you find lacking in USPS?

My experience with other countries is Israel and Russia's postal systems, which are both notoriously bad at actually delivering mail. USPS doesn't ever seem to lose my mail, and stuff gets to where I send it in ~3 days, so I've always been a happy customer.

armitron3• 6 years ago

What they don't seem to lose is priority mail (I'm assuming it's actually tracked in a way that counts). They have lost plenty of my regular mail.

Not to mention consistently misdelivering my mail to other mailboxes. One time, I had to escalate all the way to the region supervisor before I found someone that would actually hear me out. The general attitude seems to be one of incompetence and total indifference.

schnable• 6 years ago

USPS is a disaster in Philly. Mail and packages don't get delivered, the tracking is a lie ("attempted delivery" when they haven't etc.), and it's impossible to get any customer service at all because the the escalation path is to a local postmaster with a full voicemail inbox.

_emacsomancer_9• 6 years ago

All of the other major delivery services in the US (UPS, FedEx, DHL, Ontrac) are horrible and far worse than the USPS. And without the USPS to compete against, they'd be even worse.

Matticus_Rex2• 6 years ago

Worse in what way? I've always had better experiences with every one of their competitors.

RodgerTheGreat2• 6 years ago

To say nothing of the fact that other delivery services frequently rely upon USPS for last-mile delivery in more rural (read: less- or un-profitable) areas, and those areas would simply not be served by a privatized postal service.

abruzzi• 6 years ago

And the bigger deal (to me) is that none of the competitors are really competitors in the key area of the USPS--first class mail delivery. Can UPS, FedEX deliver a letter (or a bill, or check, or...) for $0.55?

variaga3• 6 years ago

Anecdotally, I lived in one place where I never got a _single_ FedEx package correctly delivered of the dozens that were sent to me.

This was a normal apartment, in a normal apartment building, in a fairly nice part of town. The only way I ever got a Fedex package (several were sent back as "undeliverable") was if I knew it was coming in advance, to go online with the tracking # and instruct them to hold the delivery for me at the local Fedex office. Then I could pick it up in person.

Fortunately, the local Fedex office was only 2 blocks away from my apartment on the same street.

USPS delivered 100% of my letters and packages on time.

enraged_camel• 6 years ago

The USPS offers a unique combination of affordability and reliability that simply cannot be matched by the private sector.

Yes, it is subsidized. The reason is that being able to send and receive mail cheaply and reliably is the cornerstone of our society and our economic system.

ralph842• 6 years ago

I guess maybe you haven't enabled electronic statements for your accounts or something, but for me 99% of what I get from USPS is junk mail or online shopping deliveries. Not clear why either of those need to be subsidized.

variaga3• 6 years ago

USPS is not subsidized. It has always been required to pay for itself through delivery fees.

Cheyana• 6 years ago

I can counter that. Here in Arizona, I have sent packages probably a few dozen times in 20 years and have never had an issue, and the post office near where I work is busy almost all day with people sending things, so their problem might just be consistency across all sites. Some sites may not do enough business to support their staff while others may take in more than enough.

Maybe they just need to reduce their footprint, and close underutilized sites.

Avicebron4• 6 years ago

I think it's a slippery slope in eroding public services in favor of private corporations, instead of improving these systems we shouldn't let them die and allow monopolies to run rampant and become less and less competitive.

hendiatris• 6 years ago

Please provide more detail. I find the USPS to be one of the best things about this country. Every morning I get an email with photos of the mail I will receive, and a listing of the packages that are coming my way. I can’t remember the last time they’ve ever lost anything of mine. I’m sure not everyone’s experience is like mine - I’m curious how they can be so bad that they create a sense of loathing.

armitron3• 6 years ago

As I said, regularly losing mail. Regularly misdelivering mail. A lot of effort to get someone to even acknowledge the problem or even myself.

My mailbox stuffed with junk mail all the time (even if I have permanent sticker telling them not to do so). I've even talked to the USPS delivery person and told her not to do so. Next week, same issue. Rinse, repeat.

I've never, ever, ever had a problem with Fedex or UPS. They've been 100% professional and everytime I had to interact with them either on the phone or in a store, I always got good service. With USPS, this was the rare exception rather than the rule.

klyrs• 6 years ago

It's way worse in Canada. Similar arrangement where politicians love to gut its budget for short-term gains, and it lives in a weird category somewhere between business and utility. But delivery times (and reliability) are atrocious here in Canada.

In the US, I mailed something to my mom across town, and she got it the same day that I put it in the mailbox. I rarely saw a letter delivery take more than 2-3 days. Here in Canada, it may take over a week to send mail in the same province. Takes over a month when my mom sends me a letter from the US.

IMHO, they shouldn't get subsidies. They should be a public utility. They provide a necessary channel of communication between citizens and their goverment: taxes, passports, ballots, voter registration, etc. happen through USPS. In my experience (admittedly, I've been in Canada for a decade, so this is probably out of date) they've been much more reliable than any other shipping service, and I don't think any other private carrier does letter mail.

spfzero• 6 years ago

Just anecdote, but I probably mail about 100+ packages a year through USPS, about 40% to international addresses. Never had one fail to deliver. I always use USPS to ship, because it is reliable and the fees are reasonable.

Also receive lots of documents, periodicals, and packages through USPS, never had a problem there either, always in the mailbox or right at the front door. Of course I'd like to skip the junk mail.

USPS seems technically up-to-date as well, more or less. I can schedule pickups on-line, as well as buy and print postage. No complaints.

ngcc_hk• 6 years ago

I would say that losing to China so that it is cheaper to post from China to USA than from local to USA is a big deal. If they can get it cheaper than DHL, but slower and still hold onto the great ride of goods moving ... Just if

InTheArena2• 6 years ago

The USPS's primary revenue source is as a Spam delivery service. That basic problem is why it has refused to modernize. Anything with any significant value is already sent via Amazon, FedEx, DHL or UPS, or hand-delivered (in the case of really valuable stuff).

See:

https://www.insidesources.com/outbox-vs-usps-how-the-post-of...

The USPS has to be reformed and it needs a new purpose in life, other then stable government job for people. There needs to be significant value that others cannot meet. The reformation that is needed is being blocked.

For example, how about allowing me to pay $5 a month to not have you deliver crap into my inbox? Or to fully digitize the process, so I don't have a recycle bin full of crappy products, alumni magazines, and pizza coupons that I don't need or want.

Oh. And stop selling my data to third parties as well. Looking at you NCOA database.

thiagocesar• 6 years ago

For a moment there you had me wondering why the post office was delivering canned meat.

ed25519FUUU• 6 years ago

Having a last-mile delivery method available for every corner of the continental USA is enough of a raison d'être. That's value for the country.

Advertising is a money maker and it subsidizes the other business. I don't really see a problem with this.

tdeck2• 6 years ago

Not only is it valuable to private citizens, but FedEx and UPS use the postal service for last mile delivery as well. For example here's FedEx:

https://www.fedex.com/en-us/shipping/fedex-smartpost/network...

KeepFlying• 6 years ago

You have hit on the EXACT reason that the USPS is so critical. There are huge areas of the US which are not serviced by other private delivery services. And even in areas where those services do reach, I imagine the cost is extremely high.

People in Barrow, Alaska deserve access to mailing services as much as people in NYC. Without that, there is no reliable way to contact everyone in the US for the purpose of the Census, Voting (where mail-in voting is available), Jury Duty notifications, Selective Service, etc.

There are critical government services that still must be run over "snail mail" and to pass that off to a private institution which will not be able to service all areas equally will lead to more inequality.

alexbanks2• 6 years ago

How do I do mail in voting via Amazon, FedEx, DHL?

ericmay5• 6 years ago

The question is why can’t we? Why can’t the USG print and mail out ballots using these services? I don’t think they are fundamentally less secure, and if they are than we can just have them add on the capability of doing secure delivery.

notJim4• 6 years ago

I agree with what I think your point is, that having mail for all is a requirement of a civilization. (Sorry if this was not your point.) However, elections alone are obviously not enough to sustain a mail operation.

