6 ms·

Postal Service loses $2.2B in 3 months as virus woes persist

22 points by ilamont 6y ago

fallingfrog 6y ago
The postal service is a public service, and if we have to run it at a loss for a while that’s fine. Nobody expects the road system or the military to pay for itself.
- schoolornot 6y ago
  I have not had a positive interaction with USPS in years. I don't understand why our taxes subsidize people to hand-deliver junk mail. What an inefficient use of taxpayer funds. With the exception of federal mail, why not jack the prices up tremendously? Stamps are 55 cents now per letter. Make them $1.50 and make everyone else rent a PO box or do digital scanning.
  - 0xfaded 6y ago
    They deliver the junk mail because it keeps the economy of scale needed to deliver other mail. Ironically, it is subsidizing the tax payer.
  - fallingfrog 6y ago
    I think I’d be ok with them charging a very expensive rate for junk mail. That’s not really the kind of traffic I’d regard as a public service so yeah, make as much profit as possible on it.
    - swampthing 6y ago
      They’d probably be better off just charging people for the ability to opt out of junk mail.
  - LambdaComplex 6y ago
    In 2006, Congress passed a law which required the USPS to fund _75 years_ worth of employee pensions in advance. You wanna talk about taxes being wasted? Go look at Congress; they've been trying to kill the USPS for years.
    - 1123581321 6y ago
      I encourage you to read this whole article. https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2020/apr/15/afl-cio/widespread-facebook-post-blames-2006-law-us-postal/ https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2020/apr/15/afl-cio/wi...
      - ironSkillet 6y ago
        Thank you for the interesting article. The comment about the pre-funding requirement removing their ability to make capital investments to improve infrastructure and systems was notable.
      - dionidium 6y ago
        This pension-funding question comes up a lot, but I think it's a total distraction from the larger debate about the profitability of a public mail system. If we're debating whether, I dunno, a bake shop is a viable kind of business, the fact that the bake shop in question promised devastatingly large pensions to its employees decades ago is obviously an important fact about the state of that bake shop at this actual moment, but it does not tell us much about the general viability of bake shops, which is the thing actually being argued about. It's like asking if a family can live on $50k a year but then stipulating that oh by the way in this family the father gambles 90% of his earnings away at the casino on payday. It doesn't really answer the question.
  - csnover 6y ago
    Good news! The USPS is self-funded. Your taxes do not pay for subsidising people to hand-deliver junk mail.[0][1] [0] https://www.pbs.org/wnet/need-to-know/five-things/the-u-s-postal-service/11433/ https://www.pbs.org/wnet/need-to-know/five-things/the-u-s-po... [1] https://facts.usps.com/top-facts/ https://facts.usps.com/top-facts/
  - kilo_bravo_3 6y ago
    Why do people think taxes pay for the USPS?
  - dragonwriter 6y ago
    > I have not had a positive interaction with USPS in years. I don't understand why our taxes subsidize people to hand-deliver junk mail. They don't. Junk mail subsidizes everything else USPS delivers, and USPS is entirely self-funded.
  - SamReidHughes 6y ago
    Prices are controlled by congress because otherwise the union would use its monopoly to charge high prices and pay itself princely salaries.
gumby 6y ago
The article quotes him as saying the post office has a “broken business model” but provides no further details. Anyone found he text of his remarks or otherwise know what he believes the business model is and in what way he thinks it is broken?
- schwartzworld 6y ago
  I don't really think of civil service jobs as having a business model at all. I get that they charge for services to cover some of the costs, but isn't the post office supposed to be a benefit to everybody? We won't be better off with UPS delivering all of our mail.
Ijumfs 6y ago
Maybe they should start charging Amazon more money to deliver packages than what it actually costs the USPS? Nah that's crazy.
- Guest42 6y ago
  False claim.
  - Ijumfs 6y ago
    Citation needed...
    - derkster 6y ago
