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Gonna repost this reply wherever it seems fitting: The USPS has been legally blocked from adapting by anti-infrastructure ideologues (source https://www.youtub

Gonna repost this reply wherever it seems fitting: The USPS has been legally blocked from adapting by anti-infrastructure ideologues (source https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YLyU1WCQQ8A https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YLyU1WCQQ8A ) in order to set them up to fail. In addition to this, recent administrations have been actively dismantling their infrastructure. Any discussion of adaptivity or resilience is incomplete without considering these facts.

callmeal 5y ago
>In addition to this, recent administrations have been actively dismantling their infrastructure. I know it's the norm here to avoid calling out one political party in particular, but it's way past time to point out that it's overwhelmingly Republicans who are crafting regulations to ensure the post office fails and turns from a world-class institution to something that can be pointed to as an example of government failing.
- igorkraw 5y ago
  Dang has personally told me to avoid incendiary language and while I personally disagree with the exact definition used at hackernews, it's their playground so I'm trying to be a good citizen. But I agree
- kyrra 5y ago
  As the video linked calls out, the USPS is between a rock and a hard place. They are not funded by tax dollars at all (they operate as a business), but are required to fund retirement accounts 20-30 years in the future, plus are not allow to increase rates beyond inflation. As they lose money (and have been for the last 10 years), to keep operating they are required to get a "bailout" from congress in the budget plan every year. The post master general under Trump was trying to cut costs within the constraints placed on the USPS by congress, which is to reduce mail drop boxes and other activities. If congress wanted to invest in the USPS, they could, it just hasn't been done yet (no one seemed to agree on what that should look like). One important part with the drop in mail volume is that the cost of mail delivery actually goes up. There are many fixed costs on delivering a letter, and if you can deliver 8 letters vs 4 letters to the same address and are forced to charge the same regardless of how many you end up delivering there, the overall delivery-cost of each letter goes up. So either we need to let the USPS charge more for their services (to offset the reduced volume), or congress needs to decide to subsidize the USPS again to allow it to function properly. Subsidizing would be difficult given how UPS and Fedex abuse the USPS today. (Those two carriers will push delivery to the USPS when they know its unprofitable for them to deliver any given package). So any subsidy that it provided to the USPS will also subsidize Fedex and UPS unless the rules are changed there as well.
  - ry4nolson 5y ago
    it's actually 50 years
onetimeusename 5y ago
I asked someone in the post office why the USPS was unprofitable and he didn't say it was political. He told me something like this: "You can have a package from the US Virgin Islands delivered to Guam for around ten dollars". I looked this up for a flat rate box and this is true[1]. [1]: https://postcalc.usps.com/Calculator/MailServices?country=10459&ccode=US&oz=00801&omil=False&dz=96910&dmil=False&mdt=5%2F3%2F2021&mdz=9%3A59&m=12 https://postcalc.usps.com/Calculator/MailServices?country=10...
throwaway0a5e 5y ago
If any company provided the retirement benefits USPS does and pre-funded them in the same manner HN would hail them as saints. They would be held up as proof that BigCos don't need to act like greedy backstabbing jerks. But because an ideologically driven congress mandated USPS fund its retirement contributions in a highly conservative way HN sees it as evil. Frankly, I'm happy that a government institution isn't playing fast and loose with people's retirements (ask Illinois or New Jersey how that turns out). If that makes it hard to balance the books then congress should either kick in some $$ to cover the difference or let them change their rates.
- igorkraw 5y ago
  The thing that's evil is exactly the part where that ideologically driven congress is also not allowing USPS to innovate or raise prices to raise the money, or to spread out the buildup of the pension fund over a longer time. I rarely see people complain about the pension fund per se
bongobingo 5y ago
Would you prefer that the USPS join the public pension crisis? It is not scandalous to force a public organization to fund their employee retirements. What is scandalous is the massive unfunded public pensions that are going to wallop the economy over the next 10-20 years.
- igorkraw 5y ago
  To avoid dupes again, see my other reply.
dang 5y ago
Please don't copy/paste in HN threads. It strictly lowers the signal/noise ratio. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
- igorkraw 5y ago
  Noted