[Edit: I had a double-not, hopefully everyone understood my meaning before.]

harryh• 6 years ago

You can FedEx an absentee ballot. There is no requirement to use USPS.

toiletfuneral• 6 years ago

why should basic government services be profitable?

jacobolus• 6 years ago

There is huge value to the USPS, but it should be publicly funded (to whatever extent necessary) and should have serving the public as its mission, and should not be treated as a business.

qntty• 6 years ago

On the other hand, privatized delivery poses the same problem as private control of the internet in the absence of net neutrality. If there was no USPS to compete with, what's the stop Amazon and other major retailers from coming to agreements with delivery companies to charge higher fees for "non-partner" deliveries.

treis15• 6 years ago

The Sherman anti-trust act

toomuchtodo2• 6 years ago

Next you’ll ask for roads, schools, public transit, and the military to turn a profit! Public goods need not be revenue neutral, although efficiency efforts are palatable. The “profit” is the utility value it provides.

pfisch• 6 years ago

The USPS already has a purpose. Your problem is how it funds that purpose.

We could fund it ourselves through the government instead, but why?

standardUser• 6 years ago

"...any significant value is already sent via Amazon, FedEx, DHL or UPS"

And then those things are handed off to the USPS for "last mile" delivery to the millions of rural addresses that UPS and FedEx don't delivery to directly with their own vehicles.

USPS serves some very critical purposes, and ensuring mail 'works' for all citizens, even those with deep rural addresses, is one of them.

GlenTheMachine• 6 years ago

I came here to say this. I grew up in an extremely rural area. It's still extremely rural, forty years after I move away. When I was a teenager there was one grocery store, no department stores, no electronics stores, no restaurants. Just the grocery store, the feed store, the auto parts and hunting goods store, and mile upon mile of pasture.

And the post office. The mail came every day. Sending a letter to anywhere cost $0.25, just like your were mailing it from New York City. It was, literally, a lifeline.

j88439h842• 6 years ago

If USPS didn't exist, do you think FedEx start delivering to those places?

hirundo• 6 years ago

I live in a rural area. The nearest USPS delivery is at a post office 11 miles away. UPS and FedEx deliver to my front door. It has been the same in two other rural areas I've lived in. New Mexico, California and Arizona. I've never lived in a place that USPS delivered to that UPS and FedEx did not.

gok• 6 years ago

True, USPS also subsidizes inefficient, environmentally unfriendly living.

acdha3• 6 years ago

The major problem the USPS has is the 2006 law requiring them to prefund employee pensions at the time of retirement, which no other business has to do. Changing that to normal accounting alone would substantially transform their finances.

A secondary problem is that Congress will interfere with decisions to reduce service in unprofitable areas but not officially subsidize it. This makes the post office appear to be unprofitable because we see the cost of having service in rural areas but don’t directly record the costs to the people who live there and the business which otherwise would not happen without that service.

treis15• 6 years ago

The major problem the USPS has is the 2006 law requiring them to prefund employee pensions at the time of retirement, which no other business has to do.

This is a common talking point, but is factually incorrect.

(1) The USPS hasn't made any of those payments since 2013. Their current financial woes aren't caused by the requirement since their not making the payments.

(2) Pensions are required to be fully funded. In practice that's a bit more theoretical than actual, but the USPS isn't being treated any different.

paulgb• 6 years ago

From that article, it's not clear what USPS is getting the blame for here. Reading between the lines, it sounds like a startup asked them to reroute their customers' mail to them, and USPS said "no we don't do that"?

They ultimately found a way around it but shut down due to lack of sign-ups[1], so it seems like USPS saved themselves some time.

[1] https://techcrunch.com/2014/01/21/outbox-shuts-down/

acdha3• 6 years ago

Any time I read something like this, the safe assumption is that this is how they’re telling their investors that the problem wasn’t a couple of recent business school grads trying to get rich quick parachuting into a business they don’t understand:

“[we] knew that the USPS would not be able to work out its own problems, so perhaps naively, we hoped to partner with USPS to provide an alternative to the physical delivery of postal mail to a subset of users, hoping this would spur further innovation and cost savings.”

notJim4• 6 years ago

I actually tend to agree with you about the USPS. The thing is, it seems like a lot more could be done by the USPS. An obvious example would be postal banking, where they could serve as a bank that would provide services to all, especially those who struggle to get accounts at commercial banks. I've also heard perhaps wilder ideas—for example, what if they got into other logistics-heavy spaces like food delivery? In Finland, they apparently piloting a program to mow people's lawns.

uses• 6 years ago

Your first sentence isn't even true and you can go right here and read the table that shows their revenue sources: https://about.usps.com/newsroom/national-releases/2019/1114-... To spoil it for you: in 2019, First-Class Mail and Shipping and Packages made significantly more revenue than Marketing Mail. Yes, USPS needs some new revenue streams. They do provide significant value that others cannot meet, which is daily mail delivery to anywhere in the USA. But yes, they need to find other unique services too.

donor204• 6 years ago

The chart doesn't show the relative volumes of mail. For every priority mail package at $14.95 that same $14.95 buys HUNDREDS of pieces of junk mail.

The terrible thing - you CANNOT opt out of the junk mail, at least in the past (hopefully this has changed).

I have no interest in the USPS as a result. What type of business that is supposed to be providing a service FORCES its future and current customers to kill trees for junk mail that will go into the trash.

If the govt didn't allow for spam filters on email, email would be dying too.

InTheArena2• 6 years ago

You don't need the personal attacks, and in this case, I suspect that you definition of spam is anything marketing, while ny definition is anything that is sent in bulk to large number of people, or is uninteresting to me:

"irrelevant or inappropriate messages sent on the Internet to a large number of recipients."

A non-trivial percentage of "first class" mail is actually spam. The difference is in quality of service (delivery times for first class is significantly faster in some circumstances then marketing).

I do agree that that there is value in daily mail delivery, but my point is that the value needs to be enhanced, rather then just continue in what it is today. Cut service where it doesn't make sense (go to every other day), encourage people to use email, which is way less wasteful, and less harmful for the environment, focus on rural routes.

justin662• 6 years ago

That basic problem is why it has refused to modernize. Anything with any significant value is already sent via Amazon, FedEx, DHL or UPS, or hand-delivered (in the case of really valuable stuff).

Hundreds of millions of people use first class mail to pay their bills, rent, etc. and for all sorts of other things where those other delivery services would be needlessly expensive. The "basic problem" is that the post office is not permitted to set prices for first class mail or vary them where they lose money with every delivery, and yet they're expected by some to be run profitably "like a business."

The USPS has to be reformed and it needs a new purpose in life, other then stable government job for people.

Because what the country really needs right now is a greater number of unstable jobs.

andrewlgood3• 6 years ago

? Are you suggesting the USPS is simply a job works program?

mumbisChungo• 6 years ago

USPS is actually an extremely effective lightweight parcel courier. Their rates aren't great for big, heavy stuff, but for typical ecommerce volume their rates are very competitive. They're also the only major courier who is anywhere close to maintaining their pre-covid delivery times. Outbound UPS delivery times from my area, for example, have more than doubled since March (from avg 5 bus days, to two weeks), while USPS volume is maybe a day slower on average. (avg 2.5 days up to avg 3.5)

aahhahahaaa2• 6 years ago

They're already a significant value that others cannot meet. That's why a billionaire wants to kill it and ingest the money elsewhere.

The elimination of money orders from the USPS alone would push more people to already-abusive payday lenders.

CharlesW• 6 years ago

The USPS's primary revenue source is as a Spam delivery service.

I suggest doing some research before presenting guesses as fact.

Marketing email was 23% of USPS's revenue (53% of volume) in 2019.

yardie• 6 years ago

That basic problem is why it has refused to modernize.

