The USPS is good and necessary

[turok]

https://www.easypost.com/shipping-alcohol-with-usps-ups-and-fedex

 

[Gulo Blue]

But hey...the most interesting things that would happen if the USPS is broken up, privatized, and sold off piecemeal to competitors is that they would have absolutely no incentive to cooperate with other competitors in pricing, collection, transport, transfer, and delivery btw adjoining, parallel, separate, or intersecting boundaries of their territories. And 3rd Class (Bulk) mailers who currently save MILLIONS of $$$ from postage discounts monthly from the USPS for their COMPLETELY unnecessary presorting of their mail, before it gets unsorted @ USPS mail processing centers. There is NO WAY that for profits will permit that, Bulk Mailers' DC lobby or not!!

If someone came up with a more profitable mail service that only served cities, it would make it even tougher for anyone else to make a viable comparable service that served rural areas.You might end up with cities getting service similar to what they have now, but rural areas getting slower & more expensive service.

 

[turok]

If someone came up with a more profitable mail service that only served cities, it would make it even tougher for anyone else to make a viable comparable service that served rural areas.You might end up with cities getting service similar to what they have now, but rural areas getting slower & more expensive service.

An army of AI-enhanced "smart drone" carriers w/automated driver-less electrical powered trucks might be the answer to rural/remote collection and delivery by the 2030s. But inclement and snowy/icy/windy winter weather could pose problems in cold and mountainous states.


Purchasing or leasing regions of the US by aspiring private postal services, would of course make the suburban and some urban areas of large cities the most lucrative and desirable b/c of population density and demographics, but would a requirement be that a certain percentage of urban, rural, and exurban territory have to be included in a winning "bid"?


That would kinda rub up against and raise the hackles of conservatives' unfettered "free markets" mantra, however.


=================================================================================================


There is really no point in legislating "up to" $25B in emergency funding for the USPS now, with an appointed Postmaster General in Louis DeJoy, who has no prior USPS experience, and is biased toward privatization b/c of his business history and investments. The USPS Board of Governors is 4-2 Republicans to Democrats. By dismantling/disposing/destroying about 700 mail processing machines so far, costing millions of $$$ when new, removing public sidewalk US mail collection bins by the thousands nationwide, reassigning/transferring 2 dozen executives in upper management, and cutting hours/eliminating OT, it seems very unlikely that he and his new crew would use the funding in the way it was intended, if using much of it at all.


The president of the mail carrier union (NALC) has said that Trump's OMB had outlined plans and procedures for breaking up and privatizing the USPS last year in the '20 budget proposal. But with DeJoy now @ the helm, undermining and greatly eroding the public's trust and confidence in the USPS seems to have taken precedence.

 

[Michchamp]

If someone came up with a more profitable mail service that only served cities, it would make it even tougher for anyone else to make a viable comparable service that served rural areas.You might end up with cities getting service similar to what they have now, but rural areas getting slower & more expensive service.

Rural areas would be totally ignored. It's kinda like how we needed the TVA to bring electricity to many rural parts of Tennesee and Appalachia in the 1930's... private power generation was profitable without having to serve all Americans, so they just didn't.



I read that for 2018: FedEx made 2.13 billion deliveries, UPS 5.5 billion, and USPS 146.4 billion. Not sure how UPS and FedEx are going to scale up to that... the geniuses that decided we didn't need a post office didn't think this through. NO fucking surprise...

 

[tomdalton22]

Rural areas would be totally ignored. It's kinda like how we needed the TVA to bring electricity to many rural parts of Tennesee and Appalachia in the 1930's... private power generation was profitable without having to serve all Americans, so they just didn't.



I read that for 2018: FedEx made 2.13 billion deliveries, UPS 5.5 billion, and USPS 146.4 billion. Not sure how UPS and FedEx are going to scale up to that... the geniuses that decided we didn't need a post office didn't think this through. NO fucking surprise...

it is estimated that 80% of USPS deliveries consist of junk mail.

"5.6 million tons of catalogs and other direct mail advertisements end up in U.S. landfills annually. The average American household receives unsolicited junk mail equal to 1.5 trees every year?more than 100 million trees for all U.S. households combined"

 

[Gulo Blue]

it is estimated that 80% of USPS deliveries consist of junk mail.

"5.6 million tons of catalogs and other direct mail advertisements end up in U.S. landfills annually. The average American household receives unsolicited junk mail equal to 1.5 trees every year—more than 100 million trees for all U.S. households combined"

The remaining 20% still crushes what UPS and Fed Ex do.


Fixing junk mail is a good idea, but it's not a knock on the post office.

 

[tomdalton22]

The remaining 20% still crushes what UPS and Fed Ex do.


Fixing junk mail is a good idea, but it's not a knock on the post office.

