4 ms·

That's what was supposed to happen, right?

kaitai 1y ago
There has long been a desire to privatize the USPS, so this also fits neatly into the narrative that the USPS should not be a public good.
- master_crab 1y ago
  This is affecting private carriers as well.
  - JJMcJ 1y ago
    Friend ordered a widget from China. Needed for a project he was prototyping. Widget $30 Shipping $60 Shipped via DHL which did have the mechanisms in place to declare contents and pay the tariffs, but not for free. For people ordering tube socks off of AliBaba, the economics is entirely different and the result is not unexpected.
    - DanielHB 1y ago
      When Alibaba first became big I remember ordering stuff from there and it taking about one month and a half to arrive in Brazil. Turns out they packaged a lot of shipments together into a single cargo container and then distributed them internally within Brazil. IMO it should go back to been that way. It is ridiculous to ship these small packages by air. I am not in favor of tariffs, but the shipping needs to be included in the bill.
  - chuckadams 1y ago
    There's no goal for the privatized USPS to actually be successful, only to destroy the public good. It's government, it works, so therefore it must be destroyed. This is really how Republicans think.
    - joenot443 1y ago
      > it works, so therefore it must be destroyed. This is really how Republicans think I've been living here four years and met some really wonderful Americans, both Democrat and Republican, yet I don't think I've met a single one who thinks the way you're presenting. This seems like a pretty bleak way to view your country's politics, respectfully.
      - Arainach 1y ago
        What voters think is largely irrelevant. Republican politicians campaign by claiming everything government does doesn't work, and once in office they do everything possible to ensure those claims become true.
        UtopiaPunk 1y ago
        Yeah, I basically agree. The goals of republican politicians are to satisfy the wealthy elite (corporations mostly). Public services, almost by definition, do not make large profits and make it much harder for a private corporation to compete while making large profits themselves. Privatizing public services is a great way to make the rich richer. The republican politicians then have to craft a message that will get enough normal, not rich people to vote them into office. So they talk about hot-button culture war issues, selecting the positions they must take to get numbers they need (abortion, gun rights, "freedom of speech," gay marriage, immigrants, vaccines, etc etc), all the while reminding their base that the government (except the military and police) is bad. So that is say, normal people who vote republican can be very nice and reasonable, and they have one or two things that strongly motivates them to vote for a terribly harmful platform.
      - cthalupa 1y ago
        All you have to do is look at all of the impositions that republican administrations and politicians have placed on USPS and the heaps of denigration they've piled on it to see the truth of the matter. From forcing them to fund all future retirement funding in a way that no other government agency is (the PAEA) to all of the attacks on it around "mail-in vote fraud," to the constant attacks on the budget issues that they created, it's plainly apparent that the Republicans desire USPS failing and being privatized. Many of them have also literally said as much. AEI and Cato are big proponents of privatization, Trump has talked about it many times, Wells Fargo has created some proposed frameworks, etc., and the worse it performs as a public entity the better they can make the argument for privatization.
- philwelch 1y ago
  A public good is a good that is both non-rivalrous and non-excludable. Establishing a federal monopoly doesn’t turn the product of that monopoly into a public good. Likewise, a public good can be provided by a non-government entity.