Probably because as a chartered non-government company they have a politically appointed Postmaster General who takes their orders from the POTUS. No company is required to fund pensions for 75 years. No company has their prices set by Congress. And no company has been a bigger political football than the USPS.

it needs a new purpose in life, other then stable government job for people.

I believe they have tried in the past, oh what's that, blocked because Postmaster General doesn't want it.

Matticus_Rex2• 6 years ago

It's funny how it's painted as malice and conspiracy, while the arguments on the other side are grounded in research and theory. The Kochs are the left's Soros conspiracy.

baxter001• 6 years ago

Is that those two french brothers who tried to publish fake physics papers?

catalogia• 6 years ago

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Igor_and_Grichka_Bogdanoff

I'm speechless.

bmitc9• 6 years ago

The amount of narcissism these people (the Koch's, for example) have is just astounding. If you're a billionaire, what could possibly be a reasonable explanation for why you even care about the post office? Why are these people so hell bent on hurting people to feed their own narcissism?

The USPS could be improved but struggles primarily due to active efforts to kill it off. But it's a wonderful idea of a service that definitely should exist and be improved. What's next to kill off? Libraries? Public schools? The USPS, libraries, public schools provide basically guaranteed service to anyone, anywhere. They're wonderful institutions. Are they perfect? No. But very few institutions are, and these provide a helpful service to people. We should focus on improving them instead of spending so much money to kill them.

I've learned that the USPS has free package pickup since someone is basically guaranteed to be in your neighborhood every day, which has been a wonderful service during this viral breakout. By having USPS pickup my small packages, it keeps me out of their stores away from other people and employees. I simply purchase a label online and schedule the free pickup, next day if it's a weekday. It's a minimum of $11 for UPS to come pickup your package at a residential address, even if they're already coming to your address for another delivery that same day.

darawk6• 6 years ago

It's ideological. They believe that the government should not be in the postal business. They probably believe that it's harmful to competition in various ways, and they are probably right in certain narrow contexts.

bmitc9• 6 years ago

The same argument of being harmful to competition could be extended to schools and libraries and <name a service>. It's just mind blowing why we should care about companies more than people. So what if it's harmful to competition? What merit does that have? (These aren't questions for you. They're rhetorical.)

_emacsomancer_9• 6 years ago

The existence of billionaires is far more harmful to competition than government is.

ouid• 6 years ago

I dont think the problem with the Kochs is their tunnel vision.

pryce• 6 years ago

Ideological is close; If you are a billionaire, you didn't perform a billion dollars worth of labor; you got that way being the recipient of profits of significant fractions of entire industries based predominantly on other people's labor.

If you make money this way, untapped resources don't necessarily look like untapped oil fields, instead they might look like entire industries that (with friendly legislators) can suddenly be opened up private profit (especially yours), or industries that can be captured into monopolies, or nations whose current economic situation can be exploited in ways that put large amounts of money into your pocket.

rayiner8• 6 years ago

It’s not just “they.” Postal privatization is common, and subsidies are closely watched: https://www.oecd.org/daf/competition/sectors/1920548.pdf. The Danish post, for example, is a private company owned by a Swedish company, and subsidies are closely tracked.

beepboopbeep2• 6 years ago

Yes but ideological means tt's a systemic crippling of government pillars in order to collapse the federal government or otherwise render it inept.

sparkling3• 6 years ago

Its easy to point at a greedy billionaire who wants to ruin [insert public service here] so that he can squeeze out another dollar for himself.

But have you considered that they _genuinely_ belive that minimal government and more privatization leads to overall better results? It might just be that they have good intensions, that they really wish for a better outcome for all.

I don't share that view, but i do think that there is a fraction of hardcore liberterians that truly believe we'd be better of without many of the government-founded services such as libraries, schools etc. - and while i do not agree with that, those people are still entitled to their opinion and are allowed to lobby for it.

aahhahahaaa2• 6 years ago

If they wanted a better outcome for all then they wouldn't be billionaires, IMO. The fact that they exist is the sign of a problem that they're happy to exploit and automatically warrants suspicion about their motives.

quickthrowman13• 6 years ago

But have you considered that they _genuinely_ belive that minimal government and more privatization leads to overall better results? It might just be that they have good intensions, that they really wish for a better outcome for all.

Yes, and that makes it even worse. They’re so out of touch with common people and so insulated from routine everyday life, their opinion shouldn’t count for anything.

I don’t care if joe programmer on HN or Jeff the General Contractor at the bar are advocating for dismantling the post office because of libertarian ideology, because they have neither the power nor resources to affect change.

I do care when insanely wealthy billionaires who are completely insulated from the rest of society argue for horseshit like this because they have power to change it, and it’s for ideological reasons.

It’s pure narcissism to argue for a position that would negatively affect millions of people when the one arguing for change wouldn’t suffer one damn bit and in effect disregard everyone else’s suffering for their ideological bullshit position.

The existence of billionaires combined with Citizens United is an actual problem, the post office is not.

pizza• 6 years ago

They can have all the opinions they want. Ultimately, a handful of billionaires' opinions and lobbying efforts should not be enough to destroy public institutions.

mindcrime3• 6 years ago

Just to be clear, we don't have any problem with schools or libraries. We just think the model of having governments collect taxes and then pay for those things is broken. In consequentialist terms, it's broken because it removes competition from the equation, and competition generally leads to progressively improving products and services, and/or lower cost goods and services. In deontological terms, it's broken because taxation is theft.

jeromegv2• 6 years ago

In theory yes, they should be allowed for their opinion. However their hold on society is much bigger than the 1 vote they are allowed. With their billions, they can contribute to elect and influence politicians. So while the view to destroy the USPS is well funded, what about the small business or lower income people that rely on USPS as an affordable and needed service (in the middle of a pandemic no less)? Who can they lobby? They just have 1 vote and not billions.

So while in theory I agree with your premise that they are allowed to lobby for whatever they want, the reality is that their influence on society is way overboard and should be limited (limited political contributions!).

0xddd2• 6 years ago

Sure, but with the amount of wealth and power that they have, it goes beyond lobbying. If there were any sense of the other side getting equal bargaining power, maybe people would be less upset.

harimau7774• 6 years ago

This is tough because I don't want to straw man them, but I'm not sure I've ever heard a hardcore libertarian really argue that their policies would be better for the whole of society.

Generally it seems like they think that minimal government leads to better results in a social Darwinism or "get rid of the parasites" sense.

I've also never really seen them seriously recon with the question of what you do with people who cannot compete, and at some point I feel like that crosses the line into intellectual negligence.

Again, I don't want to try to demonize the other side and I really wish I could think of a good example, but I really cannot.

coliveira13• 6 years ago

Of course they can have whatever opinion they want. But what demonstrate the big danger of billionaires is that they have the resources to fund any number of think tanks, lobbyists, ONGs, TV shows, newspapers, and what not to sway legislation to their particular, minority view.

specialist• 6 years ago

Billionaires and governments are natural enemies.

Why would I care about Koch's views towards government?

Would I ask Harvey Weinstein about sexual assault and harassment?

Would I ask a creationist about evolution?

Would I ask a pro-lifer about women's reproductive rights?

Would I ask an Iowan farmer about agricultural subsidies?

Would I ask Coca Cola about diabetes?

Would I ask a reality TV star about presidential powers?

Would I ask Rupert Murdock about journalism?

Would I ask The Sinclair Group about media consolidation?

Would I ask a white supremacist about race relations?

Would I ask members of John Birch Society about voting rights?

Would I ask members of The Federalist Society about balance of powers?

rayiner8• 6 years ago

The amount of narcissism these people (the Koch's, for example) have is just astounding. If you're a billionaire, what could possibly be a reasonable explanation for why you even care about the post office? Why are these people so hell bent on hurting people to feed their own narcissism?

