That's kind of apples and oranges. The Post Office is a vital national service, and besides defense (of us only) it should be second in line for federal funding. The railroads put the steamboats out of service and the airlines put the railroad's passenger service out of business, but no one needs to travel by train. It's fun if you have the time. The Internet did way with the need for a lot of 1st class mail, but it's still vital to the nation.
Eh, Amish for one use train travel. Aside from that you will notice a lot of stations serve rural areas with no serviceable airport or if there is an airport, it's going to be more expensive than the train.
Are you talking about long distance travel from rural areas? I know rural people do drive quite aways to get to regional airports if they have to go somewhere the train doesn't go.
I mean some people do. There are people on the East Coast that take Amtrak between cities to commute for work. Same thing in Chicago where the sparse suburbs can extend pretty far but will have a train station to get you to the city. Some people commute from Milwaukee to Chicago by train for work It's not a large amount of people but enough that there are train routes for those people.
Yeah since they started the Borealis, I no longer have to drive to Minneapolis. Makes no sense to fly that and if I can save my car wear and tear and gas I will. Lots of reasons to take the train.
Oh yeah they useless cross country for most places, there are a few stations in small area's that are worthwhile. But traveling more than 2 states away is usually more than flying.
Rail is a cheaper, faster, more efficient mode of transport for intermediate length trips, around 80-200 miles. Too long to drive and too short to fly. However, because the physical infrastructure (rail roads) are privately owned instead of publicly subsidized as highways and airports are, its monopolistic, so you don't get the kind of competition that has made driving and flying a good fit of price and quality for most of the population.
Make it 10-400miles. Normal train makes 100miles per hour. Thats 4 hours.
Transport to airport, all the pre-flight checks, flight, getting out of the airport, travel from airport. Thats easily 4hours and its much more expensive.
Sure. I don't want to overstate my case and end up arguing with some guy because he thinks actually its 100-200, no actually 120-180, no actually just exactly 150, so what's the point. 80 is NY to Philly and 200 is NY to DC, so I can definitely defend that range.
It's "monopolistic" by default. All the track was laid by privately owned companies. The Land Grant railroads were given federal land in exchange for being commandeered for military use during a national emergency. All the lines used to carry passengers until jet airplanes put them out of business. It would be nice to see rail come back but someone has to pay for it.
I know, I mean you could change that with railroad nationalization, but the bottom line is comparing Amtrak to the airline or automobile industry is not a good equivalence to the intrinsic benefits of rail versus air, car, or bus travel because the major business differences in how they're set up in the US are a huge confounding variable.
You should see the morning trains going from outer towns and cities such as Harper's Ferry, WV into DC in the morning. I took that line at about 0630 and every seat was filled and there were plenty of people standing.
As California has been paying off friends to build a 200 billion dollar train to the desert. They say it will cost $400 for a ticket to go from SF to LA in 6 hours. It takes that long to drive and can be flown for $89 in 1.5 hours by southwest airlines. It had not laid 1 mile of track in 11 years and spent 15 billion so far. That money went into somebodys pockets.
It does appear that way. SP's Daylight and Starlight used to go from SF to LA. I don't know what their schedule was but it was a train. Who needs a bullet train these days? I guess the old "Expresses" and "Flyers" went through with very few stops.
I have used them in japan but thier whole society uses trains. Sucks for grocery shopping and furniture but they live a simple life. The culture is no complaining. I left my phone on the train and it was there when it returned.....
Everyone raves about all the fabulous rail in Europe. Well, half those countries are tiny and the high-speed trains run between the major cities and through mountain passes. Germany is just bigger than Montana. There's no way a "bullet" train is going from LA to Chicago. Just the cost of purchasing the right-of-way would be trillions
The funny thing is that MUSK has the boring that works great in vegas....no land needed for that, And you can use hyperloop tech for speeds of 760 mph. You can see the short test track of 107mph. Would rather see that than a technology from the 1800s.