      Politifact Article stating the Postal Service doesn't lose money delivering Amazon Packages: https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2018/apr/02/donald-trump/trump-usps-postal-service-amazon-losing-fortune/ https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2018/apr/02/donald-tru...
      - Ijumfs 6y ago
        I don't believe that's a reliable source, sorry.
        SahAssar 6y ago
        The politifact article cites its sources, including https://about.usps.com/news/statements/080117.htm https://about.usps.com/news/statements/080117.htm which says "By law our competitive package products, including those that we deliver for Amazon, must cover their costs." Whats your source that they charge amazon less than it costs them to deliver?
        deleted 6y ago
        [deleted]
        6y ago
naveen99 6y ago
USPS will eventually provide e-mail addresses, and other government papers will require a USPS provides email address to conduct business. And they can then charge to both send and receive To or from these addresses. Then they can phase out paper letters / express mail and leave physical package delivery to private companies.
- casefields 6y ago
  "IRS" scammers are salivating at the opportunity of official email accounts for every American.
  - naveen99 6y ago
    They just need to elevate email fraud to the same seriousness level as mail fraud.
    - zerocrates 6y ago
      Wire fraud is, last I checked, pretty heavily punished in theory, and yet attempted phone-based scams (and of course email based) are just a constant fact of life.
    - skinnymuch 6y ago
      And all the people outside America in countries with no policy with America or where the countries aren’t eager to send their citizens over?
rubyn00bie 6y ago
A lot of this is manufactured bullshit; it's not losing shit (or shouldn't be). It's being bankrupted by absolutely fucking insane benefits requirements imposed on it in 2006. From: https://ips-dc.org/how-congress-manufactured-a-postal-crisis-and-how-to-fix-it/ https://ips-dc.org/how-congress-manufactured-a-postal-crisis... > In 2006, Congress passed a law that imposed extraordinary costs on the U.S. Postal Service. The Postal Accountability and Enhancement Act (PAEA) required the USPS to create a $72 billion fund to pay for the cost of its post-retirement health care costs, 75 years into the future. This burden applies to no other federal agency or private corporation. SEVENTY-FIVE YEARS INTO THE FUTURE. This shit would be laughed out the door at any corporation... or any entity that isn't literally trying to be destroyed for no reason. Look at the actual balance sheet; most of the payments revolve around having to pay for retirement benefits, see labeled "ITEM 1. FINANCIAL STATEMENTS" for yourself: https://about.usps.com/what/financials/financial-conditions-results-reports/fy2020-q3.pdf https://about.usps.com/what/financials/financial-conditions-.... The difference is is astonishing close to their loses.. I wonder why... Oh yeah, from the first link I posted: > If the costs of this retiree health care mandate were removed from the USPS financial statements, the Post Office would have reported operating profits in each of the last six years. This bullshit privatization push needs to end. Postal workers seem unhappy? No shit, they work somewhere that's being bankrupted for no reason. They're having to make budget cuts because of a manufactured problem. The public makes zero effort to be informed and then listens to shit like this... Yeah, be stoked they don't hot shit on you porch everyday that's what we probably deserve leaving 'em high and dry like this. If you like people, and don't think manufacture crisis are cool, call your senators and push this thing through: https://defazio.house.gov/media-center/press-releases/defazio-authored-bill-to-help-us-postal-service-maintain-sustainability https://defazio.house.gov/media-center/press-releases/defazi... It'd _literally_ fix the post office's solvency problem. Oh, also firing the asshole running it would be another stellar move.
- givehimagun 6y ago
  I checked the reference but I don't see the numbers. For the 9 months ending in August 2020, $62 billion in operating expenses. Of which $3.495 billion is allocated to retiree health benefits. Overall net loss is $(7.374 billion)...even without the pre-funding requirements, we have a problemo?
coolgeek 6y ago
Why are so many of the anti-USPS comments coming from new accounts? I'm not going to call them out directly, but most of them seem to be 1-3 months old