Because they believe it’s bad for the public welfare. As you acknowledge, they have no other reason to care.

woodruffw4• 6 years ago

Since the OP failed to mention the other reasons: ideological purity and profit motive come to mind.

Edit: I failed to mention that the libertarian groups, at least in the US, are also a consistent reservoir and breeding ground for reactionaries. Another plausible explanation is that a lot of (ultra-wealthy) people have even worse politics, but launder their views through "free minds, free markets."

AnthonyMouse9• 6 years ago

The USPS, libraries, public schools provide basically guaranteed service to anyone, anywhere.

Libraries are a public service. They're free. The people who use them don't have to pay anything for it, which is a boon to those who otherwise couldn't afford it. It's basically a public subsidy for access to books.

The postal service is a business. There isn't supposed to be any subsidy, you pay for it through postage, and they're not doing anything that UPS or FedEx couldn't do just as well. Public libraries don't need a law prohibiting private libraries to keep everyone from abandoning them, but the USPS needs a government monopoly on carrying letters? If the post office was so great then they shouldn't need that -- but then they'd likely fail, because private competitors would do it better and people would stop using USPS.

It's the same thing with public schools. The benefit is that the government pays for them, so no one can say they can't afford to send their kids to school. But that doesn't require the subsidy to go only to schools operated by the government. Give the parents education vouchers and let them choose their school. If the public schools are so great then they'll choose them anyway. The opposition to this comes from people knowing full well that they're not.

DubiousPusher2• 6 years ago

The reason for public involvement in the postal service is to ensure parcel and letter carrying to all. I have many friends in rural Montana who would not have parcel or letter service if a strictly profit oriented company were the only delivery service.

Or the price of delivery would be so exorbitant as to be prohibitive. UPS and FedEx only offer delivery to these locations because they see it as a required feature to remain competitive with USPS.

djur14• 6 years ago

Would these private letter carriers subject themselves to the necessary regulation and government scrutiny necessary to ensure that, for instance, a legally sufficient equivalent to USPS certified mail is available throughout the United States and its possessions? That election mail and other official business is conducted with sufficient speed, caution, and security? Would FedEx be willing to accept the liability and public relations exposure of being directly involved in determining the outcome of a US presidential election?

Or is it more likely that the private carriers would expect and demand a rump Post Office to carry the mail they find unprofitable?

Frondo2• 6 years ago

The postal service is in fact the only agency explicitly mentioned in the US Constitution:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Postal_Clause

Whether it operates like a business now, it was absolutely intended to be a function of government.

coliveira13• 6 years ago

These people are moved by blind ideology, they operate like religious fanatics. The Kochs simply do not believe that any socially owned service should exist. This kind of people are a danger for everyone. And you must be sure that the USPS is not the last target. Public schools, libraries, everything is in their crosshairs.

cgh• 6 years ago

It's also likely because they are trying to suppress mail-in ballots. These are overwhelmingly used by people who can't get to a polling station because eg it is too far away and they don't own a car - in other words, they are poor.

cheez2• 6 years ago

India has a better solution: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-india-election-lone-voter...

arnonejoe• 6 years ago

Whats wrong with sending a ballot via UPS?

bmitc9• 6 years ago

That's very perceptive. Thanks for bringing that up. If that truly is part of the case, it's even more dastardly than I thought.

isthispermanent8• 6 years ago

The idea that it’s purely narcissistic is without merit. Privatization is about fostering competition to ensure better products are created.

Just because the USPS works as is does not mean it couldn’t be better. This is a classic “I like things the way they are” problem. Where the other possibilities are unknown and inexperienced and so are not given equal weight to a decision.

I don’t particularly care whether the postal service is privatized or not. But the more we keep failing at things like public schools the more I’m inclined to align with privatization. Everything can be regulated to a degree that requires basic service levels.

But you can’t fake incentive. What is the USPS incentive to do better?

faitswulff2• 6 years ago

What is private industry's incentive to do better?

conception• 6 years ago

Public schooling has had a tremendous positive effect on the US and countries world wide.

If it is failing, which it is not, it is for the same political reasons as the USPS is “failing”, which it is not.

wishinghand• 6 years ago

...I’m inclined to align with privatization. Everything can be regulated to a degree that requires basic service levels.

When companies get big enough to serve the entire nation, a few million USD in fines won't make them stop.

But you can’t fake incentive. What is the USPS incentive to do better?

It's an intrinsic goal, set by those who truly do want to serve better. You can hire for that. USPS would have an easier time hiring the right people if they weren't hamstrung by billionaires weakening their foundations.

bouchard• 6 years ago

What you fail to take into account is that with a privatized postal service, non-profitable routes will stopped being serviced even if it's essential to the population.

lostlogin• 6 years ago

How do you apply this logic to US healthcare? Regulation doesn’t seem to have helped with costs, accessibility and population health.

Regulation doesn’t seem to have helped in terms of bang for buck.

tclancy• 6 years ago

This completely ignores things like the Tragedy of the Commons. Similarly, it ignores the idea some things may be a fundamental right. If the mail is completely privatized, who makes sure I can mail things at all regardless of my wealth?

And some day you may ask why wealth should be a barrier to entry to anything.

thesagan• 6 years ago

When there's competition to foster. Unfortunately, the pendulum has been swinging towards market concentration, duopolies, and even monopolies.

See: Health insurance industry

Also see: Internet service providers

Also also see: Publishing

bmitc9• 6 years ago

The idea that it’s purely narcissistic is without merit. Privatization is about fostering competition to ensure better products are created.

This fostering competition business is often a false narrative. If the USPS was dissolved, there would be hardly anything compelling UPS or FedEx to pick up its services. If they did, they'd be at an increased cost to consumers.

Just because the USPS works as is does not mean it couldn’t be better.

In my original comment, I explicitly said "The USPS could be improved but struggles primarily due to active efforts to kill it off. But it's a wonderful idea of a service that definitely should exist and be improved." The problem is that the USPS is in a chokehold by politicians, starving it of funds and increasing its costs, yelling at it "why can't you do better?" Talk about "fair" competition. Of course public services should be improved.

But the more we keep failing at things like public schools the more I’m inclined to align with privatization.

As I mentioned in my original comment, we should focus on improving these things. Public schools are poor for a variety of reasons, primarily political, and their problems are not inherent to their existence as a public service. My mom was a teacher for decades, as were her family members. I've seen why schools struggle, and it's not simply because they're a public service.

But you can’t fake incentive. What is the USPS incentive to do better?

What is UPS or FedEx's or any other company's incentive to do better? More capital and more money. Their incentive isn't to make people's lives better. It's to earn more money. It just so happens that these can overlap, but company's have few incentives to provide services to people. That's the entire point of public services. It's because there isn't an incentive for companies to provide them in a way that's beneficial and cost effective for the common people.

linuxftw2• 6 years ago

What's next to kill off? Libraries? Public schools?

I would vote for this. Whatever we spend on public libraries, that money could be used to bring every residence land-line high-speed internet access.

I would also defund all public schools. Charter schools seem to be the future, but the legion of bureaucrats don't want to let go of their communist indoctrination pipeline.

As a tax payer, I don't want to subsidize people sending letters or packages. Much of the back haul and distribution has already been contracted out anyway.

It's a minimum of $11 for UPS to come pickup your package at a residential address

Yeah, that's the real cost of that service. The fact that it's free for the USPS doing it means you're using other people's money.

harimau7774• 6 years ago

A problem with this strategy is that libraries are often used by the homeless in order to study and apply for jobs.

Librarians also provide expertise in sourcing knowledge that isn't available online; particularly with the way that Google search has evolved.

Larger libraries also provide archivist roles and even small libraries may serve to archive local news and history.

antiutopian• 6 years ago

It's their class interest, which drives them to view the world in a certain way. So as others are saying, it's ideological. But that ideology isn't a coincidence, it comes from justifying the sort of "work" that they do, day in and day out.

yingw787• 6 years ago

I think the wealthier you are, the fewer "real" problems you have, so sometimes you end up making up problems or creating problems for yourself to chew on.