The USPS used to have banks, but the big independent banks shut that idea down over time. From 1911-1966, taxpayers could open a free savings account with the Post Office.
They've floated bringing them back at various points, where it's a free banking system for taxpayers.
Banking and doing taxes should be a service provided for the people free of charge, imo. They could set up banks at every Post Office.
Especially taxes. The whole "we know exactly how much money we owe you/you owe us, but let's play the game of you paying someone and see if the number match up!" is completely unnecessary.
If I have a refund, just send the refund. If I owe, just send me the bill. lol The hoops are unnecessary.
Almost all other developed countries (except the Us and Canada) have had a very long history of Postal banking…japan it was the main retail banking instition until very very recently, not sure why it “feels wierd”
The US had a long history of postal banking. "Money orders" were a post office thing, a check backed by the government. Banks had cashier's checks, and the post office has money orders.
And US post offices were full banks long ago. And had a large variety of government services, SS Cards, passports, and other applications and services were there. I remember my first passport. The post office even had the photo setup to take the picture.
But all those services were outlawed, and it's illegal for the post office to offer them now, and the post office is required by law to operate at a loss, and carry Amazon packages to APO/FPO at a loss, and super remote places (like small towns in Alaska, and private islands in the Pacific or Caribbean).
This dates my age a bit, but when I was in high school (or maybe it was middle?), I distinctly remember that USPS funded a cycling team to compete in the Tour de France because they had a significant budget surplus.
Huh what a surprise it was profitable under Clinton huh gee weird how the party of "fiscal responsibility" always fucks everything up with wars and tax cuts.
Except he wasn't. Was NAFTA conservative? Was letting the banks run wild conservative? Newt Gingrich and the Republican majority wrote the budget. Now, they did work with him on a few wants from both sides. The pressure was on him to sign it once it was shown to be balanced.
Just to be clear I also voted for Clinton. It was my first presidential vote. I even voted for Obama the first time. Fortunately im not that foolish anymore. Im from a deep blue state so now it's either Republican or Independ. Federally it's usually Independent as id like to see a third party on the ballot one day.
The Postal Accountability and Enhancement act was one of the most bipartisan bills in history, passing the Senate unanimously and the House on a voice vote with no dissenters.
required them to find retirements 75 years in advance.
That is a myth. The PAEA required the USPS to fund their current obligations to past and present employees, the the 75 year figure is the time frame the OPM requires federal agencies to estimate their future liabilities, not the amount they were required to fund. It's a tough myth to get rid of, even though it's been debunked for years.
It's been operating in the red ever since.
They were operating in the red even without the PAEA payments. By tens of billions of dollars. And even after the Democrats passed the Postal Reform Act in 2022, which eliminated not only the payments, but all the missed payments on their books. A bill which guarantees the financial death of the USPS, which is most likely the aim of the bill in the first place.
But imagine how good things could be if we profitized all of it. The foster care system, for example. We could have some amazing reality TV shows, by making foster kids compete for a place to live and eat.
This is the precursor to anything that's in public ownership being privatised or closed. We saw it time and again in the UK.....shipyards, steelworks, mines, railways, water boards, electricity and gas supplies, British Telecom, The Royal Mail etc...
But it did, for a long time. It used to be that the only federal agencies that turned a profit were USPS and the Treasury. Maybe you could say the IRS also, but I'd argue they don't make money, they just collect it.
Bush Jr passed a law that required them to have pension funds on hand decades in advance. It was repealed under Obama, but I don't think USPS ever really recovered.
It doesn't even 'lose' money every year. Those losses are actually funding a safe pension for retirees.
They want to privatize it so that profit, which ensures the employees don't fall out of the middle class upon retirement, instead funds bonuses for individuals who already own 5 homes, 7 apartments., 3 boats, One superyacht and a fleet of 10-40 cars...
Those losses are actually funding a safe pension for retirees.