callmeal 5y ago

>In addition to this, recent administrations have been actively dismantling their infrastructure. I know it's the norm here to avoid calling out one political party in particular, but it's way past time to point out that it's overwhelmingly Republicans who are crafting regulations to ensure the post office fails and turns from a world-class institution to something that can be pointed to as an example of government failing.

igorkraw 5y ago
Dang has personally told me to avoid incendiary language and while I personally disagree with the exact definition used at hackernews, it's their playground so I'm trying to be a good citizen. But I agree
kyrra 5y ago
As the video linked calls out, the USPS is between a rock and a hard place. They are not funded by tax dollars at all (they operate as a business), but are required to fund retirement accounts 20-30 years in the future, plus are not allow to increase rates beyond inflation. As they lose money (and have been for the last 10 years), to keep operating they are required to get a "bailout" from congress in the budget plan every year. The post master general under Trump was trying to cut costs within the constraints placed on the USPS by congress, which is to reduce mail drop boxes and other activities. If congress wanted to invest in the USPS, they could, it just hasn't been done yet (no one seemed to agree on what that should look like). One important part with the drop in mail volume is that the cost of mail delivery actually goes up. There are many fixed costs on delivering a letter, and if you can deliver 8 letters vs 4 letters to the same address and are forced to charge the same regardless of how many you end up delivering there, the overall delivery-cost of each letter goes up. So either we need to let the USPS charge more for their services (to offset the reduced volume), or congress needs to decide to subsidize the USPS again to allow it to function properly. Subsidizing would be difficult given how UPS and Fedex abuse the USPS today. (Those two carriers will push delivery to the USPS when they know its unprofitable for them to deliver any given package). So any subsidy that it provided to the USPS will also subsidize Fedex and UPS unless the rules are changed there as well.
- ry4nolson 5y ago
  it's actually 50 years

onetimeusename 5y ago

I asked someone in the post office why the USPS was unprofitable and he didn't say it was political. He told me something like this: "You can have a package from the US Virgin Islands delivered to Guam for around ten dollars". I looked this up for a flat rate box and this is true[1]. [1]: https://postcalc.usps.com/Calculator/MailServices?country=10459&ccode=US&oz=00801&omil=False&dz=96910&dmil=False&mdt=5%2F3%2F2021&mdz=9%3A59&m=12 https://postcalc.usps.com/Calculator/MailServices?country=10...

throwaway0a5e 5y ago

If any company provided the retirement benefits USPS does and pre-funded them in the same manner HN would hail them as saints. They would be held up as proof that BigCos don't need to act like greedy backstabbing jerks. But because an ideologically driven congress mandated USPS fund its retirement contributions in a highly conservative way HN sees it as evil. Frankly, I'm happy that a government institution isn't playing fast and loose with people's retirements (ask Illinois or New Jersey how that turns out). If that makes it hard to balance the books then congress should either kick in some $$ to cover the difference or let them change their rates.

igorkraw 5y ago
The thing that's evil is exactly the part where that ideologically driven congress is also not allowing USPS to innovate or raise prices to raise the money, or to spread out the buildup of the pension fund over a longer time. I rarely see people complain about the pension fund per se

bongobingo 5y ago

Would you prefer that the USPS join the public pension crisis? It is not scandalous to force a public organization to fund their employee retirements. What is scandalous is the massive unfunded public pensions that are going to wallop the economy over the next 10-20 years.

igorkraw 5y ago
To avoid dupes again, see my other reply.

dang 5y ago

Please don't copy/paste in HN threads. It strictly lowers the signal/noise ratio. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

igorkraw 5y ago
Noted