  - ffsm8 1y ago
    It's public and good though. ( ๑ ´ • .̫ • ` ๑ ) Jokes aside, I getting hung up on that term in this context feels unnecessary, it was quiet clear what kaitai was talking about from the text he wrote.
    - philwelch 1y ago
      It’s disingenuous to confuse the meaning of the term “public good” in order to justify government monopolies. Everybody knows that part of the role of the government is to provide “public goods”, but that’s based on how the term “public good” is defined, so it’s dishonest to use that to justify establishing a government monopoly over a non-public good.
- doctorpangloss 1y ago
  Have you looked at your mail lately? The USPS is mostly shipping around recycling, like ads. I would happily pay $7 to send a letter 1 time a year if it meant I would see half as much spam. Surely you see how the spam is subsidizing letters, and then “public good” isn’t so obviously black and white. I mean we could ban spam, tax to pay $6.50 of every $7 letter to enable wedding invitations be $0.50 to mail… but why?
  - soared 1y ago
    Id rather get the spam and pay $1 for letters. Then lower income people have access to the public good, subsidized by industry. Otherwise sending mail becomes something only rich people do.
  - UtopiaPunk 1y ago
    My mom lives out-of-state, and she sometimes sends little presents to my kid. My kid then draws a little picture on a postcard and sends it to his grandma. The post office fucking rules.
mc32 1y ago
Especially that underpriced postage advantage (the de minimis exemption) that so many were taking advantage when shipping small shipments from China (and others). Maybe maybe this means fewer items of dubious repute on Amazon. It was a stupid exception I'm glad they did away with it. I have no idea who in their bright mind saw reason to increase the exception to 800 from 200). Stupid. Suspension was talked about in April. Announced globally at the end of July and took effect at the end of August.
- PhantomHour 1y ago
  That's not the point under contention. Removing the de minimis exemption is a perfectly cromulent policy. It's not even particularly unpopular to remove it. The problem is that the Trump Administration is plainly incompetent in handling these matters. There wouldn't be this shitshow of sudden haltings in postal services to the US if they'd done the normal thing of announcing the changes with an appropriate lead time for businesses to adjust, rather than suddenly implementing it alongside the constant ping-ponging between yes-tariffs and no-tariffs.
croes 1y ago
[flagged]
- mc32 1y ago
  I agree that people overconsume "garbage." Indeed who needs 30 dolls or 30 Lego sets (Yes, I know Legos are not made in China, but never the less it's true). We don't need to revamp home decor every five years. What's wrong with having avocado green bathrooms or wood paneling in basements? Did the Russkies or Chinese communists ever feel like their people's housing needed new decor every few years? I doubt it. We could do with fewer items --though items of higher quality and usefulness. Conspicuous consumerism is on a downward path, I hope.
  - throwaway7783 1y ago
    Do you want the government to decide that for you, or should the individual decide what they need/want for themselves?
    - mc32 1y ago
      I do want them to keep absolute and utter disposable and toxic crap off the market and I want them to prevent dumping of products to undercut domestic producers. The government already has its hand on thousands of levers that control our lives. I agree with many and disagree with some. That's life in a republic.
      - malcolmgreaves 1y ago
        The new Republican import taxes aren’t keeping “absolute and utter disposable crap off the market.”
      - michaelmrose 1y ago
        But they aren't doing that. Instead they are enforcing "reciprocal" tariffs which are calculated in such a fashion as to hold equal smaller and poorer countries buying less of our shit and actually tariffing ours.

