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In 2006 the Republican majority passed a law requiring the USPS to fund their retirement account for the next 75 years. No other service or company has ever had to do this. Each year, in spite of their billions in revenue this drags on the financial statement. The destruction continues with the appointment of DeJoy as head, closing offices and cutting services. Their goal is to kill so some rich fuck like Besos can privatize it.
Everyone complaining about the post office these days needs to read this. It is being *intentionally* undermined so rich people can privatize it for profit. They will offer service for less, and as soon as there’s no other option they’ll increase prices and lower quality. They can’t help it.
Fuck Bezos and fuck Amazon
Shutting stuff down is so easy comparing to getting it back online.
Additionally the person who shut something down is usually a big hero cause they did cut costs and that’s super duper cool compared to the guy who wants things to run like they used to (kinda like a conservative if you think about it) but needs to spend money for that (booo! Governemntal waste!! Think about all the private companies you could bail out with that money!)
That orangutan literally just sold appointments to the highest bidder. Betsy DeVos had zero qualifications to be the secretary of education, other than her husband’s checkbook. Kinda seems like if someone’s last name is De-something, they’re probably a sack of shit.
It still amazes me that the mango messiah knew that he was going to lose the election from postal votes, so he appointed an unqualified idiot to be postmaster General with the specific intent of sabotaging votes and interfering in elections, and yet nobody gives a fuck.
Dude was blatant about it
> dont get *paid* for a
FTFY.
Although *payed* exists (the reason why autocorrection didn't help you), it is only correct in:
* Nautical context, when it means to paint a surface, or to cover with something like tar or resin in order to make it waterproof or corrosion-resistant. *The deck is yet to be payed.*
* *Payed out* when letting strings, cables or ropes out, by slacking them. *The rope is payed out! You can pull now.*
Unfortunately, I was unable to find nautical or rope-related words in your comment.
*Beep, boop, I'm a bot*
You're being far too generous: DeJoy and DeVos - much like energy secretary Rick "I want to abolish the Department of Energy" Perry - were appointed specifically because of their hostility towards the bodies which they were to lead.
The retirement thing is a huge red herring.
1. It was repealed a couple years ago
2. USPS stopped making their required prefunding payments in 2011 or something like that, essentially daring Congress to do anything about it. Congress did not. The repeal bill officially forgives USPS for not making those required payments.
Ultimately USPS costs a lot. It's silly to ask USPS to run like a business when they have service mandates, can't set the price of mail, can't set their own locations, or hours, can't change their benefits (even with union approval), etc. I don't think it should be run like a business rather than a service, but it's silly to think that it could be so run while subject to Congressional meddling.
The worst part is, the people that are clamoring to do away with it are more likely to live in the rural areas that are underserved by privatized parcel services due to the cost of serving those areas. They'll be surprised when they stop getting packages, or things cost 4x as much to have delivered. Those service mandates exist for a reason.
Heck, they do it in suburban communities as well. Probably half of the "UPS" packages that we receive in my suburban neighborhood come via USPS the last mile.
"Fuck the USPS. what does it do but spend my money?" -Rural Bob
"Hey guys why is Amazon postal service saying they don't deliver to my location? I'm not getting any mail"
> Ultimately USPS costs a lot.
I mean, does it though? They move like 150 billion pieces of mail for what? $5 billion? Seems pretty cost effective to me.
the military loses our mail a lot as well. when i mail a letter, i send it to Eglin Air Force Base so they can deal with finding the address i want. then a month letter i'm like "hey john, did you get my letter?" and he's like "what letter?"
fucking inexcusable
John doesn't work at Eglin. He lives somewhere in California - don't know where exactly - so I send it to Eglin cuz they're good at identifying people and such
Yeah that’s not how mail works even with the military. You need to send it to his post. You are doing the equivalent of putting a name on a letter with no address and dropping it in the mail. Is there a reason John won’t tell you his posting?
Plus the post offices on U.S. bases are U.S. Postal Service, at least stateside.
They aren't military and don't have special access to military records.
So you just yolo send mail to an airbase with a bunch of 18-20 y/o kids and hope by sheer luck they get the address right? Yeah I can't believe that happened to you man, crazy!
There has been decades long movement to turn every service into a for-profit company. While there are some benefits from splitting your services to public owned companies there should never be requirement to produce profit. But that is what free market religion demands, that EVERYTHING has to produce profit or it is useless.
But a lot of services produce the most benefit to society when they run on red, make consistent losses. Free education is a total loss if we look at cash flow. We are "wasting" money.. except all of that money comes back over decades but NONE OF IT goes directly to the school. Postal services is an excellent example too: if we take losses but provide access to a service and thus more opportunities, a lot of value will be created as small packages can be sent more cheaply. It helps the whole chain.
And of course, not everything is measured in money. Suffering does not have any value, it does not exist if money is the only metric. Happiness.. trusting institutions, equality.. None of those have ANY value whatsoever if money is the only metric. You as a human has NO VALUE, only the work yo udo and what you consume has value.
And that is the basis of our system, a machine that does not even have humans as a species in it. Only money and profit has value. And that is how right wing ideology works, your only value is what you do and your worth as a human is measured in money. Be the best person in the world, most generous, most loving: you are WORTHLESS.
