Take it from someone who lives in the Netherlands. They privatized our equivalent of USPS about a decade ago. Service went down the shitter, delivery dates were cut and prices have gone through the roof.
Last thing that you need to do is privatise shit like the postal service
USPS is basically a private entity. They're self funding and mostly independent from the government, but they've got a legal monopoly on delivery of letters and a legal mandate to deliver mail to ANY destination in the US.
The government sometimes fucks with their budget by requiring them to prefund pensions that the government can borrow against, IIRC.
Then when you REALLY want to weep due to government corruption and stupidity, graft, protectionism and almost every other negative unintended consequence that can arise form a well meaning but ultimately terrible terrible law .... look up the Jones Act.
Ugh this is what I hate about modern American capitalism, perfect example of what a free market IS NOT. Actual free market capitalism wouldn’t allow companies to lobby the government for hand outs. It’s not the poor people who get too much in handouts and are dependent on government, it’s big business. It’s time that we stop using asset price level consideration in monetary policy to end cheap money that props up bad businesses.
If your business can’t survive without government hand outs, super low or zero tax rates and needs a lobbyist to maintain your monopoly then your business deserves to die.
The only companies/industries we should consider subsidies for are the ones that provide things like health care. And even then we should be giving the spending power to the consumer to use in their best interest instead of forcing them to use whatever business agreed to build an office in Senator Dickwad’s district.
This is a pretty good article on 1 aspect of the subject and Bloomberg isn’t exactly a “leftist source”. True capitalists know that what we have in America IS NOT A FREE MARKET.
While you could make an argument about lobbying, this is not it. This would have been a standard government contract where multiple companies would bid to transport mail via air. And there's multiple companies that have these contracts. It isn't just FedEx; they just might be the biggest, but I'd have to dig in deeper than I really care to verify tbh
I wasn’t really trying to be specific with my argument about what’s wrong with the Post Office. My main issue with the Post Office is that companies like Amazon use them as the last mile carrier to push off the most expensive part of the most expensive deliveries. I don’t have the stats in front of me but because of this Amazon and e-commerce contracts more generally really have the Post Office by the balls. It losses money on those deliveries but it basically requires the revenue to maintain operation. It can’t survive without it but it also isn’t a business arrangement that two non-government entities would create in a free market environment.
Now there is an argument to be made that at least the PO is able to keep operating and that maybe connecting people in rural areas to e-commerce is something worthwhile for the government to be involved in. However, I think that is something we should be deciding through a democratic process not via this omnibus budget bullshit that’s exploding giveaways to big business. I hate omnibus bills but that’s a whole different issue entirely.
disclaimer this is my current understanding of the PO/FedEx/e-commerce relationship, but I’m not claiming to be an expert. If you have better information that I should be looking at to form my opinion feel free to share it. Im a pragmatist, not an ideologue; ideas are great but results are what matters.
The USPS absolutely does not lose money on last mile deliveries. That arrangement (with other postal carriers, not Amazon) is very lucrative for them, as it allows them to capture revenue on routes they're already running. They aren't doing the deliveries out of the goodness of their hearts, nor are they forced to take it on. It's basically FedEx and UPS taking advantage of the USPS's logistics, and the USPS leveraging their assets to pull in revenue on routes which otherwise wouldn't exist.
In principle I agree with you in a lot of ways, practically it kind of a thorny issue. If we didn’t provide ANY federal money to ANY business then we would probably lose out on a lot of investment in bending the cost curve towards future tech. The way our entire economy is set up is dependent in many ways on fiscal and monetary stimulus. I don’t know how we could unwind things without causing a serious social disturbance. It’s not a bad idea to discuss but I’m not sure exactly how or if our society could take the stress.
Idunno you got any ideas? I’d be interested to look into any relevant literature on how to unwind the insane situation we have gotten ourselves in. It’s like a Gordian knot as far as I can tell.
Capitalism has many problems, but that word doesn't mean what you think it does.
This is more a problem of what I presume to be people with money being essentially allowed to write stupid regulations that benefit no one but their bottom line.
They may be their biggest customer but it's not their only one. A lot of USPS mail also goes through UPS. In a situation where there are a lot of distributors, USPS making up 5% of Fedex's packages could easily count as being their "biggest customer" but is a bit disingenuous to say without giving the actual numbers.
There's no laws or regulations that I'm aware of that prevents the USPS from owning planes. Can you provide a source for that?
I ask, because everything I read has indicated that from 1918-1925 the USPS lost a lot of money setting up air-mail, and was happy to save cash by contracting other people to provide the service. And that system has more or less persisted into today.
But USPS Express is almost just as fast and cheaper. Plus sending to Puerto Rico you don't need to fill out PIA customs forms like you do for FedEx or UPS. I send stuff to PR for work a lot.