There has long been a desire to privatize the USPS, so this also fits neatly into the narrative that the USPS should not be a public good.

master_crab 1y ago
This is affecting private carriers as well.
- JJMcJ 1y ago
  Friend ordered a widget from China. Needed for a project he was prototyping. Widget $30 Shipping $60 Shipped via DHL which did have the mechanisms in place to declare contents and pay the tariffs, but not for free. For people ordering tube socks off of AliBaba, the economics is entirely different and the result is not unexpected.
  - DanielHB 1y ago
    When Alibaba first became big I remember ordering stuff from there and it taking about one month and a half to arrive in Brazil. Turns out they packaged a lot of shipments together into a single cargo container and then distributed them internally within Brazil. IMO it should go back to been that way. It is ridiculous to ship these small packages by air. I am not in favor of tariffs, but the shipping needs to be included in the bill.
- chuckadams 1y ago
  There's no goal for the privatized USPS to actually be successful, only to destroy the public good. It's government, it works, so therefore it must be destroyed. This is really how Republicans think.
  - joenot443 1y ago
    > it works, so therefore it must be destroyed. This is really how Republicans think I've been living here four years and met some really wonderful Americans, both Democrat and Republican, yet I don't think I've met a single one who thinks the way you're presenting. This seems like a pretty bleak way to view your country's politics, respectfully.
    - Arainach 1y ago
      What voters think is largely irrelevant. Republican politicians campaign by claiming everything government does doesn't work, and once in office they do everything possible to ensure those claims become true.
      - UtopiaPunk 1y ago
        Yeah, I basically agree. The goals of republican politicians are to satisfy the wealthy elite (corporations mostly). Public services, almost by definition, do not make large profits and make it much harder for a private corporation to compete while making large profits themselves. Privatizing public services is a great way to make the rich richer. The republican politicians then have to craft a message that will get enough normal, not rich people to vote them into office. So they talk about hot-button culture war issues, selecting the positions they must take to get numbers they need (abortion, gun rights, "freedom of speech," gay marriage, immigrants, vaccines, etc etc), all the while reminding their base that the government (except the military and police) is bad. So that is say, normal people who vote republican can be very nice and reasonable, and they have one or two things that strongly motivates them to vote for a terribly harmful platform.
    - cthalupa 1y ago
      All you have to do is look at all of the impositions that republican administrations and politicians have placed on USPS and the heaps of denigration they've piled on it to see the truth of the matter. From forcing them to fund all future retirement funding in a way that no other government agency is (the PAEA) to all of the attacks on it around "mail-in vote fraud," to the constant attacks on the budget issues that they created, it's plainly apparent that the Republicans desire USPS failing and being privatized. Many of them have also literally said as much. AEI and Cato are big proponents of privatization, Trump has talked about it many times, Wells Fargo has created some proposed frameworks, etc., and the worse it performs as a public entity the better they can make the argument for privatization.
philwelch 1y ago
A public good is a good that is both non-rivalrous and non-excludable. Establishing a federal monopoly doesn’t turn the product of that monopoly into a public good. Likewise, a public good can be provided by a non-government entity.
- ffsm8 1y ago
  It's public and good though. ( ๑ ´ • .̫ • ` ๑ ) Jokes aside, I getting hung up on that term in this context feels unnecessary, it was quiet clear what kaitai was talking about from the text he wrote.
  - philwelch 1y ago
    It’s disingenuous to confuse the meaning of the term “public good” in order to justify government monopolies. Everybody knows that part of the role of the government is to provide “public goods”, but that’s based on how the term “public good” is defined, so it’s dishonest to use that to justify establishing a government monopoly over a non-public good.
doctorpangloss 1y ago
Have you looked at your mail lately? The USPS is mostly shipping around recycling, like ads. I would happily pay $7 to send a letter 1 time a year if it meant I would see half as much spam. Surely you see how the spam is subsidizing letters, and then “public good” isn’t so obviously black and white. I mean we could ban spam, tax to pay $6.50 of every $7 letter to enable wedding invitations be $0.50 to mail… but why?
- soared 1y ago
  Id rather get the spam and pay $1 for letters. Then lower income people have access to the public good, subsidized by industry. Otherwise sending mail becomes something only rich people do.
- UtopiaPunk 1y ago
  My mom lives out-of-state, and she sometimes sends little presents to my kid. My kid then draws a little picture on a postcard and sends it to his grandma. The post office fucking rules.

mc32 1y ago

Especially that underpriced postage advantage (the de minimis exemption) that so many were taking advantage when shipping small shipments from China (and others). Maybe maybe this means fewer items of dubious repute on Amazon. It was a stupid exception I'm glad they did away with it. I have no idea who in their bright mind saw reason to increase the exception to 800 from 200). Stupid. Suspension was talked about in April. Announced globally at the end of July and took effect at the end of August.

PhantomHour 1y ago
That's not the point under contention. Removing the de minimis exemption is a perfectly cromulent policy. It's not even particularly unpopular to remove it. The problem is that the Trump Administration is plainly incompetent in handling these matters. There wouldn't be this shitshow of sudden haltings in postal services to the US if they'd done the normal thing of announcing the changes with an appropriate lead time for businesses to adjust, rather than suddenly implementing it alongside the constant ping-ponging between yes-tariffs and no-tariffs.

croes 1y ago

[flagged]

mc32 1y ago
I agree that people overconsume "garbage." Indeed who needs 30 dolls or 30 Lego sets (Yes, I know Legos are not made in China, but never the less it's true). We don't need to revamp home decor every five years. What's wrong with having avocado green bathrooms or wood paneling in basements? Did the Russkies or Chinese communists ever feel like their people's housing needed new decor every few years? I doubt it. We could do with fewer items --though items of higher quality and usefulness. Conspicuous consumerism is on a downward path, I hope.
- throwaway7783 1y ago
  Do you want the government to decide that for you, or should the individual decide what they need/want for themselves?
  - mc32 1y ago
    I do want them to keep absolute and utter disposable and toxic crap off the market and I want them to prevent dumping of products to undercut domestic producers. The government already has its hand on thousands of levers that control our lives. I agree with many and disagree with some. That's life in a republic.
    - malcolmgreaves 1y ago
      The new Republican import taxes aren’t keeping “absolute and utter disposable crap off the market.”
    - michaelmrose 1y ago
      But they aren't doing that. Instead they are enforcing "reciprocal" tariffs which are calculated in such a fashion as to hold equal smaller and poorer countries buying less of our shit and actually tariffing ours.