4 ms·

Something something junk mail funds a large part of usps

by celim307 3y ago

burkaman 3y ago
Fortunately there's no need for the USPS to be profitable, so we don't need to worry about this
- kerkeslager 3y ago
  You would think so, but the Republicans have been trying to kill USPS for decades, and have managed to pass laws which both mandate that it pay for itself without taxpayer dollars, and hamstring its ability to be profitable. Some of these hamstringing measures were temporarily removed in 2022 as an emergency measure, but the USPS remains without a guarantee of stable funding in the future.
  - numbsafari 3y ago
    It’s because they hate the actual Constitution.
  - tcmart14 3y ago
    Really shows they don't really care about infrastructure. The markets could collapse and FedEx, UPS, and DHL could go under, but because the USPS is still there, you can still send mail from one coast to another.
  - rootusrootus 3y ago
    The only thing more inefficient than a purely governmental organization is a private company providing services to the government. There seems to be a persistent belief amonst citizens that governmental services would make them more efficient, more responsive to customers, etc, but following the money suggests different motivations.
    - Eisenstein 3y ago
      The reason it is inefficient is because it provides services that a private company would not, or would charge a ton of money for. The USPS has to deliver mail to everyone with a postal address -- they do a whole lot of 'last mile' deliveries for FedEx and UPS, etc. Getting rid of the USPS means that a lot of people would either not get mail or pay out the nose for it. Some things just aren't profitable, and frankly shouldn't be. Let's not forget that.
      - runnerup 3y ago
        Indeed, government “services” are not meant to be profitable. Dear lord the consequences if our military had to fund itself without tax dollars.
        Eisenstein 3y ago
        Seal Team Six Bake Sale! GoFundMe for Black Hawk nav system retrofitting! Reservists doing Speedo/Bikini carwashes! I'm sure it would work out great...
        CRConrad 3y ago
        You seem cheerfully committed only to see the benign possibilities.
  - ThunderSizzle 3y ago
    > but the Republicans have been trying to kill USPS for decades A little disingenuous. Republicans attempted to force lower government spending by causing a deficit decades ago. The strategy (for those that were good willed) was that a large deficit would politically force spending cuts across the board, obviously including USPS. No spending cuts have ever been made and the deficit has grown exponentially instead. Congress discovered debt doesn't matter, and now neither side cares. Welcome to the uniparty. You can continue to pretend DC Democrats and Republicans are different, but they're playing you with fake controversies that never are resolved by Congress
    - kerkeslager 3y ago
      > > but the Republicans have been trying to kill USPS for decades > A little disingenuous. No, it's 100% true. I'm not a Democrat by any means and I'm in fact highly critical of the Democrats. But if you look at the history of laws proposed/passed with regards to the USPS, there's absolutely no ambiguity that the Republicans are trying to kill the USPS. This has nothing to do with spending, either: the USPS has not been funded by taxpayer dollars since 2006, with the exception of the 2022 bailout. After 2006, the USPS operated profitably for a few years, but Republicans have passed regulations which prevent the USPS from operating profitably, leading for the need for the 2022 bailout. This isn't about debt or spending, and it isn't a matter where both parties are the same. I'm not a Democrat, and I don't even like Democrats, but the USPS' funding issues are unambiguously and intentionally caused by Republicans.
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
rootusrootus 3y ago
As of 2022, marketing mail provides 20% of the funding for USPS. https://about.usps.com/newsroom/national-releases/2022/1110-usps-reports-fiscal-year-2022-results.htm https://about.usps.com/newsroom/national-releases/2022/1110-...
- dredmorbius 3y ago
  How much more useful would the USPS be if: - Taxpayer support for the service were increased. - Junk mail delivery were reduced. ?
  - Wowfunhappy 3y ago
    Perhaps even more importantly, what would the environmental impact be?
    - dredmorbius 3y ago
      Interesting question. I'm not sure what total junk-mail volume is, but the USPS moved 127.3 billion "units" (pieces of mail) in 2022, down from a peak of 213 billion in 2006. First-Class mail volume was 48.9 billion in 2022, single-piece (which I presume means non-bulk) 12.9 billion. "Marketing mail" volume, 67.1 billion. <https://facts.usps.com/table-facts/ https://facts.usps.com/table-facts/> First-class letter max weight is 3.5 oz (100 g). Assuming an average weight of 100g per item, that's 6.7 million tonnes of marketing (junk) mail, give or take an order of magnitude. A tractor-trailer rig can carry a maximum of about 45,000 lb (20 tonnes). The junk-mail delivered in a year is roughly 400,000 such truckloads of mail. Or assuming 5-day/week delivery, about 2,000 trucks operating daily for a year. (I'm using round numbers as the initial estimate is rough, just trying to give rough scope to the scale.)
gretch 3y ago
Federally subsidized advertising platform is what it is
- CapstanRoller 3y ago
  >Federally subsidized advertising platform That's basically every large industry. Your complaint is about capitalism itself. USPS is not the cause of this.
  - gretch 3y ago
    > That's basically every large industry. Yes, I'm against federal subsidies in many industries. If it's a public messaging system such as USPS, why does it deliver so much spam? How about we just pay for it and stop that part? Everyone loves that with Fastmail vs Gmail - how about we do it for our national message passing? > capitalism How did you arrive at capitalism when I criticized federal funding? You think the idea of a federal govt and paying for stuff with public taxes is a core pillar of capitalism?