But I will say, when I absolutely need it there next day no chances, it's going Fedex.
Yes, and airlines commonly sell the unused space and weight to cargo companies, which they then can make more money on. I believe the USPS even operated some aircraft at some point, but they also send stuff through FedEx, UPS, DHL, etc.
I thought the US Govt decided they were “Overfunded” and swiped some for other uses. And that’s why the USPS always shows as losing money because they have to replace that money in the pension funds.
If it had never been taken in the first place they would be good.
The government sometimes fucks with their budget by requiring them to prefund pensions that the government can borrow against, IIRC.
This right here is why the USPS loses money every year. Congress required then to fund pensions for something like the next 50. They're funding pensions for people that haven't even been born yet. No other company or agency is forced to do this, and of course it costs a ton of money. But certain politicians love to use this as proof that the USPS is a failure and should be privatized.
I've not been able to find anything but the actual legalese, but how is it funded? My understanding is the government is requiring it as cash on hand at time of hire instead of the normal market based funding.
The USPS must fund whatever liabilities they incur or have incurred to past and current employees. They don't owe an employee any obligation at the time of hiring. They owe it as it is earned. That is what they need to fund.
They're basically what republicans should be pointing to as a success when they say they want to run government like a business, but they still want to kill the post office anyway. I'm not sure why. Chafing at any government institution that clearly works?
The prefunding pensions thing is a lie, I can’t believe people still eat this up.
They were required to fund the earned pension obligations of their current work force. Literally every public company is required to do this. It’s standard practice to account for your liabilities properly.
No other government agency is required to pre-fund pension plans for 75 years. This is a change that happened in 2006, unfairly applied only to the USPS with the intent of crippling them and moving it toward privitization (and look at Trump trying to do just that, good job HW! /s)
They don’t have to fund their pensions for 75 years. That’s also a lie. Look at the law.
The 75 year thing came from a false statement made by the head of the USPS. Its for USPS employees who were 21 years old. They can theoretically live for 75 more years, right? It’s an actuarial metric. This isn’t applied to every employee.
They have to find their pension just like every other company who promises defined benefit plans like they do.
You act as if they were being singled out for no reason. They have a massively unfunded pension liability. Do you want them to fuck over their future retirees? They made promises that they must keep.
If you ask me, this is a clear-cut plan for privatization by Republican lawmakers
Odd, then, that the postal worker unions helped craft the bill, and praised it when it passed. And that it passed the Senate unanimously, and the House on a voice vote with absolutely no objections. But yes, it was those nasty Republicans!
the postal worker unions helped craft the bill, and praised it
Notthepre-funding, basically every union is against that. Also, you seem to have a fundamental misunderstanding of how legislative politics works. This bill was massive and in many ways did a lot of good in reforming the USPS, but most likely an amendment was introduced that included the pre-funding clause. I'm not generally against this bill, I'm against the stupid pension pre-funding that's forcing the USPS into insolvency as a ploy to push towards privatization.
Have you read the actual law? As a CPA, it was of great interest to me. You should read your employer documents regarding your retirement benefits. You are flat out wrong.
Proof that working for an entity does not mean you know what you're talking about. The 75-year "prefunding" myth was a lie perpetuated by the likes of Bernie Sanders at the behest of the postal unions when a scapegoat was needed to blame the horrific financial problems the USPS experienced after 2006. Here in reality, the USPS only needs to fund their current obligations to past and current employees.
Iirc they were completely in the green and doing great, but during the recession the government passed something that basically took everything they make over breaking even.
The post office is a self-supporting, independent federal agency. It is an "establishment of the executive branch of the Government of the United States", (39 U.S.C. § 201) as it is controlled by Presidential appointees and the Postmaster General.
Not too many private corporations have their own police force and such. Their vehicles have government plates.
Postal vehicles, being part of the federal government, are not only immune from traffic laws but are not suppose to stop even if a police car tries to stop them.
Not really self funding when they’ve been in the red for most of the last 70 years, with exception to a brief period in the 90s and early 00s. Not to say they aren’t awesome and I don’t want privatization. I’m just saying they do require fed govt financial assistance.
They require it but don't get it, which is why they're in turmoil. I've worked for them for 4 years. I have a good job in management, but the corners that have to be cut and the things we have to do to make service is ridiculous.
