>> ^chilaxe:

Prosperity is a big part of human welfare, and if we take $10 from one person so another person can think it costs them $.50 to send a letter, many citizens will feel justified in reducing any further altruism on their part toward society.


But that's the thing, we're not "taking $10 from one person so another can person think it costs them $.50 to send a letter." We're telling everyone it costs 50 cents to send a letter, regardless of whether the actual cost is 1/10th of a cent or $10, and making sure we set the flat rate so it covers the actual costs.

Which is to day, people don't think they're engaged in altruism when they're sending a letter, they think they're buying a service with a flat rate. Just like when I get RoadRunner from Time Warner and pay a flat rate for bandwidth, I'm buying a service, I'm not engaging in altruism towards other people on the service who might use more GB of bandwidth per month than me...

More generally, I think that people should understand that paying taxes is paying for services they've been rendered while living & working here (most of which resemble insurance), not engaging in "altruism," especially if they're in denial about the services they're benefiting from.

>> ^chilaxe:
Sending books by mail was probably important in the time of the founding fathers, but nowadays people have access to the sum total of human knowledge from their homes, or they can drive or bike to somewhere that does have internet. I'd imagine most of the mailed media that now takes advantage of the reduced media rates isn't very impressive.


Ah, but does everyone have that access? For example, do rural communities all have easy, free access to internet?

I'm definitely in agreement that mail delivery is no longer filling the role the founding fathers had in mind when they put it into the Constitution. The question is, what's the right change to make to the USPS? Dismantle it and abandon its objectives, or reinvent it so it uses modern technology like the Internet to achieve its original mission?

I say the latter makes more sense than the former.

>> ^chilaxe:

Yeah, it's not necessarily a very high priority to reduce subsidization of postal rates, but I think inefficiencies like the USPS' low rates in rural areas are an unavoidable negative, rather than a positive, as it was initially referred to in this thread.

Looking back through the conversation, I'd still say the universal service obligation part is a positive. This "inefficiency" critique is a pretty highly theoretical, and narrowly economic argument, and it's an attack leveled at flat rates, not the universal service obligation itself.

Besides, maximizing economic efficiency != maximizing human welfare.

We've reaped huge benefits from ensuring that everyone in the US could stay in touch with one another, even back in the 18th century, via a nationwide, federally subsidized, communication network.

I can't tally up the benefits in a ledger and prove the benefits were greater than the costs, but I think it was worth it, and was an overall positive.

>> ^chilaxe:

The idea is that systems can function more efficiently when the costs of different choices are transparent. So if people choose to live in inefficient locations because the inefficiency will be subsidized by others, the overall wealth of the society decreases from that inefficiency.
That's fine if most people live lives with a fraction of the efficiency of us, just so long as they bear the costs, not us.


I don't think that's an achievable goal though, not to the level you're talking about.

Think about all the flat rates out there. There's flat-rate phone service. Flat-rate broadband internet. Flat-rate video game services. Even flat-rate movie rentals (Netflix!)

>> ^marbles:

[S]ince companies can gain a market advantage by piggybacking on government infrastructure and making political deals, then it leads to oligopolies where the consumers are given false choices at inflated prices in their goods and services.
I'm not sure why the words "government" or "political" are in there. Companies can gain advantage by piggybacking on some other company's infrastructure, and the infrastructure's owner can make exclusivity agreements, which then lead to oligopolies where the customers are given false choices at inflated prices.

You even provided some non-governmental examples:
>> ^marbles:
Think Verizon/AT&T, Comcast/Time Warner, Energy providers, etc.

I suppose there are public electricity generation companies, but I don't remember the US government ever having a cable TV or wireless phone company.
>> ^marbles:
The USPS is self-sufficient? The USPS has several billion dollar deficits every year. To stay in business it has to "borrow" money from the US Treasury each year.

Two things. One, it's hard to find companies who didn't have losses in the last few years, and two the USPS's finances are being artificially deflated by a policy foisted on them by Congress.

That aside, self-sufficiency in this case means that nobody's taxes go to the post office. They're getting unusually cheap debt because they can borrow money using the US government's credit rating, but that doesn't cost anyone in higher taxes.

Keep in mind, this is the USPS borrowing from the Treasury. In terms of the national debt, it's an asset, not a liability. Maybe you're right, and the USPS will run up a huge debt, and then default, but I don't think so.

