Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2020/04/30/save-the-usps.html
Maybe this coalition of 1200 tech, business, and news organizations
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The amusing thing is, based on that Wealth, Shown to Scale post from yesterday, Bezos could fully fund the U.S. Postal Service for decades and not even blink.
Not that he should do that, since he’s a citizen and not the government, but he could.
Because he has too much fucking money for one person.
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Let’s see if one would work a job that makes … $250,000 a year (tax free) … for four thousand years … one would end up with 1/126th of Bezos’ net wort.
Yes. Yes, that guy might has too much of the money.
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Who will rescue the U.S. Postal Service?
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But the Chicago School of Economics insists that freeeeeee (wheeeee) markets make billionaires (it doesn’t, it makes millionaires, lobbying and special anti-market activity and legislation makes billionaires) and that “nuff said”, the market must be worshiped.
Who can argue with dismal science?
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From what I understand, change the law about funding pensions, which is out of line of how anyone else does it anywhere, is the thing taxing the Postal System the most and making it unprofitable. This coming from a friend who is a Postal worker. Actually, I know two postal workers.
Also the Postal System doesn’t have to turn a profit. Does the highway system turn a profit? No, but we all use it and with out it we could not facilitate business like we do now. Same with the post office.
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Yeah, the USPS pension requirements are fucking ludicrous. They’re being forced to pre-fund pensions not just for potential future hires, but pre-fund so far into the future that they have to fund pensions now for people not even born yet! It’s fucking insane, and 100% a plot by the Republicans to destroy the USPS.
In case you’re wondering why the Republicans want to destroy the USPS, there’s 4 reasons:
- Any universal vote-by-mail system will need the USPS to work properly. Universal vote-by-mail is going to hurt their voter suppression tactics, so they want to prevent that.
- The USPS is an example of a Socialist agency working amazingly well, and providing a service better and cheaper than Capitalist equivalents. This disproves one of their core “socialism = bad” tenets, so they have to destroy it.
- They cannot control the USPS like the can virtually any other part of government. Many other parts of government that do things they don’t like can be threatened with defunding to keep them in line. The USPS is independent of the US budget and self-sufficient (it’s the only agency in all of the US Government that actually turns a profit).
- If they can destroy it, it’s a literal corporate raiding get-rich-quick scheme for them. Basically, they take the USPS, privatize it under a new corporation (with Congresscritters and their friends investing in it). The pension fund they forced upon the USPS is worth billions, and can be drained away to shareholders once it’s privatized. Bankruptcy is declared, destroying it completely, but the “investors” walk away with $$billions from the pension fund and leveraged bad debt.
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Who will save the post office? Probably the next president.
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What part of FREE MARKETS don’t you understand? A market can’t be free if there is a government funded original entrant in the same space? It’s only fair that they have to forward fund their pension obligations 75 years - JUST LIKE NO OTHER BUSINESS
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Congress will come through with the funding. No one aside from “dumb donald” is stupid enough to actually allow it to crash and burn.
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if the dems get control and they don’t fix this in their first 100 days it is unforgivable
post office could almost be considered part of the “safety net” in this country, wealthy people don’t need it but everyone else does sooner or later
it’s literally in the constitution, how can we be a country with guns protected but not the post office?
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The Federal Reserve also earns a profit. Otherwise spot on!
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Which it then donates back to the federal government each year.
Not to say this necessarily informs and drives Trump’s and the GOP’s attitude toward the USPS… but I do find it very interesting to consider:
USPS Site: The Postal Service is one of the leading employers of minorities and women, with minorities comprising 39 percent and women comprising 40 percent of the workforce. 21 percent of employees are African-American; 8 percent are Hispanic; 8 percent are Asian-American/Pacific Islander; and 0.67 percent are American Indian or Alaska Native.
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im still hoping for the return of post office banking.
i think even the remote possibility of killing off payday lending and ending the money train of bank fees makes republicans quake in their boots… ummm… business socks.
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Is it just me, or does the fact that you can send ANYTHING from one side of the US to the other for 55 cents just ludicrous? IMO sending a letter to the other side of the country should cost a few dollars at least. That will weed out the trash that can just be sent digitally, decrease load, and allow them to focus on the more profitable package business. Im sure there are tons of efficiencies that could be found too, but no one at the USPS is interested in finding them because it could mean they are not needed anymore.
It is…because you can’t. Even standard letters above a certain weight require extra postage.
Leaving us with a government-run UPS/Fedex, and leaving lower-income folks out in the cold when they need to do formal communications. Also, your argument that they need to find efficiencies when the USPS runs at an operational surplus kinda falls apart.
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I too share in your optimism. I can hardly wait for a new one.
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Foolish Humans! Who will save your Post Office now?
FLASH! AAA-AAAA!
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Kevin Costner?
(I’ll show myself out)
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