I think the happiest rich people have a "wall" to push against and a "chair" to sit in when they're tired. Bill Gates has the health policy stuff to work on during the day, and his family to come back to in the evening. Jeff Bezos has Amazon to run, Elon Musk and Jack Dorsey have their companies and people to be around, average people have a job.

If you don't have that "thing" to chew on, if you just sit in on a board meeting and sip cocktails on a beach, it's easy to become lonely and feel like life is meaningless. You become like Notch and end up in a depressive spiral where you simultaneously have everything and nothing.

Not a psychologist or anything, just an interesting observation. No man is an island. Until he is, then he's Robinson Crusoe.

alasdair_4• 6 years ago

The problem with certain types of libertarians (which the Koch brothers believe(d) they are) is that they overdo the market fundamentalism to the point of turning it into religion. At that point, anything that is not "of the market" turns into a religious war, with all the stupidity of all religious wars.

Markets are phenomenal things for the majority of goods and terrible things for a few goods (like common defence, the judiciary and pollution control). The post office is in the latter case - some people need to subsidize the system in order for (say) rural deliveries to take place.

The benefit of having a single universal system is important in a world where an enormous amount of things that are necessary to a functioning society (say, jury summons, or voting pamphlets or other government paperwork) need to be accessible to every single citizen in the democracy.

Eventually the Internet can replace most of these things, but then the government of a democracy needs to ensure that literally every citizen has free and reasonable access to the internet without meaningful burden, lest it disenfranchise the poor and the rural.

Oddly, the whole "defund the post office" thing seems to be mostly a Republican issue. I say oddly, because the Democratic base tend to be from more densely populated states and from larger cities in those states. These people are least likely to be affected by a lack of post office as commercial delivery services can supply the majority of their mailing needs in a pinch. The people most affected are people in large states like Texas, especially those outside of the cities, where it's less economical to deliver to.

Not to mention all of the other federal services that post office provide that would ultimately go away if the post office did. Things like passport processing, for example.

Honestly, I'm still kind of amazed at how people can be convinced to so consistently call for things that are against their own interests in the name of some abstract idea like "religion!" or "the market!.

gibsonf12• 6 years ago

What a silly idea, that a free market would be better and more efficient delivering mail than the government which loses billions a year? Fedex delivers anywhere you want - I'm sure they would love to deliver mail too with their network as would UPS etc. and you know how reliable they are as opposed to USPS.

mertd• 6 years ago

Free market won't deliver to unprofitable zip codes, won't treat unprofitable diseases and cannot effectively account for negative or positive externalities created by a given business.

boogies• 6 years ago

these provide a helpful service to people

To the people that run marketing and political campaigns, and utility companies.

Over 95% of all mail is not personal correspondence. ~50% is advertisements.

The UPS price probably reflects the fact it’s only allowed to compete with the USPS on an rigged, uneven playing field, through a legal loophole for “extremely urgent letters”.

And I wouldn't mind “killing” my local public library (despite spending hours playing Minecraft and Roblox there in my youth) in favor of the Internet Archive et al.¹, and public schools in favor of private schools that prioritize customer satisfaction over union agreements². And deunionize the police while we're at it: many of the violent acts and actual human killings BLM and others protest were perpetrated by repeat offenders kept in the force because of unions. After unionizing, police are 40% more likely to use violence.³

Camden, New Jersey fired their entire police force, hired a new union-less one, and decreased there murder rate while saving money that could then be spent on libraries, schools, etc. Private police have successfully served many communities.⁴

1: Edit: My area has private little lending libraries the size of large newspaper dispensers scattered around it, which work great because the area's dense and walkable; other less dense areas have libraries on wheels in the form of trucks and vans.

2: One of my favorite high school teachers was fired for lack of seniority because of union rules, and private and charter schools seem better by every measure I know of.

3: https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/Papers.cfm?abstract_id=3095217

4: https://reason.com/video/dont-abolish-the-police-privatize-t....

dboreham• 6 years ago

It'll be the same thing that drives people to bang on about code reviews and tabs vs spaces and camel vs underscore and semicolons in a language that defines their use then says they're optional. Mostly.

heimatau• 6 years ago

Libraries are mostly funded by cities/states (harder to defund). Same goes for public schools. But...make no mistake, there is a power struggle going on.

It can be seen with the reduction to these functions to expand the police departments.

alextheparrot3• 6 years ago

This is interesting timing, given the recent UPU changes that should help shore up USPS by reducing the losses they experience from international mailings. They estimate that this causes 400M in losses each year [0].

Though, overall, this has been a long arc of slowly trying different ways to gut or kill the program in the last ~40 years.

[0] https://mailingsystemstechnology.com/article-4596-The-US-Rem...

teslabox• 6 years ago

There are various advocates for allowing the USPS to return to the banking business. They would put the exploitative check cashing stores out of business.

Ellen Brown's has written a copy pieces advocating for postal banking.

What We Could Do with a Postal Savings Bank: Infrastructure that Doesn’t Cost Taxpayers a Dime - https://ellenbrown.com/2013/09/23/what-we-could-do-with-a-po... (2013)

This piece concludes by suggesting the postal service is being looted so its property portfolio can be sold off.

llsf3• 6 years ago

In France, that is one way that the postal service survived.

Actually, the banking service is also "universal" (every post office provide the service), allowing very remote places to have banking and postal service in one place. So even in remote places where it is not profitable for <bigBank> to open an office, there are always a post office around. The financial services are broad, bank account, checks, loans, credit cards, stocks/bonds, currency exchange, etc.

Another service is notary (the postal office can certify some official papers), civil services (the postal office can process ID/passport renewal), and you can pay your taxes or fines too :)

Combined with a solid IT infrastructure, a tiny post office can do a lot, with few employees. A lot more than just delivering spam or even parcel.

pantaloony• 6 years ago

Ah. The property angle suddenly lets all the pieces fall into place. Now it makes sense.

tdeck2• 6 years ago

C.B. Richard Ellis (CBRE), the company holding the exclusive contract to negotiate sales for the $85 billion postal real estate portfolio, has sold off 52 postal properties for at least $79 million less than their fair market value. Worse, the buyers included its own business partners and shareholders, including Goldman Sachs. CBRE is chaired by Richard C. Blum, the husband of US Senator Dianne Feinstein, a family Byrne says has a history of accessing public pension funds to make private investments

The more I learn about Feinstein the more unhappy I become.

derwiki• 6 years ago

It’s probably not fair, but I give her a lot of credit for stepping up when Moscone and Milk were gunned down. Yea that was a long time ago and this is unrelated. Doesn’t excuse it; I just try to remember what she has done for SF as a whole.

WarOnPrivacy3• 6 years ago

This is terrible to read. It's really frustrating that this sort of corruption isn't interesting enough for news orgs to cover in a meaningful & consistent way.

kristopolous4• 6 years ago

Ellen Brown's work in writing about banking history, public banking, municipal banking, and banking reform is really worth looking into for people who are interested in the topic.

Even libertarians and conservatives will I believe find something to agree with here as your city and state tax dollars probably go towards servicing private bank fees which could be eliminated by your city or state chartering their own bank and could be further reduced by them offering traditional "meat and potato" style loans to small main-street style businesses at reasonable rates.

The city making a few honest dollars in an open capitalist marketplace to reduce the citizen's tax burden I think would be welcome by by ideological libertarians, conservatives, liberals, socialists, all the major branches. No coercion, no obligation, just more competition, this time to the benefit of easing your tax burden.

nickff7• 6 years ago

Most libertarians (including myself) think it's a bad idea to have governments 'compete' with private companies for a variety of reasons, including:

- It's unlikely that the government will regulate itself and its competitors fairly, and it's generally unlikely that the government will hold itself to account (as it often does for private entities).