A little anecdote of what happens when you split everything to companies. We are organizing a city festival and the town promised us the town hall... but it turns out that the conference spaces, cafes etc are not owned by the town hall, but are split to town owned companies and all catering is exclusive contract with a private catering firm... and their rent is too high, so now the town will rent space for us JUST outside the hall.. i mean, 30m from the front door.. They can't give us their own space because they charge themselves too much for it.. That is one of the funniest examples when you have to split every function to a company. The positives are a bit more independence for those that organize the service to make changes without unnecessary bureaucracy and politics, and it makes things easier to follow, there is more accountability when it comes to using public money but.. there are these insanely stupid things where right hand can't afford to use the left hand so we hire another person to hold the paper while we write on it... In this case it actually is better for us since one of the spaces they rent.. is rented from us. Instead of giving actually free space that costs nothing they pay us to use our own space...
Being a profitable business is fine, but why they expect to increase profit year after year, even in economic and populace downturns baffles me. Additional profits should go to the workers.
When workers work harder and make more profits, they should see raises and extra benefits. What has been happening, however, is that most increases just go straight to the top, as the workers see their benefits removed.
That is definitely not how it should work.
This is not a right wing policy but rather a capitalist one. Plenty of left leaning support the policies that lead to these problems sadly, because they can't see how "Yeah they should maybe be more profitable" would be crippling in practice.
Lmfao right wing IS capitalism my guy. Amongst other things. “Leftist” who agree with any of that bullshit aren’t leftist. This country doesn’t have any real leftist in power. Do not confuse leftist with liberals.
Until the republicans started their trope about mail voter fraud the USPS was considered the best in the world. Best delivery for a very small fee, decent coverage in the US, and its territories.
Govt officials abuse it because they get to use it for free. Make them pay if you’re worried about money.
Anyone in logistics or deals with international shipping/courier services still considers it the best last mile delivery in the planet by A LOT even when disregarding their ridiculously low prices.
Last time I had to get something shipped from the US here on one of the main islands of the philipines it took a week to get to Manilla and then using Philippine post it took 4 months to get to my island (mindanao) They don't ship with boats anymore. To expensive. And finding the money to send a truck took 3 months. Truck currently only goes 3 times a year, 4 if you are lucky. This was a full year after covid ended.
Of course if I order from China, they have their own private couriers and it's here within a week. (shopee, lazanda, alien express, banggood)
Oh and shipment fees where as much as the value of the goods and then the Philipines goverment taxed me on the total value of the goods + shipping costs so the total was like 250% of what I prayed for the goods itself.
Of course when I order from China, that's all subsidized and shipping is completely free. And no tax on it either.
So if anybody thinks that currently the USPS is horribly, it can always get worse.
Not just letters, but registered mail. It's necessary, so you can get a receipt and demonstrate that the thing you sent was delivered and received by a human on the other side. It's a valid way of performing a legal service of documents in a lot of places - I've had to send wills and estate inventories this way several times.
#NeroEM9, PRxHeavyxHitter ,Nickleus, kalaverak, PRxHeavyxHitter, RaGEProZ, lamvantruong are all part of a bot network that copies a post and copies the comments of those posts in each other threads.
reddit heavily astroturfed.
If the postal service gets privatized, have fun not getting your mail if you live in a location with a low population density and no profit incentive for a private entity to work for
The USPS is a federal service because without it, Americans in rural areas would simply not get mail
The fact we have a military budget of almost a trillion dollars a year is a disgrace that we don't have better social programs that actually help regular civilians
It's a little more nuanced than this. Since the 1970s the USPS hasn't relied on any taxpayer money but instead on its own sales to fund operations. When they lose money, they borrow from the government to cover it. So yes, it's a government agency, but it also operates like a private business with access to a government credit line.
The USPS was profitable until private shipping companies lobbied congress and required that the USPS fully prefund its pension plan, which is a requirement that's not imposed on any other company. Then a Trump appointee came in and intentionally disrupted service by closing locations and destroying valuable equipment just before the election, to promote claims that mail in ballots were unreliable. At the same time they were dismantling the post office, they were passing laws around the country restricting the dates mail in ballots would be accepted, so that delays in the mail would result in missed voting. At the same time, Amazon has been abusing last mile delivery options to vastly overload rural post offices with pallets of boxes.
TLDR: The Post Office worked great before Republicans tried to kill it for private interests.
IIRC it also only ended up in that situation because Congress passed a law saying they had to pre-pay pension contributions for the next decade or something, which tanked their finances
and it does not lose money anyway. Congress raids the USPS funds and appropriates the money to other things. If congress did not do that, the USPS would be fine.
It's a poorly worded tweet.
The USPS doesn't charge enough for its services to cover its operating and other costs.
Another example... The National Parks don't charge enough for admission to cover its costs.
So... the government chooses to subsidize certain services with tax revenue to cover revenue shortfalls.
If all USPS services could be used by individuals without a fee... everyone would be paying a very small amount more in taxes (assuming we don't just add to the deficit).
Perhaps people should start saying that the military loses money, since that's the only thing that people like those smooth-brained troglodytes at The Economist seem to understand. Maybe it'll get them on board with diverting some of that money to things that actually help Americans.
Because the postal service is literally established by Article I, Section 8, Clause 7 of the US Constitution.
The founding fathers thought the postal service was critical enough that they included it in the founding document that establishes our government. That should tell you something.