As for the big rant about debt and inflation, I'm too tired to run through the economics right now, but this whole story about debt & inflation is vastly, vastly overblown. Yeah, it could be a problem, maybe in 2030, and only then if we never end the Bush tax cuts, but otherwise it's just another scare tactic to make you do something that's against your own interests.

>> ^chilaxe:

As long as urban society pays more in order to subsidize rural society, whether through taxation or mailing costs, I think the point still applies... that the government arbitrarily giving rural society a "free" discount is a bug, not a feature.


I suspect it was a feature, not a bug, but intentional or not I agree that kind of subsidy is happening with flat postage rates.

I'll ask you what I asked blankfist, is there something wrong with that?

>> ^blankfist:

That wasn't my point? When did I say anything about something being "prohibitively expensive"?
"Cost effective" is right. At some point all three of those private carriers made a decision that delivery to your area wasn't worth it. The reason why is up for debate, but I'd suspect they evaluated the return they'd yield doing it themselves versus the return using the public option and chose the latter.

The highlighted part is what I'm taking issue with.

Do you think that the arrangement between FedEx and USPS is win-win, or do you imagine that USPS is losing money every time FedEx gives them a package?

Do you think that before FedEx arrived at this arrangement with the USPS, they didn't deliver to my house because it was prohibitively expensive not "worth it"?

>> ^NetRunner:

First, the Post Office has been self-sufficient since the 80's. Your paycheck has nothing to do with it, unless you buy postage from the USPS.
Second, there's a difference between "inefficiency", and mandated universal service. What you describe is the latter.
And a third point to @blankfist's gung-ho praise of private carriers, all the packages I've gotten this year from Fedex were sent by Fedex's SmartPost, where they hire the USPS to do terminal delivery for them, because they can do it more efficiently.
Ditto for DHL and UPS. It's been a while since someone other than a USPS mail carrier brought me a package.
As confrontational as all that sounds, I don't really have any particular attachment to seeing government be in the mail delivery business. I don't really see any point in the universal service requirement on snail mail anymore, either.
I'm game for upgrading to something like Finland's universal service for broadband internet, since keeping us all connected via an information network is why we had a government-subsidized post office in the first place.
If you guys sign on for that, I'm all for cutting the Post Office loose.


FedEx and UPS will fly USPS mail from point A to point B. USPS will deliver the last leg of Fedex and UPS parcels in certain areas. It works both ways. They all touch each other's junk.
But the enforced monopoly on private mail creates an oligopoly in the package delivery market. This is the greater evil of government enforced monopolies. Monopolies don't lead to ingenuity, resourcefulness, or efficiency. So markets, that are seemingly free, will emerge around the government controlled one. And since companies can gain a market advantage by piggybacking on government infrastructure and making political deals, then it leads to oligopolies where the consumers are given false choices at inflated prices in their goods and services. Think Verizon/AT&T, Comcast/Time Warner, Energy providers, etc.

The USPS is self-sufficient? The USPS has several billion dollar deficits every year. To stay in business it has to "borrow" money from the US Treasury each year. ("Borrow" because it'll get paid back right?) So... where does the Treasury get it's money from? *cough* ... Taxes?!?! Ok, so technically it isn't using tax money because really that money was spent a looong time ago with how the government has it's own deficits (in the trillions!).
Basically when the USPS brags that they don't get tax payer money, it's at best a misnomer. It's actually far worse. The USPS has to "borrow" money from the US treasury, who has to "borrow" money from the Federal Reserve. And since the Federal Reserve doesn't actually have any "reserves", it magically creates the money, which debases the currency, which causes inflation. So everyone does end up paying for the deficit, only it's with an invisible tax of lost purchasing power of their money, i.e. prices go up. Yet the "debt" holder still collects interest from the tax payers and can even demand payment in full which would probably lead to confiscation of public assets and/or selling of public assets to private companies. So the reality is the USPS does cost the tax payer. The tax payer pays the deficit. Twice. Plus interest. That's why public debt is such a dangerous matter. And also why most of the debt in the world is illegitimate.

>> ^NetRunner:

And my point is, it's not that my neighborhood is prohibitively expensive to deliver to, it's that using USPS deliver is more efficient generally (or as FedEx puts it, "cost effective"). That's why the whole product is being offered as a lower-cost alternative to traditional shipping to all US destinations for packages below a certain weight.


