3 ms·

people are dying, so maybe that policy should change

• simfree 3y ago
  This likely does not make sense economically if the damage to the wider economy from unstable shipping costs is more than differential shipping pricing would recoup. You are also directly marginalizing and redlining large parts of the country when going from a single, integrated shipping system where domestic shipping is a negligible overhead that most businesses eat to a system where most get slightly cheaper service, while others face prices drastically higher. Is it worth it to subsidies the margins to ensure everyone has access and opportunity? The Rural Electrification Act, Affordable Connectivity Program, Universal Service Fund, federal funding of transit (road & rail construction) and education would not exist if we as a society decided to say "Let's do nothing for our fellow American that don't have access to X".
• derstander 3y ago
  > people are dying, so maybe that policy should change I have a harder time drawing a straight line between the universal service obligation and postal workers dying than you seem to. I think there are tons of other issues about the USPS that can be fixed and will be more effective than just introducing regional rates for postage (and thus putting a larger burden on poorer people in those regions who need to mail things). One example of a thing (that was recently maybe fixed) was the USPS’s need to pre-fund retiree health and pension benefits on a scale that I’m not aware applied to any other business or federal entity in the US. https://www.reuters.com/world/us/us-senate-approves-50-billion-postal-service-relief-bill-2022-03-08/ https://www.reuters.com/world/us/us-senate-approves-50-billi...