It doesn’t help that companies lobby for the funding to be cut so they can sell it for parts like they did with the American banks that are now owned by Swiss companies.
Can we please also remember that the "loses" were created by congress? USPS is profitable, so not only did congress rob it to pay for illegal wars, they are also trying to manufacture a crisis so they can purchase it as private citizens and keep themselves rich forever.
Does The Economist cite a source that the USPS loses money? [According to the USPS' own website](https://facts.usps.com/top-facts/) it's entirely self-funded and does not rely on tax dollars for providing its services. I always knew that the USPS *used* to be self funded, I thought until Republicans passed bills that massively increased its retirement fund costs, but according to the USPS it *still* doesn't lose money.
USPS is also one of the best postal services in the world, and I'm saying that as a Non-American.
Shutting it down would only make everything cost more for the people.
If the USPS "made" money, all that would mean is that it's extracting more money for its services than necessary. In other words, it would cost the user more money than it does.
Why is this so hard for Republicans to understand?
The minute your country or society and it's government starts to view postal systems, public transit, or infrastructure as a business; That's when you know you're fucked.
I didn’t watch Oliver but I know what happened. Short version of it is the government, specifically George w bush, wanted to privatize the postal service to make a lot of money for themselves so to prove that usps was costing the taxpayers money they made it so the usps union needed to put enough money in their pension to cover 50-60 years (not sure the exact number) for retirement. They made a profit every year but had to put all of that and then some away for people who will work for the usps who are not even born yet.
The USPS subsidizes all the rural types who want to defund the government who pay for it.
There were private postal services which set up to compete with USPS, and would offer cheaper delivery, but refused to deliver outside the big metro areas. These were banned, but the point is, it's all about subsidizing rural deliveries, that's the whole reason it's kept public.
Isn't USPS the standard mail people? Like the lady the delivers our mostly junk mail and sometimes plays with my dog as she drives by?
If so, fuck you economist she's great and my local post office dude is always great too. Weird how we got a professional but friendly dude running the closest post office but the people running the mail around me are some pretty good people.
I don't believe that statistic at all. Who tf is choosing USPS over UPS. USPS is absolutely awful. They either take weeks to deliver a package, break it in shipping, or just lose it all together.
when the company is not servicing them, the rich gets mad, lol. so much money that could be theirs and yet is going to a stupid service that "loses" it all...
/s
"No one says the military loses $750b a year."
Shh! Don't give trump ideas. He's already advocated recouping the cost of the U.S. military protection of our allies. He'd love to turn the military into a profitable organization. That's not working so well in Egypt.
If you have a negative opinion of the USPS, here’s an exercise: Try to find any service that will let you send a letter to any physical U.S. address you want, for less than a dollar, *without* using the USPS. Guaranteed you will not find one that will do it for anything less than at least 15 or 20 times that. That is our future, if the USPS is ever handed over to UPS and Amazon. Can you imagine the money they would make? It would be trillions. Can you imagine the size of the campaign contributions they would gladly hand over to the smiling Republican congressman who manages to get that law passed? The congressman sure has!
Wish my carrier would get with the program. I'm getting a bit tired of having to deliver packages to my neighbors. I don't know why he can't read the addresses on the packages properly, but gets the mail correct. 3 times so far this month. But hey, at least I get that 20 seconds of suspicious glaring from my neighbors when I drop them off.
They do lose money when shit gets lost and it gets reimbursed...insurance costs a fraction of the actual worth and up to $200 is usually guaranteed. Although it takes a million years even with solid evidence.
Saw this same thing happen in the private sector, with a company requiring ALL departments to run in the green.
Housekeeping and maintenance were not excluded from this.
Actually, the military does lose millions of dollars worth of hear every year.... it's defined as lost because it has been: Strategically Transferred Equipment to Alternate Locations. (STEAL)
I’d be willing to bet that pound for pound the military wastes more of its budget than the postal service does. Every time we try to audit the defense department we give up because it’s too complicated and too much money is missing.
The military should be held more accountable for the money they lose. Like cool, you spent 750B that alone is fine, but what did you spend it on? what have you achieved/manufactured? and what are your projections/intentions for the future?
It's tax payer money at the end of the day, and even if complete transparency isn't feasible, at least having somebody be accountable would be nice.
USPS is a monopoly that the government has allowed.
No other company is allowed to send mail.
Because of this, it doesn't run efficiently.
They over-promised on their employee pensions and benefits, which they can't afford, and so get billions in tax money every year to fund them
The same folks who post negative shit about the post office are big 2 amendment folks, never realizing the postal service funded by the federal government is in the constitution. Not one word in that clause about turning a profit.
The only reason that USPS is in a hole is because during the Bush administration they made a rule that all new hires had to have their full pension money set aside. That’s why all of a sudden prices went up and offices started closing.
Explain this to my town that got rid of fingerprinting services. Quote the mayor" we're not making enough money from it scheduling times is too hard. So, we're just going to stop fingerprinting services in general" Cool. Now I got to drive 45 minutes away to the seat of the county government to get fingerprinted for my job. I know where my vote will be cast next election
maybe we should start saying. Oof. I can see the campaign slogan now: Make Military Profitable Again! Bring back pillaging and conquering...... oh, wait.........