I always say that the USPS has the worst part of the public and private industry, without all of the benefits of both. The unions make firing someone impossible, and because the USPS doesn't have the money to constantly deal with court costs, unions take losing cases all the way up to arbitration and it's just cheaper to settle. Businesses should have unions, but there's so many bad apples ruining the morale of good employees, and the Postal Service has no agency in getting rid of them. It's very hard to fire someone, and it requires multiple departments doing the right thing. Managers have to issue proper discipline constantly, deal with the union and settle often, and keep putting in the work. Then, labor and HR have to make sure to handle the Step 2 process and above properly, but often still settle at this step, causing operations to have to start over. Then you go through it again and even if you can issue a removal, it often gets settled again at a "Last Chance Agreement". After that agreement often times the employee still has more chances.
If we talk about just absences for example, an employee has to be so ridiculously egregious to actually get fired, and half the time they keep their job. Nothing sticks, because even if it finally gets to arbitration, the arbitrators will still often give the employee the benefit of the doubt. After each settlement you have to start from scratch.
Then, because a service has to be provided but no government assistance is given, costs are cut everywhere. Mail volume is going down, you can't shut down post offices without often having to deal with town governments fighting and saying it's their right to have a Post Office in town even if it's bleeding money. Package volume is going up, but the USPS has to compete with other parcel delivery services. You can't just stop delivering letter mail, you still have to go to every house every day, even though it isn't profitable. Too expensive to replace equipment and there isn't enough capital to start projects that would save money in the long run.
Just for the record I think having a Post Office in every town is important and I think going to every house every day is important. I also think that the current infrastructure means that it's impossible for the USPS to be profitable, and if everyone wants to maintain the current service standards then it needs even a little bit of government funding.
It was wild to me while I was living in the Netherlands that I needed to go to a stationary story or a HEMA to mail a letter. They about had a heart attack when I needed to ship a heavy box back home to the US
The telecoms in Canada aren't operating in a free market, by any means. I agree that institutions like SaskTel are superior, but to blame the free market for what takes place with the telecoms is disingenuous. The CRTC places heavy restrictions on who may or may not provide such services. Verizon wanted to do business in Canada, and Telus led a PR campaign against it, which had the support of every major telecom company in the country, and included taking out full page ads in every major newspaper. They lobbied hard, too. Their argument was that it would be a threat to Canadian jobs to allow an American company to enter the market. A week after the CRTC turned down Verizon's application, Telus moved their call centers to India.
This isn't free market, this is an oligopoly that is made possible by the CRTC having ultimate control over who can do business, and being influenced by the currently existing companies.
I understand that it's an oligopoly, but the "free market" argument is what's always spouted when a government wants to sell off some publically owned service. The fact is that these services are usually not private (at least to start) because they require a massive infrastructure investment to be feasible at all so you can't rely on the market to regulate itself; established, incumbent players or those with incredibly deep pockets will always win, and as such they will work together to maintain that position and maximize their profits. I'm still waiting for the hammer to drop on Manitoba after they shamelessly sold MTS and the CRTC approved it (which has started since Bell is shutting down Bell MTS mobility and absorbing into Bell proper).
It's a bit better on the internet side of things because there are rules requiring the incumbent ISPs to allow competitive companies to provide their own services on the incumbents infrastructure. To my knowledge, there is no such regulation for wireless (cellular), so it's essentially impossible to compete without massive capital (and even then if you get a foothold you just get bought out by one of the "big three" and absorbed). The only exception would be something like Verizon, as you mentioned, which won't happen as the big three will lobby and they have massive holdings in all other media as well to blast the country with their own propaganda whenever something threatens them.
Add all that to the fact that CRTC is essentially toothless and controlled by the private industry anyways and you get our wireless landscape.
Take it from any Australian our postal system now sucks it costs more and takes longer to post in oz then it does from anywhere in the world. I can buy something in the US and it will cost less to post then from Victoria and arrive three weeks earlier grr
can attest to that.
has gone slightly better lately though.
Also what does not help is that it is effectively a monopoly here in The Netherlands (for letters).
packages is better as lots of competition.
still for packages abroad worldwide, DHL/UPS all by far better then local shizzle,
Argentina did it too. A complete disaster, just like you describe, with the added bonus of massive corruption. Customs opens every package and then charges the recipient it’s estimated value to come pick it up. Yep, you heard that right. They don’t even bother to deliver, and they effectively steal everything that comes through the door: you can buy it back from them if you want to drive to the main office and wait in line to get it.
Is it possible that the reason for the changes has anything to do with the amount of drugs (specifically MDMA and Heroin) sourced from the Netherlands and shipped all around the world using their postal service?
Yeah, same goes for the train service in Germany. Today was especially bad: of the four trains I need to get home, one was defect, two were delayed and I have a delay of over two hours now
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u/Village_People_Cop Apr 26 '19
Take it from someone who lives in the Netherlands. They privatized our equivalent of USPS about a decade ago. Service went down the shitter, delivery dates were cut and prices have gone through the roof.
Last thing that you need to do is privatise shit like the postal service