22 points by ilamont 6y ago

The postal service is a public service, and if we have to run it at a loss for a while that’s fine. Nobody expects the road system or the military to pay for itself.

schoolornot 6y ago
I have not had a positive interaction with USPS in years. I don't understand why our taxes subsidize people to hand-deliver junk mail. What an inefficient use of taxpayer funds. With the exception of federal mail, why not jack the prices up tremendously? Stamps are 55 cents now per letter. Make them $1.50 and make everyone else rent a PO box or do digital scanning.
- 0xfaded 6y ago
  They deliver the junk mail because it keeps the economy of scale needed to deliver other mail. Ironically, it is subsidizing the tax payer.
- fallingfrog 6y ago
  I think I’d be ok with them charging a very expensive rate for junk mail. That’s not really the kind of traffic I’d regard as a public service so yeah, make as much profit as possible on it.
  - swampthing 6y ago
    They’d probably be better off just charging people for the ability to opt out of junk mail.
- LambdaComplex 6y ago
  In 2006, Congress passed a law which required the USPS to fund _75 years_ worth of employee pensions in advance. You wanna talk about taxes being wasted? Go look at Congress; they've been trying to kill the USPS for years.
  - 1123581321 6y ago
    I encourage you to read this whole article. https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2020/apr/15/afl-cio/widespread-facebook-post-blames-2006-law-us-postal/ https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2020/apr/15/afl-cio/wi...
    - ironSkillet 6y ago
      Thank you for the interesting article. The comment about the pre-funding requirement removing their ability to make capital investments to improve infrastructure and systems was notable.
    - dionidium 6y ago
      This pension-funding question comes up a lot, but I think it's a total distraction from the larger debate about the profitability of a public mail system. If we're debating whether, I dunno, a bake shop is a viable kind of business, the fact that the bake shop in question promised devastatingly large pensions to its employees decades ago is obviously an important fact about the state of that bake shop at this actual moment, but it does not tell us much about the general viability of bake shops, which is the thing actually being argued about. It's like asking if a family can live on $50k a year but then stipulating that oh by the way in this family the father gambles 90% of his earnings away at the casino on payday. It doesn't really answer the question.
- csnover 6y ago
  Good news! The USPS is self-funded. Your taxes do not pay for subsidising people to hand-deliver junk mail.[0][1] [0] https://www.pbs.org/wnet/need-to-know/five-things/the-u-s-postal-service/11433/ https://www.pbs.org/wnet/need-to-know/five-things/the-u-s-po... [1] https://facts.usps.com/top-facts/ https://facts.usps.com/top-facts/
- kilo_bravo_3 6y ago
  Why do people think taxes pay for the USPS?
- dragonwriter 6y ago
  > I have not had a positive interaction with USPS in years. I don't understand why our taxes subsidize people to hand-deliver junk mail. They don't. Junk mail subsidizes everything else USPS delivers, and USPS is entirely self-funded.
- SamReidHughes 6y ago
  Prices are controlled by congress because otherwise the union would use its monopoly to charge high prices and pay itself princely salaries.

gumby 6y ago

The article quotes him as saying the post office has a “broken business model” but provides no further details. Anyone found he text of his remarks or otherwise know what he believes the business model is and in what way he thinks it is broken?

schwartzworld 6y ago
I don't really think of civil service jobs as having a business model at all. I get that they charge for services to cover some of the costs, but isn't the post office supposed to be a benefit to everybody? We won't be better off with UPS delivering all of our mail.

Ijumfs 6y ago

Maybe they should start charging Amazon more money to deliver packages than what it actually costs the USPS? Nah that's crazy.