That wasn't my point? When did I say anything about something being "prohibitively expensive"?

"Cost effective" is right. At some point all three of those private carriers made a decision that delivery to your area wasn't worth it. The reason why is up for debate, but I'd suspect they evaluated the return they'd yield doing it themselves versus the return using the public option and chose the latter.

Not sure why you keep repeating back to me my points as if they're your own and then putting words in my mouth. Ha. You trolling?

>> ^blankfist:

But in @NetRunner's household you are affected by it. For some reason, FedEx, UPS and DHL have decided your neighborhood isn't cost effective to deliver to. However, the USPS must deliver to it, so they leverage their services. Otherwise, the private carriers would probably charge a premium to deliver there.

And my point is, it's not that my neighborhood is prohibitively expensive to deliver to, it's that using USPS deliver is more efficient generally (or as FedEx puts it, "cost effective"). That's why the whole product is being offered as a lower-cost alternative to traditional shipping to all US destinations for packages below a certain weight.

Like I said earlier, it makes sense. It costs money to own/operate a delivery truck, and doing a one-off delivery of a package to a residential area has to cost more than the additional cost of putting that package onto a mail truck that's going through my neighborhood anyways...

>> ^blankfist:
Finally, I think you're mistakenly conflating modern liberalism with Marxism here. They're incompatible. Like I said, if you speak to a real Marxist they won't say they have much if anything in common with Social Democrats. They don't consider SDs leftist and think they muddy the socialist philosophy. And Marxists are also anti-statist and anti-capitalist, and most SDs are pro state controlled capitalism.


I'm not conflating anything. It's the right that loves to conflate everything on the liberal agenda with Stalinist Communism.

I'm curious though, can you be specific? What philosophical position do Marxists take that would align with your position, but not mine?

On the topic of statism for example, I think I'm with the Marxists -- I think in a perfect world, it wouldn't be necessary, but until we achieve heaven on Earth, it's necessary.

>> ^blankfist:

You confused me a bit here. You're repeating my sentiment on this.
Certainly it's a smart business move to use the post office in less accessible/less populated areas, because it's cheaper than paying a driver and buying a truck to do it. Again, this has something to do with the USPS having a monopoly on first class mail, because they're the only show in town for first class mail they have to offer their service nearly everywhere in the US - even to rural areas where they're probably losing money to operate there.

And again, I think that's probably true for some set of examples that don't involve deliveries to the NetRunner household. I don't live in a rural area. I live in an urban area, and even more specifically I'm quite near a FedEx delivery hub.

Still, they think it's cheaper to pay the USPS to deliver the package than use one of their own delivery trucks. I think they're right. It's far more efficient to use the USPS because they already have the infrastructure in place to deliver mail to my doorstep, and will be delivering mail to my neighborhood every day already. No point in inefficiently duplicating effort.
>> ^blankfist:
I think that's what @chilaxe meant by subsidizing. He didn't mean tax dollars,

I read the phrase "your and my paycheck" as an allusion to taxation. I also said as part of my rejoinder that it won't be affected, "unless you buy postage".

>> ^blankfist:
[T]he cost of postage on first class mail is subsidizing those drivers and stations in less profitable areas (though tax dollars did subsidize the post office for years). So, because the USPS already has trucks going out to those areas, companies like FedEx use that to their benefit where it would normally be unprofitable for them. Would you disagree with this assertion?

No, I agree with that assertion. Do you think there's something wrong with that kind of subsidization?

>> ^blankfist:
By the way, I think highly of Marxist philosophy. Marxists and little 'l' libertarians (think anarchist leaning) have more in common than Marxists and Social Democrats & Progressives. But that's a whole other conversation.


And one I'd like to have sometime. I personally think it's pretty strange for you to claim to respect Marxist philosophy, while decrying everything liberals do.

>> ^NetRunner:

Maybe that's true someplace, but it's certainly not true for where I live. I'm in Columbus, OH and pretty close to the airport, and the local Fedex hub. I think the explanation is that the USPS already has a truck coming by my house every weekday anyways, and the marginal cost of adding a small package to their delivery is going to be way less than Fedex sending out a truck just to drop off a package for me.
Oh, and I think you want to be careful about implying that profit-seeking is putting some sort of competitive disadvantage on commercial carriers. That almost sounds like a Marxist argument.