- The government is likely to set up barriers to entry, to prevent competition. This is the case for the postal service, which has a monopoly on first-class mail.

- The government is likely to subsidize its 'option', either directly or indirectly, such as by having the government 'sole-source' services from its 'competitor'.

riazrizvi3• 6 years ago

I don't think the Federal Government has any mandate that allows it to start a for profit business, on some whimsical political wind. The USA is designed to allow people to make a living, and it has limitations that prevent it from getting in on someone's lucrative business. Laws supporting free+fair markets on the other hand, are meant to make it possible for private citizens to compete...

jonahbenton3• 6 years ago

Nope. With respect, the US Government has myriad enterprises, under all kinds of legal authorities, accounted for in all kinds of ways. Two of hundreds of examples are Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

oh_sigh• 6 years ago

This is just completely wrong, and I'm not sure why you think your beliefs about the federal government have any bearing on the reality of what the federal government can or can't do.

simonebrunozzi• 6 years ago

Poste Italiane, the Italian equivalent of the postal service, is now mostly a bank that happens to deliver mail as a side business. Hugely profitable, and a quasi-monopolistic market position.

USPS becoming a bank could happen in the US and it would be great for the company, because the Antitrust system in the US is a joke and it would never stop it, IMHO.

seebetter• 6 years ago

Why can't a person open a bank account?

I mean, I can't because I sold some bitcoin via Bank of America 4-years ago. Someone stole my info, I reported it as fraud and BoA reported me for fraud -- and all my bank accounts closed. And they refuse to fix it.

abiogenesis• 6 years ago

By the same logic post office could have blacklisted you too.

tim333• 6 years ago

Are you blocked from all US banks?

exabrial• 6 years ago

I can't imagine the number of tons of paper and c02 we would save the planet if we got rid of it. All they do is deliver spam that's thrown away. I fully support selling it off to private companies.

vondur• 6 years ago

Why does the postal service need to turn a profit? It's a government agency. Are any other government agencies required to be profitable?

c3534l• 6 years ago

It's not so much a government agency as it is a public corporation. In the days when the postal service was founded, large corporations were rare enough that they had to be created and initially funded by the government. Now we have financial markets and concepts that allow for the streamlined creation of large corporations, but it's closer to the modern concept of a utility than anything else.

djur14• 6 years ago

It hasn't always been a public corporation. USPS only dates back to 1970. Previous to that it was the US Post Office Department, a cabinet-level agency. It was reorganized in 1970 in response to a strike:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/U.S._postal_strike_of_1970

jessriedel2• 6 years ago

Yes? I think lots of government agencies that deliver services to paying customers are expected to cover their expenses. It's true that some government activities provide, say, non-excludable public goods using tax money, and so are not expected to collect sufficient revenue through distribution, but other government activities are intended to provide a service that can be valued and efficiently purchased by consumers.

For instance, my family's street recently got a public sewer system (to replace septic systems), and the city charged homeowners one-time and recurring fees to cover the expenses of both installation and operation. If the city could not get the homeowners to pay enough to cover the cost of the sewer system, which was a real risk, the system would have been considered a mistake (and a project with similar economic prospects would likely been avoided in the future).

runako8• 6 years ago

Yes? I think lots of government agencies that deliver services to paying customers are expected to cover their expenses.

The big-ticket items I pay for as a taxpayer include schools (via local taxes), defense, retirees, and healthcare. None of those cover their expenses, and basically everything else combined is a tiny minority of government expenditure.

(I believe we should more fully fund the non-defense parts of the budget, but let's not pretend they net out in the in-years.)

sdinsn3• 6 years ago

Why does the postal service need to turn a profit?

It doesn't have to turn a 'profit' in the literal sense, but it needs to make more money than their current spending because they have to pay future pensions.

grafporno• 6 years ago

So they have to turn a profit in the literal sense.

missedthecue28• 6 years ago

How else will it grow and expand to better serve their customers?

trts• 6 years ago

Skimmed this long PDF after getting clickbaited by the headline and it begins with the premise that without the USPS, we would be left only with email

The federal agency plays a crucial role in U.S. supply chains, commerce, and basic communication—which email simply cannot replace—by processing and delivering nearly 500 million pieces of mail on an average day.

But I did have a number of questions like,

Wouldn't it be bad if we abolished the post office since there's always been one in my neighborhood?

Why does this person have a particular issue with a quasi-governmental agency that is a rounding-error in the federal budget? What about the trillions in defense and deficit spending?

Isn't 90% of what comes to my mailbox spam that I just forward on to the landfill?

Do most other countries have a public postal service? Why or why not.

Don't I avoid the post-office at all costs unless there's an automated kiosk that happens not to be out of service?

Why is this on Hacker News?

anonu2• 6 years ago

Why is this on Hacker News?

It's an interesting topic. It's generated a few 100 comments already proving that. If HN were just about the latest Rust release and some new startup CEO's deep thoughts, I probably wouldn't come here 5x a day

ip265• 6 years ago

Why does this person have a particular issue...

No one knows for sure. This person also has issues with other tiny pieces of the federal budget, such as the CPB.

Various theories are advanced, such as political strategy (kill mail-in-ballots, NPR is seen as leaning slightly left) or profiteering (the USPS has a large pension fund, perhaps an appealing target for a corporate raid).

bhupy17• 6 years ago

Something I don't normally see discussed re privatization of US Postal Service is that it doesn't appear to be a novel idea.

Singapore's postal service, SingPost, is a publicly traded company[1].

The UK's postal service, Royal Mail, is a publicly traded limited company[2].

Germany's postal service, Deutsche Post AG, is a publicly traded company[3].

Japan's postal service, Japan Post, is a publicly traded company[4].

I'm also yet to hear a convincing argument as to why the USPS enjoys a monopoly in first class parcel mail. That is to say, sure let's keep USPS state owned / public, but why can't FedEx/UPS/Amazon/DHL compete with the USPS?

[1] https://sg.finance.yahoo.com/quote/S08.SI/

[2] https://www.marketwatch.com/investing/stock/rmg?countrycode=...

[3] https://www.boerse-frankfurt.de/equity/deutsche-post-ag

[4] https://finance.yahoo.com/quote/6178.T?p=6178.T&.tsrc=fin-sr...

mktk1001• 6 years ago

There's no incentive for public companies to serve rural areas.

reaperducer2• 6 years ago

You're being downvoted because most people believe it when FedEx or Amazon or UPS say they serve 100% of Americans. There's no way they would do so if they had to have the same footprint as the USPS.

Is Amazon going to run ships around the Great Lakes to deliver mail to vessels moving between ports?

Is FedEx going to send a truck an a four-hour round-trip to deliver a single letter to someone on an indian reservation for 50¢?

Is UPS going to charter bush planes to deliver mail to remote outposts in Alaska, Samoa, Guam, and the Northern Mariana Islands?

There are post offices so far out in the middle of nowhere that while they have a concrete pad for handicapped parking because it's required by the ADA, no customers ever arrive by car, so there's also hitching posts for people's horses, which is the primary mode of transportation. I don't see Amazon doing that. It'll just say, "Wait 20 years for your mail while we work the bugs out of our super-cool drone delivery service!"

chrisseaton3• 6 years ago

Why do you think the Royal Mail serves rural areas?

missedthecue28• 6 years ago

Uhh money? Why does UPS deliver packages to rural areas? I live in a rural area and the majority of my packages arrive by UPS or Fedex rather than the USPS.

0xddd2• 6 years ago

How do these companies perform compared to the USPS? Just knowing that they're privatized without any mention of customer satisfaction, cost, or other comparative metrics doesn't say much about whether it's a good idea. (I don't believe anyone's main contention is that it's "novel")

bhupy17• 6 years ago

I think it's certainly worth comparing which model produces more superior outcomes. We ought to compare the per capita expenditure, and the median delivery time.