UPS and FedEx deliver mostly packages, not letters, so it's comparing apples to oranges.

I still think the USPS is a necessary service...it just needs to get with the times a little bit. Deliver 3 days a week and we should be able to put a stop to junk mail if we don't want it. Also, why aren't they driving hybrids or electric vehicles in typical residential areas? Stop and go all day and there is no way they drive more than 100 miles in a day. Seems like a no brainer to me.

 

[Gulo Blue]

UPS and FedEx deliver mostly packages, not letters, so it's comparing apples to oranges.

I still think the USPS is a necessary service...it just needs to get with the times a little bit. Deliver 3 days a week and we should be able to put a stop to junk mail if we don't want it. Also, why aren't they driving hybrids or electric vehicles in typical residential areas? Stop and go all day and there is no way they drive more than 100 miles in a day. Seems like a no brainer to me.

There is an effort underway to get a US manufacturer to design a new mail truck and they do want electric or hybrid (they are also looking into how self-driving might be used.)


They have a track record of being cutting edge back before the political movement to undermine them. At some point Lockheed Martin designed their mail sorting system back when machine recognition of handwriting was a new and revolutionary thing.

 

[Gulo Blue]

https://www.foxbusiness.com/lifestyle/u-s-postal-service-new-mail-truck


https://www.theverge.com/2020/5/14/...emic-next-generation-mail-truck-program-delay



These prototypes look like they are focusing on packages

 

[Michchamp]

And delivering mail isn't the only thing the USPS does... off the top of my head, PO Boxes, passport services, postal money orders, are there as well.

Anecdotal, of course, but my local post office is probably one of the busiest places in the suburb I live in, after big box stores. Easily the busiest government office. There's always a line on the weekend, even with two automated package mailers.

I just don't see UPS and Fedex scaling to provide not only delivery services, but all the other basic civil functions that post offices do, in addition to providing decent paying jobs in a lot of places that are otherwise desolate now, since they've been DEVASTATED by Wall Street... with production moved to China/SE Asia, or otherwise bought up and plundered by private equity.

Post offices, schools, cops and fire depts (ALL public spending)... the only employers keeping places like Refugio, TX or Branson, MO from looking like a Mad Max flick

 

[Gulo Blue]

I've seen a few points recently about how we should also think of it as part of our voting system, which shouldn't be put in the hands of a private company. (That goes for electronic voting too.)

 

[sggatecl]

I've seen a few points recently about how we should also think of it as part of our voting system, which shouldn't be put in the hands of a private company. (That goes for electronic voting too.)

I'm sure someone would make the argument that it's part of the plan. Let private companies with lobbyists, stockholders, and lots of money be physically involved in the voting system? I'm sure there are quite a few politicians that would look to take advantage at some point.

 

[Gulo Blue]

I'm sure someone would make the argument that it's part of the plan. Let private companies with lobbyists, stockholders, and lots of money be physically involved in the voting system? I'm sure there are quite a few politicians that would look to take advantage at some point.

FedEx is cleared to handle some government classified materials, but I think it's hit or miss which agencies will use them instead of the post office.

 

[Gulo Blue]

Be right back. Throwing out my tea to be safe.

 

[Mitchrapp]

Be right back. Throwing out my tea to be safe.

Can I have it? I like tea.

 

[Spartanmack]

Be right back. Throwing out my tea to be safe.

you're just a lowly senior member, you have nothing to worry about.

 

[Michchamp]

I did. I was banned by a mod for calling the mod a liar, which I never did, which of course means the mod is a liar. the mod deleted the post, of course.

I think when you get banned, you should just take it like a man, and not come back and whine about it.

At least that's what I'd do.

 

[Gulo Blue]

I don't have a high opinion of newsweek, but it would be difficult to spin this into a story that makes any sense without it being about voter suppression


https://www.newsweek.com/brand-new-...s-center-leaving-workers-sorting-hand-1527484
Brand New Mail Sorting Machine Thrown Out at USPS Center, Leaving Workers Sorting by Hand

 

[sggatecl]

I don't have a high opinion of newsweek, but it would be difficult to spin this into a story that makes any sense without it being about voter suppression

Mental gymnastics knows no bounds.

 

[Michchamp]

I just remembered this thread, because I used the USPS to ship my Xmas cards and some gifts.

All of those arrived on time, or early.

I had one gift shipped via UPS (not by choice)... was supposed to be there last week, and still hasn't been delivered. And I just got a notice that it was delayed again due to severe whether. But it's at a local hub and the weather at both the hub and the delivery destination an hour away is AND HAS BEEN 80F and sunny all week.

Yay for private sector efficiency. Great fucking job, guys. Maybe the weather's just too nice for the UPS guys to work?