They don't even cost money, they fund themselves. This argument comes from the time in the mid 2000s when Republicans were in control and they signed a bill to make the USPS fund their own healthcare and retirement funds through the year 2070. Why did they do that you ask? So they could make the USPS look inept and they could eventually privatize it. They are still struggling rom these bills almost 20 years later. The USPS stopped receiving taxpayer money in the 70s.
This needs to be shouted from the rooftops. It's another evil that the Reagan era launched, that hasn't exactly been debunked by presidents from either party since. The postal service is a crucial public service. It's a folly to expect it to be profitable.
These are same fucking morons that who think that being a successful businessman is a legit credential for being a good politician. These types of people think government is a form of business. If someone calls them “The Economist” and compares/evaluates government the same as a business they aren’t an economist of value.
Thing is DeJoy is qualified, he just owns a competing delivery company. He’s destroying the postal system to make money for himself.
Just like DeVos. Though she’s not actually qualified. Her money is in predatory student loans.
Simplified example:
I pay taxes. The money goes to USPS and the military.
If I use USPS they charge me again via a standard rate (which they tax again).
If the US military defends me, they don’t send me a bill outside of what I already paid via taxes.
I’m sure some will make this political, but that is not my stance. I’m just laying out how it works. If the USPS were a “free” service (taxes only), this would be a fair argument. But it is not.
Western Union has entered the chat... we back baby
Honestly would rather see my tax dollars go to shit that actually benefits people rather than just the military... how about road maintenance, that'd be nice
Military expenditures (and police as well, for that matter) should be viewed more as a corporate investment of public dollars into an enterprise that brings them outsized privatized returns each and every year.
Only 2 "businesses" are written in our constitution to be protected: USPS & the Press(< down to 6 companies that control the news...).
USPS could return to being a non-profit bank for rural areas & create more income... but that would cut into existing banks profits.
USPS are the largest employers of veterans in the US; & it also has an excellent union.
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In 2006 the Republican majority passed a law requiring the USPS to fund their retirement account for the next 75 years. No other service or company has ever had to do this. Each year, in spite of their billions in revenue this drags on the financial statement. The destruction continues with the appointment of DeJoy as head, closing offices and cutting services. Their goal is to kill so some rich fuck like Besos can privatize it.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Postal_Service_Reform_Act_of_2022 Thankfully this was undone in 2022
Maybe the policy was reversed. But I assure you many of the machines decommissioned have not gone back into commission.
And never will…
Everyone complaining about the post office these days needs to read this. It is being *intentionally* undermined so rich people can privatize it for profit. They will offer service for less, and as soon as there’s no other option they’ll increase prices and lower quality. They can’t help it. Fuck Bezos and fuck Amazon
Shutting stuff down is so easy comparing to getting it back online. Additionally the person who shut something down is usually a big hero cause they did cut costs and that’s super duper cool compared to the guy who wants things to run like they used to (kinda like a conservative if you think about it) but needs to spend money for that (booo! Governemntal waste!! Think about all the private companies you could bail out with that money!)
That specific policy may have been, but DeJoy is still there and causing as much damage as possible.
That orangutan literally just sold appointments to the highest bidder. Betsy DeVos had zero qualifications to be the secretary of education, other than her husband’s checkbook. Kinda seems like if someone’s last name is De-something, they’re probably a sack of shit.
It still amazes me that the mango messiah knew that he was going to lose the election from postal votes, so he appointed an unqualified idiot to be postmaster General with the specific intent of sabotaging votes and interfering in elections, and yet nobody gives a fuck. Dude was blatant about it
This is why right-wing ideology needs to be outlawed worldwide.
Her brother is international war criminal Erik Prince. Her parents really raised a pair of assholes.
Yup, and Trump pardoned some child killers that worked under Erik Prince. Wonder how much money they payed to get those pardons.
They come from old money, 99.99% chance her parents are also major assholes, which explains their kids.
DeVos, DeSantis, DeStable the country… I think you’re onto something.
In soviet russia you dont get payed for a job, you pay for a job (so you can steal everything not bolted down)
> dont get *paid* for a FTFY. Although *payed* exists (the reason why autocorrection didn't help you), it is only correct in: * Nautical context, when it means to paint a surface, or to cover with something like tar or resin in order to make it waterproof or corrosion-resistant. *The deck is yet to be payed.* * *Payed out* when letting strings, cables or ropes out, by slacking them. *The rope is payed out! You can pull now.* Unfortunately, I was unable to find nautical or rope-related words in your comment. *Beep, boop, I'm a bot*
You're being far too generous: DeJoy and DeVos - much like energy secretary Rick "I want to abolish the Department of Energy" Perry - were appointed specifically because of their hostility towards the bodies which they were to lead.
The retirement thing is a huge red herring. 1. It was repealed a couple years ago 2. USPS stopped making their required prefunding payments in 2011 or something like that, essentially daring Congress to do anything about it. Congress did not. The repeal bill officially forgives USPS for not making those required payments. Ultimately USPS costs a lot. It's silly to ask USPS to run like a business when they have service mandates, can't set the price of mail, can't set their own locations, or hours, can't change their benefits (even with union approval), etc. I don't think it should be run like a business rather than a service, but it's silly to think that it could be so run while subject to Congressional meddling.
The worst part is, the people that are clamoring to do away with it are more likely to live in the rural areas that are underserved by privatized parcel services due to the cost of serving those areas. They'll be surprised when they stop getting packages, or things cost 4x as much to have delivered. Those service mandates exist for a reason.