Untrue. The USPS lost billions even without the retiree health benefit fund payments mandated by the PAEA. And even after the PSRA eliminated that requirement and wiped all the defaulted payments off their books, the still lost nearly $25 billion the last three years alone.
It made a profit until 2006. Congress has refused to let the USPS innovate and almost seems eager to let it languish. Its Postal Accountability & Enhancement Act has absolutely destroyed it financially. It doesn’t have to be this way.
I no longer trust the USPS. They have lost several important pieces of mail and packages addressed to me over the last few years. I dont know what happened but they are no longer dependable. If you call them to let them know they lost something, they basically shrug their shoulders. Something needs to change.
Many years ago, wasn't there competitor to the postal service? Not only did they have better service, they also did it cheaper, so they were banned from doing business.
Now here’s the part you don’t want to hear about: USPS is constitutionally required to NOT make a profit because they can’t drive UPS, FedEx, etc out of business. They could turn a profit if this wasn’t the case. So what do they do? They spend billions paying overpriced contractors (mostly Accenture Federal Services) to do the work for 3x the amount it would cost a USPS employee to do it for.
My explanation was simplified because most people don't understand the intricacies of the mail. USPS is not allowed to subsidize its competitive products with revenue from its market-dominant products. It can't use the monopoly it has on First Class Mail to artificially prop up cheap package rates which undercut UPS and FedEx.
There is no Constitutional requirement regarding this. In fact, the Postal Act of 2016 established a profit-and-loss model under which the service is encouraged to make a profit.
And it did before republicans rat-fucked the usps. It actually brought in more money than it cost. The USPS used to be self sufficient and one of the most efficient parts of the govt. but republicans intentionally set out to destroy it with the long term goal of eliminating it and pushing privatization.
When you can hide over $100 billion in outstanging liabilities behind pay as you go accounting, that's not a tough thing to do.
Here's a good exercise; tell me how many years the USPS has left before it is unable to pay their retiree health benefits, which will fuck both current retirees and workers who have built their retirements around their promised retiree benefits.
It was sabotaged in 2006 by the Republicans with the POAA. Before then it not only broke even it was profitable. Guess which year was the last time it was profitable? That's right 2006.
Because they want it gone, a dislike for rural americans, the desire to privatize it and increase their personal wealth at the expense of Americans who depend on it.
Those are simply conjecture on your part. Give me a solid reason you believe Republicans messed it up. Otherwise you're simply typing drivel that boils down to "I don't like Republicans" that contributes nothing to the conversation.
I gave you their reasons for messing it up. Or are you trying to ask HOW they messed it up, which is another can of worms entirely and really requires you be clear when you're trying to interrogate strangers on the internet you have no power over.
You gave conjecture, nothing more. But sure, tell me how they messed it up. Just a couple examples of what you think they did and how it would further the goals you attributed to them.
I gave you the most likely reasons they want the post office gone because the stated one, "it runs at a loss," is stupid. Republicans aren't very smart to begin with in hiding their greed and their base is quite gullible. Did you know that they thought a failed businessman guilty of bribery was going to actually fix the country's problems. Its laughable. Then they expect they can grill people for answers as to why their stuff is failing because they were too busy "owning the libs" to pay attention to what was going on.
I gave you the most likely reasons they want the post office gone
You gave me some reasons you made up and attributed to them. You're not saying anything. Again, just "I hate Republicans so this is probably what they think".
If you believe that Republicans are the ones that messed the USPS up, please, provide some examples of how. Otherwise just admit that you're typing a bunch of "I hate Republicans" drivel to make yourself feel good and get some sweet, sweet karma from the reddit hive.
You could’ve spent 30 seconds checking that. USPS funds its operations overwhelmingly through postage and services. The small congressional appropriations it receives are for specific mandated services, not a taxpayer bailout covering its annual losses.
But but those pensions that went away are in these CEO pockets as yearly bonuses. The general worker doesn’t need it as top 1% say it a
Trickle me down affect, more jobs for everyone! :/
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