Poll of the Day > So, about that whole postal service thing..

(+) Yeah! (+)

Who here didn't see any of this coming?

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Nobody ever talks about the military "losing" three quarters of a trillion dollars, but apparently the USPS "losing" a billion a year is too much and it needs to go. Never mind the fact that USPS isn't a business, it's a service.

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Doesnt matter if people did or didnt see it coming. We arent gonna let him do it

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the usps isn't a business, it's a service

that being said, they did actually turn a profit until they were forced to do that pension nonsense

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People from both parties have targeted the USPS for privatization so that they could jack up prices and profit for decades. That Trump is doing so is no surprise; it's his motives that are unusual. He's being pretty obvious about wanting to inhibit the push for more absentee voting to prevent the spread of the virus because he thinks mostly anti-maskers will turn up to physically vote.

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PyroBlade1985 posted...

Careful Gaawa. You used the B-word in a political topic.

youre allowed to say bitchtits its no biggie

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Gaawa_chan posted...

People from both parties have targeted the USPS for privatization so that they could jack up prices and profit for decades.

The main logic for at least the last 20 years is that the Post Office is catastrophically inefficient and poorly run. If it WAS a private business, it would have gone bankrupt decades ago. But because it's a government service that can and will be bailed out of every crisis via taxpayer money, they have zero incentive to ever improve. Thus, the whole organization basically becomes a massive rathole down which we keep throwing money that we're never really getting value out of.

It also doesn't help that almost the entirety of outside funding comes from money made by sending junk mail and ad fliers - it's use as a parcel delivery service has been somewhat superseded by other privatized options (like UPS and FedEx), while the slow shift to digital correspondence and digital bill paying means plenty of people no longer see it as anything resembling a necessity, and only see it as a wasteful drain of resources.

The usual proposal has always been to privatize it to some degree, to give it the motivation to begin correcting its own logistical problems, or to do away with it altogether (and/or potentially replace it with something new that works more efficiently). Almost every potential solution has problems of its own, but it's not as if it's current state isn't a problem in and of itself.

But like most things that are infrastructure-based problems in the US, our general response is to ignore everything until it breaks beyond repair, then complain that no one else fixed it before.
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ParanoidObsessive posted...

If it WAS a private business

which it isnt, so it isnt necessary to look at it like one

If the US military was just a band of roving mercenaries they would gone out of business decades ago! Theyre mostly paying people to just stand around!

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not needed
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all you have to do is look at healthcare as an example in the US of something that people need but gets overly privatized

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papercup posted...

Nobody ever talks about the military "losing" three quarters of a trillion dollars, but apparently the USPS "losing" a billion a year is too much and it needs to go. Never mind the fact that USPS isn't a business, it's a service.

$750b over what period? Seems kinda deceptive, as well as the fact that the military has a far larger amount of money than the USPS so it's also deceptive on those grounds.

Bulbasaur posted...

the usps isn't a business, it's a service

It's not a "service," it's a government agency. If it was a business, it would have bankrupted ages ago.

ParanoidObsessive posted...

The main logic for at least the last 20 years is that the Post Office is catastrophically inefficient and poorly run. If it WAS a private business, it would have gone bankrupt decades ago. But because it's a government service that can and will be bailed out of every crisis via taxpayer money, they have zero incentive to ever improve. Thus, the whole organization basically becomes a massive rathole down which we keep throwing money that we're never really getting value out of.

It also doesn't help that almost the entirety of outside funding comes from money made by sending junk mail and ad fliers - it's use as a parcel delivery service has been somewhat superseded by other privatized options (like UPS and FedEx), while the slow shift to digital correspondence and digital bill paying means plenty of people no longer see it as anything resembling a necessity, and only see it as a wasteful drain of resources.

Pretty much.

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ParanoidObsessive posted...

If it WAS a private business

...It wouldn't have had that bull shit "fund pensions 75 years into the future, for employees who haven't even been born yet, and have it fully funded by...uh....yesterday, mm'kay?" foisted upon it.

And would continue to have been profitable, like it was before Congress shot it in the legs and patiently waited for it to bleed to death.

It's weird cause if Donalololold hadn't gone and said "I need the post office defunded so I can win the election, it probably would've just quietly died. Whereas now since he said that, it's going to die much faster and nobody's gonna do shit about it.

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Hes leaving office next year even if we have to start over as a new country to make it happen

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Zeus posted...

$750b over what period? Seems kinda deceptive, as well as the fact that the military has a far larger amount of money than the USPS so it's also deceptive on those grounds.

Jfc, Zeus, could you try using your brain a little?

Fine, if you're going to be deliberately obtuse about it.

The values given refer to the amount spent into the USPS and the military respectively. However, no one seems to be pissing and moaning at the military not offsetting the cost of running it by generating enough wealth that it pays for itself and generates profit, because that's not what it's supposed to do. Why, then, should the USPS be expected to generate profit when it is NOT SUPPOSED TO? it is publicly funded to keep access high and prices low by eliminating a profit motive from the equation and it does so very efficiently, especially when compared to our wasteful af military.

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Zeus posted...

It's not a "service," it's a government agency.

...so yes, you have confirmed that it is, in fact, a service, literally in the very next sentence.

great job there bud

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For the record, a for-profit mail system would be incentivized to stop delivering to low population regions because the finances generated would not offset the cost. So you'll likely see some combination of service vanishing in regions, prices skyrocketing, and wages/benefits/jobs being slashed in order for profit to be generated for CEOs and investors.

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people also aren't going to spend $20 to send a 50 cent birthday card

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papercup posted...

Nobody ever talks about the military "losing" three quarters of a trillion dollars, but apparently the USPS "losing" a billion a year is too much and it needs to go. Never mind the fact that USPS isn't a business, it's a service.

Who cares? The military is already bloated enough.
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My favorite part here is that Trump supporters are completely ignoring the fact that hes literally only doing this right now to rig the election in his favor.

you can say the USPS needs to get taken down anyway, thats not the point. Trump doesnt care about that at all. If it wasnt for the election, he wouldnt be doing this. Hes literally only doing this because he feels threatened by mail in voting.

this is pathetic

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streamofthesky posted...

...It wouldn't have had that bull shit "fund pensions 75 years into the future, for employees who haven't even been born yet, and have it fully funded by...uh....yesterday, mm'kay?" foisted upon it.

Im gonna let you in a little secret

private companies also have to fund pensions in the future too

the only difference is that the USPS also is legally required to fund medical benefits where a company can cut it off at any time

If you want a little light reading - https://www.forbes.com/sites/ebauer/2020/04/14/post-office-pensions--some-key-myths-and-facts/#39c5328347f5


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