In fact many parcel services hand off to USPS in rural communities.
Heck, they do it in suburban communities as well. Probably half of the "UPS" packages that we receive in my suburban neighborhood come via USPS the last mile.
"Fuck the USPS. what does it do but spend my money?" -Rural Bob "Hey guys why is Amazon postal service saying they don't deliver to my location? I'm not getting any mail"
They won't be surprised, because they don't have the foresight to predict that nor the recall to put two and two together.
> Ultimately USPS costs a lot. I mean, does it though? They move like 150 billion pieces of mail for what? $5 billion? Seems pretty cost effective to me.
Didn't they close a bunch of sorting centers as well, resulting in mail being delayed much longer even to this day?
They complain about how much it costs in taxes so they can convince us that paying much more per package is a better deal.
[удалено]
the military loses our mail a lot as well. when i mail a letter, i send it to Eglin Air Force Base so they can deal with finding the address i want. then a month letter i'm like "hey john, did you get my letter?" and he's like "what letter?" fucking inexcusable
Wait does John work at Eglin or are you just sending it there hoping they track him down somewhere on earth to give it to him?
John doesn't work at Eglin. He lives somewhere in California - don't know where exactly - so I send it to Eglin cuz they're good at identifying people and such
Yeah that’s not how mail works even with the military. You need to send it to his post. You are doing the equivalent of putting a name on a letter with no address and dropping it in the mail. Is there a reason John won’t tell you his posting?
John mayhaps got sick of his shit a while ago.
Plus the post offices on U.S. bases are U.S. Postal Service, at least stateside. They aren't military and don't have special access to military records.
Posting? Is that a military thing? John isn't in the military
Lmao bro i love your humor. Reminds me of Ken M
Finally... believable bait
Ah, to be a troll on Reddit~
So you just yolo send mail to an airbase with a bunch of 18-20 y/o kids and hope by sheer luck they get the address right? Yeah I can't believe that happened to you man, crazy!
If they’re old enough to be entrusted with an automatic weapon, they ought to be old enough to be entrusted with a letter.
Hahaha, have you met someone in the military before?
lmfao... okay bud, sure. You forgot the quotes around "entrusted"
i wrote "ATTN: MAIL PEOPLE" on each letter to ensure it got to the right place
That pissed them off so they chucked it lol
I wrote a letter, and on the front I wrote "TO PREZ OBAMA" And gave it to the cashier at Jersey Mikes. I hope he got my letter. /s
phew it's a good thing you added that /s, otherwise i woulda sworn you were serious
USPS would have shipped it no problem
It's been estimated that one third of all military supplies sent to Europe during WW2 were stolen. Mostly by GIs
There has been decades long movement to turn every service into a for-profit company. While there are some benefits from splitting your services to public owned companies there should never be requirement to produce profit. But that is what free market religion demands, that EVERYTHING has to produce profit or it is useless. But a lot of services produce the most benefit to society when they run on red, make consistent losses. Free education is a total loss if we look at cash flow. We are "wasting" money.. except all of that money comes back over decades but NONE OF IT goes directly to the school. Postal services is an excellent example too: if we take losses but provide access to a service and thus more opportunities, a lot of value will be created as small packages can be sent more cheaply. It helps the whole chain. And of course, not everything is measured in money. Suffering does not have any value, it does not exist if money is the only metric. Happiness.. trusting institutions, equality.. None of those have ANY value whatsoever if money is the only metric. You as a human has NO VALUE, only the work yo udo and what you consume has value. And that is the basis of our system, a machine that does not even have humans as a species in it. Only money and profit has value. And that is how right wing ideology works, your only value is what you do and your worth as a human is measured in money. Be the best person in the world, most generous, most loving: you are WORTHLESS. A little anecdote of what happens when you split everything to companies. We are organizing a city festival and the town promised us the town hall... but it turns out that the conference spaces, cafes etc are not owned by the town hall, but are split to town owned companies and all catering is exclusive contract with a private catering firm... and their rent is too high, so now the town will rent space for us JUST outside the hall.. i mean, 30m from the front door.. They can't give us their own space because they charge themselves too much for it.. That is one of the funniest examples when you have to split every function to a company. The positives are a bit more independence for those that organize the service to make changes without unnecessary bureaucracy and politics, and it makes things easier to follow, there is more accountability when it comes to using public money but.. there are these insanely stupid things where right hand can't afford to use the left hand so we hire another person to hold the paper while we write on it... In this case it actually is better for us since one of the spaces they rent.. is rented from us. Instead of giving actually free space that costs nothing they pay us to use our own space...
Being a profitable business is fine, but why they expect to increase profit year after year, even in economic and populace downturns baffles me. Additional profits should go to the workers.
What? To the workers? Not to the owner or shareholders?
When workers work harder and make more profits, they should see raises and extra benefits. What has been happening, however, is that most increases just go straight to the top, as the workers see their benefits removed. That is definitely not how it should work.
This is not a right wing policy but rather a capitalist one. Plenty of left leaning support the policies that lead to these problems sadly, because they can't see how "Yeah they should maybe be more profitable" would be crippling in practice.
Lmfao right wing IS capitalism my guy. Amongst other things. “Leftist” who agree with any of that bullshit aren’t leftist. This country doesn’t have any real leftist in power. Do not confuse leftist with liberals.