You confused me a bit here. You're repeating my sentiment on this.

Certainly it's a smart business move to use the post office in less accessible/less populated areas, because it's cheaper than paying a driver and buying a truck to do it. Again, this has something to do with the USPS having a monopoly on first class mail, because they're the only show in town for first class mail they have to offer their service nearly everywhere in the US - even to rural areas where they're probably losing money to operate there.

I think that's what @chilaxe meant by subsidizing. He didn't mean tax dollars, he meant the cost of postage on first class mail is subsidizing those drivers and stations in less profitable areas (though tax dollars did subsidize the post office for years). So, because the USPS already has trucks going out to those areas, companies like FedEx use that to their benefit where it would normally be unprofitable for them. Would you disagree with this assertion?

By the way, I think highly of Marxist philosophy. Marxists and little 'l' libertarians (think anarchist leaning) have more in common than Marxists and Social Democrats & Progressives. But that's a whole other conversation.

>> ^GeeSussFreeK:

@NetRunner I think the point is that if you want to not exist on tax dollars, you don't also get to legislate out competitors.

Big shrug here. I don't really see a problem with that. Maybe if I thought the service we were getting was a bad deal I'd feel differently, but I think we're getting a pretty good deal.

I'm a lot more worried about the near-monopolies we've got in broadband internet and mobile phone service than I am about the USPS's monopoly on 1st class mail service.
>> ^GeeSussFreeK:
They loose money as well, perhaps it is time to let someone else take a stab at it?

Ahh, do they? Or is their financial situation being weighed down by a requirement Congress saddled them with to pre-fund health benefits?

Again, I just don't see the point in messing with how the Post Office works. It seems like the (half-hearted) efforts from the right to destroy it have more to do with long-term political strategy than an actual effort to make someone's life better.

After all, it's pretty hard to tell people scare stories about how socialism leads to death camps, when one can just point at the postman and say "oh really?"

>> ^MarineGunrock:

Your link is busted...>> ^NetRunner


Fixed.

>> ^blankfist:

Again, because they've monopolized first class mail they probably offer the cheapest mail delivery in certain areas that're typically too expensive to deliver to normally (without adjusting the fair to make it profitable - profitable meaning able to pay the staff and make a reasonable return).

Maybe that's true someplace, but it's certainly not true for where I live. I'm in Columbus, OH and pretty close to the airport, and the local Fedex hub. I think the explanation is that the USPS already has a truck coming by my house every weekday anyways, and the marginal cost of adding a small package to their delivery is going to be way less than Fedex sending out a truck just to drop off a package for me.

Oh, and I think you want to be careful about implying that profit-seeking is putting some sort of competitive disadvantage on commercial carriers. That almost sounds like a Marxist argument.

>> ^blankfist:
But because the USPS is a government monopoly it must subsidize the areas that're not as profitable and yet still offer a carrier service.
I actually don't have a problem with the USPS, because it's a user fee based service, but they should lift the monopoly. Do you disagree?


To be honest, I've got no complaints about the USPS at all, so I haven't really spent much time thinking of ways to reform it. Personally, I don't see why we'd change it. It's not like Fedex is being strangled, and it's not like there's some widespread, intense dissatisfaction with the postal service.

If anything, my biggest reasons for tinkering with the postal system would be environmental (stop driving trucks all over the city every day to deliver junk mail made out of trees!), or to revisit the original intent of the post office, and realize that its real mandate was universal data service. This whole thing with delivery of physical pieces of paper was just the only data network available in 1789.

Outside that, I don't see the point.

Your link is busted...>> ^NetRunner

>> ^NetRunner:

And a third point to @blankfist's gung-ho praise of private carriers, all the packages I've gotten this year from Fedex were sent by Fedex's SmartPost, where they hire the USPS to do terminal delivery for them, because they can do it more efficiently.
Ditto for DHL and UPS. It's been a while since someone other than a USPS mail carrier brought me a package.


Again, because they've monopolized first class mail they probably offer the cheapest mail delivery in certain areas that're typically too expensive to deliver to normally (without adjusting the fair to make it profitable - profitable meaning able to pay the staff and make a reasonable return). But because the USPS is a government monopoly it must subsidize the areas that're not as profitable and yet still offer a carrier service.

I actually don't have a problem with the USPS, because it's a user fee based service, but they should lift the monopoly. Do you disagree?