4 ms·

The free market will always chose to go to the places for the cheapest material and labor. There is no strategy to it. But, there are some industries the US hav

by yardie 2y ago

The free market will always chose to go to the places for the cheapest material and labor. There is no strategy to it. But, there are some industries the US have placed strategic value on and will subsidize no matter the cost. - USPS - literally written into the Constitution - Passenger rail - Amtrak keeps pudding along even though financially it doesn’t make sense. - Merchant marines - cargo is cheap. And cheaper in flag countries with lax labor rules. Yet, we maintain a expensive flotilla.

lotsofpulp 2y ago
I wonder if the US does or would subsidize USPS. USPS is required to earn enough money to pay for itself, which it mostly does by delivering advertising to people’s mailboxes.
- pclmulqdq 2y ago
  The USPS isn't subsidized with money, but it has a lot of special treatment legally. Things like "the inside of your mailbox becomes federal property" and the office of the postmaster general come to mind. Other than that, as you said, the USPS is supposed to earn enough to pay for itself, which means that mail in cities tends to subsidize rural services.
  - oskarkk 2y ago
    > which means that mail in cities tends to subsidize rural services Do USPS or other mail services in the US have pricing that depends on location? In Poland where I live (much smaller, more uniformly populated and not federal country), I've seen no such things. The prices are the same everywhere, so it seems to me that in every private, commercial mail service the cities kinda subsidize the rural areas.
    - pclmulqdq 2y ago
      USPS is equal priced as you say. A letter sent to Manhattan is cheaper for the USPS than a letter sent to Nome, Alaska, but both cost the sender 73 cents. Parcels sent by USPS are priced based on regional zones (roughly corresponding to distance traveled), but these are very coarse-grained. UPS and FedEx and some of the other private shipping services have much more fine-grained pricing based on where something is going. This means that if you are Amazon, it is generally cheaper to send packages to cities by private carrier and cheaper to send to rural areas by USPS.
refurb 2y ago
> The free market will always chose to go to the places for the cheapest material and labor. That's absolutely not true and anyone who has been involved in sourcing knows this. There are plenty of other factors other than price alone. Reliability of source, quality, ability to response to changing volume demands, reputation, customer service, sustainability, overall capability, regulatory compliance, IP protection, financial health, quality management systems, etc. It's the reason why any large corporation has a months long supplier due diligence process.

by yardie 2y ago

lotsofpulp 2y ago

I wonder if the US does or would subsidize USPS. USPS is required to earn enough money to pay for itself, which it mostly does by delivering advertising to people’s mailboxes.

pclmulqdq 2y ago
The USPS isn't subsidized with money, but it has a lot of special treatment legally. Things like "the inside of your mailbox becomes federal property" and the office of the postmaster general come to mind. Other than that, as you said, the USPS is supposed to earn enough to pay for itself, which means that mail in cities tends to subsidize rural services.
- oskarkk 2y ago
  > which means that mail in cities tends to subsidize rural services Do USPS or other mail services in the US have pricing that depends on location? In Poland where I live (much smaller, more uniformly populated and not federal country), I've seen no such things. The prices are the same everywhere, so it seems to me that in every private, commercial mail service the cities kinda subsidize the rural areas.
  - pclmulqdq 2y ago
    USPS is equal priced as you say. A letter sent to Manhattan is cheaper for the USPS than a letter sent to Nome, Alaska, but both cost the sender 73 cents. Parcels sent by USPS are priced based on regional zones (roughly corresponding to distance traveled), but these are very coarse-grained. UPS and FedEx and some of the other private shipping services have much more fine-grained pricing based on where something is going. This means that if you are Amazon, it is generally cheaper to send packages to cities by private carrier and cheaper to send to rural areas by USPS.

refurb 2y ago

> The free market will always chose to go to the places for the cheapest material and labor. That's absolutely not true and anyone who has been involved in sourcing knows this. There are plenty of other factors other than price alone. Reliability of source, quality, ability to response to changing volume demands, reputation, customer service, sustainability, overall capability, regulatory compliance, IP protection, financial health, quality management systems, etc. It's the reason why any large corporation has a months long supplier due diligence process.