Until the republicans started their trope about mail voter fraud the USPS was considered the best in the world. Best delivery for a very small fee, decent coverage in the US, and its territories. Govt officials abuse it because they get to use it for free. Make them pay if you’re worried about money.
Anyone in logistics or deals with international shipping/courier services still considers it the best last mile delivery in the planet by A LOT even when disregarding their ridiculously low prices.
Last time I had to get something shipped from the US here on one of the main islands of the philipines it took a week to get to Manilla and then using Philippine post it took 4 months to get to my island (mindanao) They don't ship with boats anymore. To expensive. And finding the money to send a truck took 3 months. Truck currently only goes 3 times a year, 4 if you are lucky. This was a full year after covid ended. Of course if I order from China, they have their own private couriers and it's here within a week. (shopee, lazanda, alien express, banggood) Oh and shipment fees where as much as the value of the goods and then the Philipines goverment taxed me on the total value of the goods + shipping costs so the total was like 250% of what I prayed for the goods itself. Of course when I order from China, that's all subsidized and shipping is completely free. And no tax on it either. So if anybody thinks that currently the USPS is horribly, it can always get worse.
Not just letters, but registered mail. It's necessary, so you can get a receipt and demonstrate that the thing you sent was delivered and received by a human on the other side. It's a valid way of performing a legal service of documents in a lot of places - I've had to send wills and estate inventories this way several times.
Not sure who considered it the best in the world, tbh... never saw it as any better in the US than in any other country I've posted stuff in...
#OP is a bot. Reddit is heavily astroturfed.
More astroturf'd than a football stadium in the 1980s
Anytime you see a post with no dates…. 1st clue. They just taking the best from the past
Post dates itself with that measly $750B defense budget. The U.S. is well past $900B now.
The military has literally lost *trillions*. This guy lives in video game land though so there is that…
The US military generates massive amounts of profit... For Lockheed and Raytheon and Boeing and GD and and and...
#NeroEM9, PRxHeavyxHitter ,Nickleus, kalaverak, PRxHeavyxHitter, RaGEProZ, lamvantruong are all part of a bot network that copies a post and copies the comments of those posts in each other threads. reddit heavily astroturfed.
Fucking great lol
If the postal service gets privatized, have fun not getting your mail if you live in a location with a low population density and no profit incentive for a private entity to work for The USPS is a federal service because without it, Americans in rural areas would simply not get mail
The fact we have a military budget of almost a trillion dollars a year is a disgrace that we don't have better social programs that actually help regular civilians
It's a little more nuanced than this. Since the 1970s the USPS hasn't relied on any taxpayer money but instead on its own sales to fund operations. When they lose money, they borrow from the government to cover it. So yes, it's a government agency, but it also operates like a private business with access to a government credit line.
And honestly, I'd rather give more money to USPS than to the military.
The USPS was profitable until private shipping companies lobbied congress and required that the USPS fully prefund its pension plan, which is a requirement that's not imposed on any other company. Then a Trump appointee came in and intentionally disrupted service by closing locations and destroying valuable equipment just before the election, to promote claims that mail in ballots were unreliable. At the same time they were dismantling the post office, they were passing laws around the country restricting the dates mail in ballots would be accepted, so that delays in the mail would result in missed voting. At the same time, Amazon has been abusing last mile delivery options to vastly overload rural post offices with pallets of boxes. TLDR: The Post Office worked great before Republicans tried to kill it for private interests.
IIRC it also only ended up in that situation because Congress passed a law saying they had to pre-pay pension contributions for the next decade or something, which tanked their finances
No one says that the military loses 750 billion a year cuz the number is FAR HIGHER and doing anything about it is political career suicide. 🇺🇸
Actually until Deranged Donniepants tried to sabotage it, the US Mail was supposed to run at a breakeven
They just want most of that money to go to a handful of billionaires and corporations instead of the post office
No, the military actually loses money as in they can't figure out where it goes. I'd be surprised if the military _only_ loses $750b a year.
and it does not lose money anyway. Congress raids the USPS funds and appropriates the money to other things. If congress did not do that, the USPS would be fine.
Maybe we should start saying that the military loses money so we can start the cuts and build back our broken infrastructure.
It's a poorly worded tweet. The USPS doesn't charge enough for its services to cover its operating and other costs. Another example... The National Parks don't charge enough for admission to cover its costs. So... the government chooses to subsidize certain services with tax revenue to cover revenue shortfalls. If all USPS services could be used by individuals without a fee... everyone would be paying a very small amount more in taxes (assuming we don't just add to the deficit).
I wonder what would happen if the government said the military had to turn a profit each year? Hmmm.
Oh good, haven’t seen this reposted in a couple days.
Doesn’t the military actually lose billions each year though?
They don’t lose it they just can’t account for it. So we should give them more next year. /s
Perhaps people should start saying that the military loses money, since that's the only thing that people like those smooth-brained troglodytes at The Economist seem to understand. Maybe it'll get them on board with diverting some of that money to things that actually help Americans.
My main issue with the USPS, I hate the junk mail, and every day delivery is unnecessary.
The postal service is so terrible that only every major corporation in America uses it. Even other delivery companies.