Something something junk mail funds a large part of usps

burkaman 3y ago

Fortunately there's no need for the USPS to be profitable, so we don't need to worry about this

kerkeslager 3y ago
You would think so, but the Republicans have been trying to kill USPS for decades, and have managed to pass laws which both mandate that it pay for itself without taxpayer dollars, and hamstring its ability to be profitable. Some of these hamstringing measures were temporarily removed in 2022 as an emergency measure, but the USPS remains without a guarantee of stable funding in the future.
- numbsafari 3y ago
  It’s because they hate the actual Constitution.
- tcmart14 3y ago
  Really shows they don't really care about infrastructure. The markets could collapse and FedEx, UPS, and DHL could go under, but because the USPS is still there, you can still send mail from one coast to another.
- rootusrootus 3y ago
  The only thing more inefficient than a purely governmental organization is a private company providing services to the government. There seems to be a persistent belief amonst citizens that governmental services would make them more efficient, more responsive to customers, etc, but following the money suggests different motivations.
  - Eisenstein 3y ago
    The reason it is inefficient is because it provides services that a private company would not, or would charge a ton of money for. The USPS has to deliver mail to everyone with a postal address -- they do a whole lot of 'last mile' deliveries for FedEx and UPS, etc. Getting rid of the USPS means that a lot of people would either not get mail or pay out the nose for it. Some things just aren't profitable, and frankly shouldn't be. Let's not forget that.
    - runnerup 3y ago
      Indeed, government “services” are not meant to be profitable. Dear lord the consequences if our military had to fund itself without tax dollars.
      - Eisenstein 3y ago
        Seal Team Six Bake Sale! GoFundMe for Black Hawk nav system retrofitting! Reservists doing Speedo/Bikini carwashes! I'm sure it would work out great...
        CRConrad 3y ago
        You seem cheerfully committed only to see the benign possibilities.
- ThunderSizzle 3y ago
  > but the Republicans have been trying to kill USPS for decades A little disingenuous. Republicans attempted to force lower government spending by causing a deficit decades ago. The strategy (for those that were good willed) was that a large deficit would politically force spending cuts across the board, obviously including USPS. No spending cuts have ever been made and the deficit has grown exponentially instead. Congress discovered debt doesn't matter, and now neither side cares. Welcome to the uniparty. You can continue to pretend DC Democrats and Republicans are different, but they're playing you with fake controversies that never are resolved by Congress
  - kerkeslager 3y ago
    > > but the Republicans have been trying to kill USPS for decades > A little disingenuous. No, it's 100% true. I'm not a Democrat by any means and I'm in fact highly critical of the Democrats. But if you look at the history of laws proposed/passed with regards to the USPS, there's absolutely no ambiguity that the Republicans are trying to kill the USPS. This has nothing to do with spending, either: the USPS has not been funded by taxpayer dollars since 2006, with the exception of the 2022 bailout. After 2006, the USPS operated profitably for a few years, but Republicans have passed regulations which prevent the USPS from operating profitably, leading for the need for the 2022 bailout. This isn't about debt or spending, and it isn't a matter where both parties are the same. I'm not a Democrat, and I don't even like Democrats, but the USPS' funding issues are unambiguously and intentionally caused by Republicans.

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

rootusrootus 3y ago

As of 2022, marketing mail provides 20% of the funding for USPS. https://about.usps.com/newsroom/national-releases/2022/1110-usps-reports-fiscal-year-2022-results.htm https://about.usps.com/newsroom/national-releases/2022/1110-...

dredmorbius 3y ago
How much more useful would the USPS be if: - Taxpayer support for the service were increased. - Junk mail delivery were reduced. ?
- Wowfunhappy 3y ago
  Perhaps even more importantly, what would the environmental impact be?
  - dredmorbius 3y ago
    Interesting question. I'm not sure what total junk-mail volume is, but the USPS moved 127.3 billion "units" (pieces of mail) in 2022, down from a peak of 213 billion in 2006. First-Class mail volume was 48.9 billion in 2022, single-piece (which I presume means non-bulk) 12.9 billion. "Marketing mail" volume, 67.1 billion. <https://facts.usps.com/table-facts/ https://facts.usps.com/table-facts/> First-class letter max weight is 3.5 oz (100 g). Assuming an average weight of 100g per item, that's 6.7 million tonnes of marketing (junk) mail, give or take an order of magnitude. A tractor-trailer rig can carry a maximum of about 45,000 lb (20 tonnes). The junk-mail delivered in a year is roughly 400,000 such truckloads of mail. Or assuming 5-day/week delivery, about 2,000 trucks operating daily for a year. (I'm using round numbers as the initial estimate is rough, just trying to give rough scope to the scale.)

gretch 3y ago

Federally subsidized advertising platform is what it is

CapstanRoller 3y ago
>Federally subsidized advertising platform That's basically every large industry. Your complaint is about capitalism itself. USPS is not the cause of this.
- gretch 3y ago
  > That's basically every large industry. Yes, I'm against federal subsidies in many industries. If it's a public messaging system such as USPS, why does it deliver so much spam? How about we just pay for it and stop that part? Everyone loves that with Fastmail vs Gmail - how about we do it for our national message passing? > capitalism How did you arrive at capitalism when I criticized federal funding? You think the idea of a federal govt and paying for stuff with public taxes is a core pillar of capitalism?