But also regardless of which is better, why is it all-or-nothing? Why can't UPS/Amazon/FedEx/DHL ALSO co-exist with the USPS? Today, they are prohibited from delivering any first class mail to a mailbox, by law.

chrisseaton3• 6 years ago

The Royal Mail will usually deliver a letter anywhere in the country next-day for a 76p. Can't really ask for more than that in my opinion.

unethical_ban• 6 years ago

On the surface, the Constitution specifically cites a role for the federal government in operating a postal service.

Now, why does it have exclusivity for letter service? I don't know the history.

I'd rather look at how it can do an already pretty good job, better. I know I go to USPS when I ship anything.

Why isn't it in the banking business? Why doesn't it operate an official email / Identity Provider? Among other services that a correspondence service, a federal service with the most physical public spaces, could offer?

sdinsn3• 6 years ago

specifically cites a role for the federal government in operating a postal service.

It specifically grants Congress the power to operate a postal service. Just because they have the power doesn't mean they have to do it.

bhupy17• 6 years ago

The Constitution argument merely answers why things are the way that they are, they don't tell us whether the privatized model we see in the UK/Germany/Singapore/Japan is better or worse.

I'd rather look at how it can do an already pretty good job, better. I know I go to USPS when I ship anything.

When it comes to packages, USPS vs UPS vs FedEx have their pros/cons, but the options mean that most end user's needs are met, whatever they are. The question is why USPS enjoys a state sanctioned monopoly on paper mail specifically.

runako8• 6 years ago

why does it have exclusivity for letter service?

It doesn't have exclusivity for letter service. UPS, FedEx, and DHL (among others) will carry letters across the country for you.

Yes, it's going to cost ~$10 to roughly match the service speed of a USPS first-class stamp. But it's available.

llsf3• 6 years ago

It is not a novel idea to privatize the postal service. It can be lucrative business, especially if focused on the right areas.

The legacy system is based on the fact that it is public service, equally offered to all citizens, regardless of their gender, race, religion and location. So, it is not a business. A business would focus on the most profitable aspect of the postal service. It would likely not serve some areas, or even discriminate against some people.

I believe, the reason why USPS still has a monopoly in first class parcel mail, it is to satisfy people we claim that USPS should make money. Now, if it was clear for everyone that USPS should not be profitable (like military or education are not profitable), then it would make sense to break all USPS monopolies. Actually, I would argue the other way around, then let's USPS compete also with banks (account, loans, credit cards, stocks/bonds, CDs, etc.), title companies, check cashing business, etc. Which I believe USPS cannot currently. USPS could leverage its geographical coverage to bring banking services to remote areas. I would suggest to combine some services like DMV, so we could renew ID/driver/passports at postal office. We could pay taxes and fine. We could access notary services (titles), etc.

andrewlgood3• 6 years ago

The USPS has already lost a fair amount of business to email and overnight package services. It is interesting that the reason we cannot “opt out” of junk mail is because it would cause financial harm to the USPS. As for banking and check cashing businesses, why do we think it is appropriate for the government to actively compete in those businesses? What if they decide to set up a technology consulting business? A supermarket? Where do you draw the line?

If you want universal postal service to rural areas (not profitable markets), then simply provide it and understand it has a cost like the military and education (as noted above)?

ip265• 6 years ago

The common argument is if USPS did not have that monopoly, then other providers would enter only the profitable regions.

The result would be the USPS would not have the revenue to serve the unprofitable regions, and would either be forced to end service in the unprofitable regions or simply collapse.

bhupy17• 6 years ago

Right, and that exposes the reality that the USPS is at best, a state run subsidization scheme for rural mail delivery. But if that's the case, why subsidize it indirectly through selectively inflated prices, which regressively hurt poor people in urban markets)?

Sounds like if the problem is that rural mail is socially important, we ought to subsidize it directly.

djur14• 6 years ago

Indeed, FedEx and UPS already do this where their services overlap with those of the Postal Service.

The problem is that the USPS monopoly is not as valuable as it used to be as less and less business is conducted by mail. In the long term the government is going to have to subsidize its necessary services, because those services are not and cannot be competitive advantages.

hardtke• 6 years ago

The cost of sending a letter to any address in the US is the same. The cost of delivering that letter varies wildly. Think New York City vs. rural Alaska only reachable by plane. If USPS did not have monopoly, they would be severely undercut in profitable areas and would only service hard-to-reach areas where prices would spiral out of control. So if you want to keep the price of a stamp the same nationwide you need to grant a monopoly. It's the same reason regulated utilities own the power lines.

bhupy17• 6 years ago

If USPS did not have monopoly, they would be severely undercut in profitable areas

So in essence, residents of "profitable areas" are overpaying for mail to subsidize mail service to those in unprofitable rural areas.

But then the next question is: why go through this roundabout subsidization? Why not just subsidize rural first class mail delivery by the state directly?

This also ignores the fact that the USPS does not have a monopoly on sending packages, and is still able to serve package deliveries to rural areas, aren't they?

john-shaffer• 6 years ago

So if you want to keep the price of a stamp the same nationwide you need to grant a monopoly.

The conclusion does not follow. If it is important that the price of delivery to remote Alaska be cheap, then why not just subsidize it directly?

refurb4• 6 years ago

Whoa there! You’re asking a lot for Americans to know how anything works outside the US.

It’s similar in Canada - a number of previously run public services were privatized (DMV equivalent, liquor stores, etc). And the level of service improved dramatically. I remember how awful the DMV was - crappy customer service, limited locations, terrible hours. Now I can go and register my car at 8pm on a Wednesday with a 5 min walk and no line. Many of the Canada Post centers are privately run as well - the big box stores use their employees to run it.

I was kind of shocked to come to the US and see how they’re still stuck where Canada was 30 years ago.

voxelghost• 6 years ago

In Sweden we have quite the opposite experience.

Privatization of the postal service has led to much worse service, closure of postal offices, long delivery times in less densely populated areas (read non profitable), and Loss of mail; to make profit, the companies hire the lowest grade, temp-workers they can get their hands on. Sometimes these people figure it is easier to burn or throw away mail rather than to do the actual work of delivering it.

bhupy17• 6 years ago

To be fair, Canada Post is a Crown corporation, so it's still primarily state owned.

smnrchrds• 6 years ago

It’s similar in Canada - a number of previously run public services were privatized. And the level of service improved dramatically.

I disagree. At best, it has been hit or miss. Alberta used to have Alberta Government Telephones (AGT). It was later privatized as Telus. Saskatchewan kept SaskTel a crown corp. The level of service and prices are so much better in Saskatchewan as a result that some Alberta residents pretend to live in Saskatchewan so they can get a Sask mobile plan.

And don't get me started on 407.

WarOnPrivacy3• 6 years ago

Consider any tangible thing that's wrong with America - shareholders whims are likely to be a part of that equation.

This is a state of affairs we need to consider rolling back, not expanding.

bhupy17• 6 years ago

That’s comically simplistic.

If you actually drill down into every tangible thing that’s wrong with America, you’ll find that root causes are actually pretty complicated.

jonahbenton3• 6 years ago

The monopoly on first class mail point is well exercised; will also point out that turning the USPS into a public corporation with shareholders does not itself have any impact on governance. Facebook has shareholders, and Mark Zuckerberg does exactly as he pleases with zero accountability.

pseudalopex• 6 years ago

Facebook has an unusual share structure that gives Zuckerberg a majority of votes.

quickthrowman13• 6 years ago

Some data to consider while thinking about privatizing the post office, population densities:

  US        -      87/sq mi
  Germany   -     603/sq mi
  UK        -     725/sq mi
  Japan     -     862/sq mi
  Singapore -  20,446/sq mi

bhupy17• 6 years ago

Is there some population density threshold where corporate governance stops working?

Does a pricing system and private enterprise break down in sparsely populated markets?