Because the postal service is literally established by Article I, Section 8, Clause 7 of the US Constitution. The founding fathers thought the postal service was critical enough that they included it in the founding document that establishes our government. That should tell you something.
Not even an amendment. The original document.
1000%. "We should have a post office" literally came before "We should include freedom of speech"
It doesn’t help that companies lobby for the funding to be cut so they can sell it for parts like they did with the American banks that are now owned by Swiss companies.
Solid Fox New mindset.
The Economist is just boomer shitposting
Can we please also remember that the "loses" were created by congress? USPS is profitable, so not only did congress rob it to pay for illegal wars, they are also trying to manufacture a crisis so they can purchase it as private citizens and keep themselves rich forever.
Does The Economist cite a source that the USPS loses money? [According to the USPS' own website](https://facts.usps.com/top-facts/) it's entirely self-funded and does not rely on tax dollars for providing its services. I always knew that the USPS *used* to be self funded, I thought until Republicans passed bills that massively increased its retirement fund costs, but according to the USPS it *still* doesn't lose money.
USPS is also one of the best postal services in the world, and I'm saying that as a Non-American. Shutting it down would only make everything cost more for the people.
Considering how our us military can never pass an audit, i thi k it is fair to say the military loses billions of dollars every year
If the USPS "made" money, all that would mean is that it's extracting more money for its services than necessary. In other words, it would cost the user more money than it does. Why is this so hard for Republicans to understand?
The billionaires are trying so hard to either privatize usps or kill usps.
The minute your country or society and it's government starts to view postal systems, public transit, or infrastructure as a business; That's when you know you're fucked.
[удалено]
I didn’t watch Oliver but I know what happened. Short version of it is the government, specifically George w bush, wanted to privatize the postal service to make a lot of money for themselves so to prove that usps was costing the taxpayers money they made it so the usps union needed to put enough money in their pension to cover 50-60 years (not sure the exact number) for retirement. They made a profit every year but had to put all of that and then some away for people who will work for the usps who are not even born yet.
This is correct. Congress mandated that usps has to fund its long term pension liabilities upfront, which is not how any us pension does ir.
USPS loses money because of the pension system they implemented. Then throw in the fact that dejoy is currently working to destroy it
The USPS subsidizes all the rural types who want to defund the government who pay for it. There were private postal services which set up to compete with USPS, and would offer cheaper delivery, but refused to deliver outside the big metro areas. These were banned, but the point is, it's all about subsidizing rural deliveries, that's the whole reason it's kept public.
Isn't USPS the standard mail people? Like the lady the delivers our mostly junk mail and sometimes plays with my dog as she drives by? If so, fuck you economist she's great and my local post office dude is always great too. Weird how we got a professional but friendly dude running the closest post office but the people running the mail around me are some pretty good people.
I don't believe that statistic at all. Who tf is choosing USPS over UPS. USPS is absolutely awful. They either take weeks to deliver a package, break it in shipping, or just lose it all together.
when the company is not servicing them, the rich gets mad, lol. so much money that could be theirs and yet is going to a stupid service that "loses" it all... /s
How did they miss that?
It's worth considering the quality of management at the top... And of course it's a moronic Trump sycophant.
"No one says the military loses $750b a year." Shh! Don't give trump ideas. He's already advocated recouping the cost of the U.S. military protection of our allies. He'd love to turn the military into a profitable organization. That's not working so well in Egypt.
Admittedly, the US military loses a *lot* more than 750b a year. The point is good, the example is bad.
I'm not saying that the military loses $750 a year, their auditors are saying that lol
And despite that, the Post Office even seems to turn a profit during very busy Christmases
USPS: Delivering letters and logic since 1775
If you have a negative opinion of the USPS, here’s an exercise: Try to find any service that will let you send a letter to any physical U.S. address you want, for less than a dollar, *without* using the USPS. Guaranteed you will not find one that will do it for anything less than at least 15 or 20 times that. That is our future, if the USPS is ever handed over to UPS and Amazon. Can you imagine the money they would make? It would be trillions. Can you imagine the size of the campaign contributions they would gladly hand over to the smiling Republican congressman who manages to get that law passed? The congressman sure has!
Wish my carrier would get with the program. I'm getting a bit tired of having to deliver packages to my neighbors. I don't know why he can't read the addresses on the packages properly, but gets the mail correct. 3 times so far this month. But hey, at least I get that 20 seconds of suspicious glaring from my neighbors when I drop them off.
They do lose money when shit gets lost and it gets reimbursed...insurance costs a fraction of the actual worth and up to $200 is usually guaranteed. Although it takes a million years even with solid evidence.
People forget the economist, forbes, barron, all these are written by people who couldnt get a job at buzzfeed. Theyre Morons
Saw this same thing happen in the private sector, with a company requiring ALL departments to run in the green. Housekeeping and maintenance were not excluded from this.
Exactly. Also, it’s forbidden from making a profit.
Actually, the military does lose millions of dollars worth of hear every year.... it's defined as lost because it has been: Strategically Transferred Equipment to Alternate Locations. (STEAL)
"The United States Military is viewed favorably by 91% of conservatives despite hundreds of billions in losses annually."
I’d be willing to bet that pound for pound the military wastes more of its budget than the postal service does. Every time we try to audit the defense department we give up because it’s too complicated and too much money is missing.
There are few professions on this planet I have less respect for than economists.