Guest42 6y ago
False claim.
- Ijumfs 6y ago
  Citation needed...
  - derkster 6y ago
    Politifact Article stating the Postal Service doesn't lose money delivering Amazon Packages: https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2018/apr/02/donald-trump/trump-usps-postal-service-amazon-losing-fortune/ https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2018/apr/02/donald-tru...
    - Ijumfs 6y ago
      I don't believe that's a reliable source, sorry.
      - SahAssar 6y ago
        The politifact article cites its sources, including https://about.usps.com/news/statements/080117.htm https://about.usps.com/news/statements/080117.htm which says "By law our competitive package products, including those that we deliver for Amazon, must cover their costs." Whats your source that they charge amazon less than it costs them to deliver?
        deleted 6y ago
        [deleted]
      - 6y ago

naveen99 6y ago

USPS will eventually provide e-mail addresses, and other government papers will require a USPS provides email address to conduct business. And they can then charge to both send and receive To or from these addresses. Then they can phase out paper letters / express mail and leave physical package delivery to private companies.

casefields 6y ago
"IRS" scammers are salivating at the opportunity of official email accounts for every American.
- naveen99 6y ago
  They just need to elevate email fraud to the same seriousness level as mail fraud.
  - zerocrates 6y ago
    Wire fraud is, last I checked, pretty heavily punished in theory, and yet attempted phone-based scams (and of course email based) are just a constant fact of life.
  - skinnymuch 6y ago
    And all the people outside America in countries with no policy with America or where the countries aren’t eager to send their citizens over?

rubyn00bie 6y ago

A lot of this is manufactured bullshit; it's not losing shit (or shouldn't be). It's being bankrupted by absolutely fucking insane benefits requirements imposed on it in 2006. From: https://ips-dc.org/how-congress-manufactured-a-postal-crisis-and-how-to-fix-it/ https://ips-dc.org/how-congress-manufactured-a-postal-crisis... > In 2006, Congress passed a law that imposed extraordinary costs on the U.S. Postal Service. The Postal Accountability and Enhancement Act (PAEA) required the USPS to create a $72 billion fund to pay for the cost of its post-retirement health care costs, 75 years into the future. This burden applies to no other federal agency or private corporation. SEVENTY-FIVE YEARS INTO THE FUTURE. This shit would be laughed out the door at any corporation... or any entity that isn't literally trying to be destroyed for no reason. Look at the actual balance sheet; most of the payments revolve around having to pay for retirement benefits, see labeled "ITEM 1. FINANCIAL STATEMENTS" for yourself: https://about.usps.com/what/financials/financial-conditions-results-reports/fy2020-q3.pdf https://about.usps.com/what/financials/financial-conditions-.... The difference is is astonishing close to their loses.. I wonder why... Oh yeah, from the first link I posted: > If the costs of this retiree health care mandate were removed from the USPS financial statements, the Post Office would have reported operating profits in each of the last six years. This bullshit privatization push needs to end. Postal workers seem unhappy? No shit, they work somewhere that's being bankrupted for no reason. They're having to make budget cuts because of a manufactured problem. The public makes zero effort to be informed and then listens to shit like this... Yeah, be stoked they don't hot shit on you porch everyday that's what we probably deserve leaving 'em high and dry like this. If you like people, and don't think manufacture crisis are cool, call your senators and push this thing through: https://defazio.house.gov/media-center/press-releases/defazio-authored-bill-to-help-us-postal-service-maintain-sustainability https://defazio.house.gov/media-center/press-releases/defazi... It'd _literally_ fix the post office's solvency problem. Oh, also firing the asshole running it would be another stellar move.

givehimagun 6y ago
I checked the reference but I don't see the numbers. For the 9 months ending in August 2020, $62 billion in operating expenses. Of which $3.495 billion is allocated to retiree health benefits. Overall net loss is $(7.374 billion)...even without the pre-funding requirements, we have a problemo?

coolgeek 6y ago

Why are so many of the anti-USPS comments coming from new accounts? I'm not going to call them out directly, but most of them seem to be 1-3 months old