Clearly things seemed to work when going from 20,000/sq mi to 862/sq mi (2 orders of magnitude). Is the argument that there’s a magical breaking point somewhere between 603 to 87/sq mi?

rstuart4133• 6 years ago

A counter example.

- Australia Post is a government owned entity.

- Australia Post has a universal service obligation.

- Australia Post is allowed to sell whatever it damned well pleases.

- But, it has a monopoly on only one thing, letters.

- The combination of universal service obligation is a liability of course, but being able to sell whatever it damned well pleases ameliorates it somewhat. Many firms (like banks) farmed out otherwise unprofitable branch functions to Post Offices.

- Australia Post is, and as far as I know has always been profitable.

From what I can tell, the idea that a government run entity is more poorly run than a private one is myth. If the area has open competition, and the government run business makes a profit (this is generally the case in Australia), then it really makes no difference if it's privately run or government owned.

Differences only arise in non-competitive environments. A monopoly owned privately owned business charges like a rent seeking wounded bull. A subsidised government run business could destroy more efficiently run private equivalents, but can be a fine balance - it can also be a way to efficiently subsidise a service that was never going to be supplied privately. Doing it by subsidising private operators is equally fraught - regulatory capture is a thing, privately owned prisons being a poster child for what can go wrong.

8bitsrule• 6 years ago

James Buchanan's ideas and Koch money are the subject of Nancy MacLean's 2017 book "Democracy in Chains: The Deep History of the Radical Right's Stealth Plan for America"

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/30011020-democracy-in-ch...

nickff7• 6 years ago

"Democracy in Chains" is irredeemably flawed, and has been completely discredited by a series of prominent reviewers.[1][2] There are many more reviews which reveal the scope of fabrication in this book, but it suffices to say that the work should be considered 'fiction', perhaps in the 'fantasy' category.

[1] https://pubs.aeaweb.org/doi/pdf/10.1257/jel.20181502

[2] https://criticalinquiry.uchicago.edu/jack_rakove_reviews_dem....

[3] https://www.vox.com/the-big-idea/2017/7/14/15967788/democrac....

load• 6 years ago

It seems like Koch wants to keep pushing consensus to privatize the postal service by weakening funding for it, which is, either intentionally or unintentionally, economically harming it. I'm on the fence over whether 'kill' is the right word for this though.

spiritplumber• 6 years ago

Postal banking works really well in the countris in which it exists.

The best way to help USPS is to use them as your default shipping method: do so.

missedthecue28• 6 years ago

why would I want to help the USPS at a cost to me?

inetknght2• 6 years ago

because you're only considering short term monetary cost at the cost of long term benefit

jorblumesea2• 6 years ago

It often feels like the social contract in American society is breaking down. Many of the rich elite in the US care nothing for the common person, and only adhere to their bubble of the wealthy and powerful. Crushing institutions that help people, or blocking the creation of new ones that might, are done so for ideological reasons even if practically speaking they might work or help people out.

At some point the wealthy and political in the US might have somewhat acted in the interest of the American people. But now it feels like almost every move is to the detriment of the average person.

If things continue like this, America is in real trouble.

gdubs• 6 years ago

One of the most memorable passages from Cliff Stoll’s “Silicon Snake Oil” was about the reliability of snail mail. How you could scribble a person’s name on a postcard, mess up a lot of details, and it still manages to get to them.

xyst• 6 years ago

Haven't finished reading it, but I was not surprised that the Koch family is behind this special interest group.

The family has been fucking the US and world long before Trump was elected. They have a history of funding fake climate change science in order to push favorable legislation for the O&G industry.

Anything that might benefit society (healthcare, social support, ...), they have fought against or funded a PAC to do their dirty work.

sizzle• 6 years ago

Why can't the US Gov bail out the USPS like big banks?

hellotomyrars2• 6 years ago

Because corporate welfare is good because it'll create jobs and put money in the working man's pocket and anything with social value is a waste/drain on our strained resources and we'll have to raise taxes and you can't do that!

rufus_3• 6 years ago

I hope the billionaire is successful. For some reason every other courier that delivers to my address manages to bring my deliveries right to my doorstep - UPS, FedEx, DHL, Amazon, GrubHub, local pizza restaurants, etc. all manage to enter my apartment complex, locate my unit, and leave my items right at my door. The only exception is USPS, which consistently leaves a slip in my mailbox pretending that they "had no access" to my apartment, even though the gates are wide open during the daytime when they arrive. Instead of delivering my items, every time I have to drive several miles to the Post Office the next day, mask up for Covid, and wait in the long line to retrieve my packages.

Every aspect of my experience with USPS is dissatisfying - they can't be defunded soon enough.

seizethecheese2• 6 years ago

We are building a just-in-time distribution network on top of USPS (Bottomless - YC W19) We're able to deal with their slowness because we predict demand in advance using data from a smart scale.

It's quite astonishing how unreliable USPS is. We frequently see packages get routed to a totally incorrect part of the country, derailing shipments for several days.

Also, it seems like even USPS doesn't know when their packages will arrive. The estimates they give are worse at predicting arrival time than just inputing distance into a simple regression!

nxc18• 6 years ago

Do you have any comparisons to other services? I’ve most often seen UPS route things bizarrely and I’ve had several packages delivered a day or two late.

seizethecheese2• 6 years ago

We are USPS only at the moment.

cwhiz• 6 years ago

I can imagine a future without the USPS. A future where I don’t have a weekly chore of sorting through the spam to decide which to throw away and which to recycle.

And a future where I don’t have giant boxes “delivered” into my tiny mailbox that could fit maybe a stack of 25 envelopes.

And a future where 20% of packages don’t arrive.

I can see why people want to avoid this.

jedberg• 6 years ago

The USPS missed a golden opportunity in the 90s. Almost no one had an email address in the early 90s. The USPS was so afraid of email they refused to embrace it.

They could have been the email address of record for everyone in the US if they just set up a forwarding address for anyone who wanted it.

Heck, they could even do it now.

Imagine having a free foo@me.us email address that someone could only send to if they paid for it, like the way mail works now.

That is the business they should get in to, along with killing all the check cashing places by being a bank for unbanked like they used to be.

benhurmarcel• 6 years ago

In France the post office (La Poste) did this from 2000. It did have success, in the following years a lot of people used it as their main email service. They even were mandated by the government to automatically provide an account for all school students.

But they couldn't keep up with more modern services. Their webmail and storage was laughable compared to Gmail and others, and people moved on. They still operate, but it's basically just for older people who never changed now.

Post office companies can't compete with tech giants on email services.

crb002• 6 years ago

The US Postal Service should be funded like NASA. It can contract out to companies like Amazon - just like NASA contracts to SpaceX.

DevKoala• 6 years ago

https://facts.usps.com/table-facts/

From those figures it looks like > 90% of the USPS throughput benefits the marketing operations of private companies and scammers.

bawana2• 6 years ago

Perhaps we should allow a private arm of the postal service to enter another area important for communication: internet service. As it is now, internet service is restricted to one or two providers in most regions. Prices are ridiculously high compared to the rest of the world. And broadband in the US is denied to many low profit areas. Yet we are in a time of COVID sanctions, schooling and working remotely that all rely on the net. Broadband supply needs more competition. The postal service is already delivering snail mail. How is it they were never tapped to run the internet in the US but instead we allow oligarchs to bleed us like Baron Harkonnen in Dune?

RodgerTheGreat2• 6 years ago

I would be thrilled to pay USPS as an email provider or ISP, even paying a premium to do so, if they offered comparable service in my area.

anonu2• 6 years ago

Getting rid of the USPS has tremendous national security implications. It's a "network" that doesn't rely on the internet.

Imagine we had to deliver a vaccine to everyone within a week. The USPS knows everyone's address and where people live. They would be the go to institution to do this.

The Billionaire Behind Efforts to Kill the U.S. Postal Service [pdf]

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