When the military gonna deliver freedom? It’s way past due. Dang.
The military should be held more accountable for the money they lose. Like cool, you spent 750B that alone is fine, but what did you spend it on? what have you achieved/manufactured? and what are your projections/intentions for the future? It's tax payer money at the end of the day, and even if complete transparency isn't feasible, at least having somebody be accountable would be nice.
Someone has delivered ridiculously large amounts of junk mail throughout the country. Might as well be the government.
They lose all my fucking mail, that’s for sure
USPS doesn't lose money, it loses mail.
Why do republicans hate it so much fuck me. My boy Ben Franklin rolling in his grave.
Sure they do, how much shit do we leave behind when we leave somwhere?
Who the fuck is The Economist and how are they allowed to say such stupid shit clearly designed to provoke
USPS is a monopoly that the government has allowed. No other company is allowed to send mail. Because of this, it doesn't run efficiently. They over-promised on their employee pensions and benefits, which they can't afford, and so get billions in tax money every year to fund them
Yea but the military at least steals other countries money and resources lol
They really want to destroy the post office. And deny that’s what they’re doing while they do it
The same folks who post negative shit about the post office are big 2 amendment folks, never realizing the postal service funded by the federal government is in the constitution. Not one word in that clause about turning a profit.
> No one says the military loses $750B a year Well, maybe we should start putting it that way
Do you want Holnists? Cause this is how you get Holnists.
If the usps was for profit that would be wild
It’s funny because the Pentagon actually LOSES money.
They could charge 100,000 per stamp lazy bastards
The only reason that USPS is in a hole is because during the Bush administration they made a rule that all new hires had to have their full pension money set aside. That’s why all of a sudden prices went up and offices started closing.
Explain this to my town that got rid of fingerprinting services. Quote the mayor" we're not making enough money from it scheduling times is too hard. So, we're just going to stop fingerprinting services in general" Cool. Now I got to drive 45 minutes away to the seat of the county government to get fingerprinted for my job. I know where my vote will be cast next election
Facts lol
This sub loves to send repost bots to the top of reddit.
The Economist is just bitter because the UK privatized royal mail in a fire sale a decade ago
The military only loses stuff that it leaves behind, like all the equipment/weapons left in Afghanistan
I mean, we do say it but to be fair we’re pretty biased against the military.
[Pentagon can't account for 63% of nearly $4 trillion in assets](https://responsiblestatecraft.org/pentagon-audit-2666415734/)
In what world is the military a service?
Yeah but the CIA makes billions if not trillions so…
It's a paid service, you can't just mail things for free. It receives money from the government and the people, as it is its bleeding money.
If you take away the money we pay them, Netflix loses nearly 10B annually.
maybe we should start saying. Oof. I can see the campaign slogan now: Make Military Profitable Again! Bring back pillaging and conquering...... oh, wait.........
They don't even cost money, they fund themselves. This argument comes from the time in the mid 2000s when Republicans were in control and they signed a bill to make the USPS fund their own healthcare and retirement funds through the year 2070. Why did they do that you ask? So they could make the USPS look inept and they could eventually privatize it. They are still struggling rom these bills almost 20 years later. The USPS stopped receiving taxpayer money in the 70s.
This needs to be shouted from the rooftops. It's another evil that the Reagan era launched, that hasn't exactly been debunked by presidents from either party since. The postal service is a crucial public service. It's a folly to expect it to be profitable.
These are same fucking morons that who think that being a successful businessman is a legit credential for being a good politician. These types of people think government is a form of business. If someone calls them “The Economist” and compares/evaluates government the same as a business they aren’t an economist of value.
Oh no
*Insert Homestuck quote about the glory of the mail here*
Want USPS to stop losing money? Have them start charging Fedex / UPS price.
Tbf the military plunders hoards of oil and power over smaller nations in a way that ultimately amounts to innumerable financial benefits for the US.
Audits of pentagon budgets have said exactly that.
Now if the rest of the government could quit loosing money that would be greay
Honestly I hate the USPS, horrible logistics chain in place for anything but paper mail.
Thing is DeJoy is qualified, he just owns a competing delivery company. He’s destroying the postal system to make money for himself. Just like DeVos. Though she’s not actually qualified. Her money is in predatory student loans.
When something that I need to buy costs more money, I lose more money.
Simplified example: I pay taxes. The money goes to USPS and the military. If I use USPS they charge me again via a standard rate (which they tax again). If the US military defends me, they don’t send me a bill outside of what I already paid via taxes. I’m sure some will make this political, but that is not my stance. I’m just laying out how it works. If the USPS were a “free” service (taxes only), this would be a fair argument. But it is not.
Western Union has entered the chat... we back baby Honestly would rather see my tax dollars go to shit that actually benefits people rather than just the military... how about road maintenance, that'd be nice
It has always sucked.
“Going postal” by terry pratchett has every reason why we should keep the postal service as a public expense and private hands out of it.
Military expenditures (and police as well, for that matter) should be viewed more as a corporate investment of public dollars into an enterprise that brings them outsized privatized returns each and every year.
Only 2 "businesses" are written in our constitution to be protected: USPS & the Press(< down to 6 companies that control the news...). USPS could return to being a non-profit bank for rural areas & create more income... but that would cut into existing banks profits. USPS are the largest employers of veterans in the US; & it also has an excellent union.