Trump Wants Postal Service To Charge 'Much More' For Amazon Shipments (reuters.com) 338
President Donald Trump said the U.S. Postal Service should charge Amazon more to deliver packages, the latest in a series of public criticisms of the online retailer and its billionaire founder. From a report: "Why is the United States Post Office, which is losing many billions of dollars a year, while charging Amazon and others so little to deliver their packages, making Amazon richer and the Post Office dumber and poorer? Should be charging MUCH MORE!" Trump wrote on Twitter. The president's tweet drew fresh attention to the fragile finances of the postal service at a time when tens of millions of parcels have been shipped all over the country for the holiday season. The U.S. Postal Service, which runs at a big loss, is an independent agency within the federal government and does not receive tax dollars for operating expenses, according to its website. The U.S. president does not determine postal rates. They are set by the Postal Regulatory Commission, an independent government agency with commissioners selected by the president from both political parties. That panel raised prices on packages by almost 2 percent in November.
Fake News (Score:4, Interesting)
While they probably should, Trump feels this way because Jeff Bozo, who owns Amazon, also owns the NYT - or as Trump says "Fake News"...
Re: (Score:2, Interesting)
By the way, while there is *actual* fake news, most real news has "editorial bias" because it is reported and written by human beings, who are in general not completely unbiased however they may try.
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the purpose of monetary gain
Doesn't that describe mainstream media in general? The only exceptions I can think of are activist outlets, which are biased as all hell by definition, and tax or TV license funded organizations like the BBC (who have managed to become an activist outlet somehow).
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The problem is most people are completely lousy at filtering nonsense from sense. I mean you have fox news who spent two presidential terms airing uncritical claims that the president is some sort of kenyan homo-communist muslim athiest without even stopping to say "You know, this might actually be crazy nonsense". And since so many people rely o
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And so we seer the bias, you could have also described how CNN spent all the campaign airing uncritical claims against Trump, but you didn't.
This is the bias we're talking of, the idea that the bad stuff only happens from one side, whilst casually ignoring the same crap from the other side.
the only solution today is to read as much different places as you can, read both a Breitbart and a Guardian (or a Fox and a CNN). They are both as shit as each other, but once you view them both equally, you realise wha
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Bezo's owns the Washington Post, which has been dogging the Russia and obstruction of justice investigations.
In fact, you can predict when a new Post story is about to break some news, because Trump will attack the Post or Bezos or Amazon about ten minutes prior to release.
Re:Fake News (Score:5, Informative)
When did Bezos buy the Times? I know he owns the Washington Post...
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Not fake news, it was an alternative fact posted on his Twitter account by his lawyer's uncle. Can't prove it wasn't!
Drain the pond.
Build the fence.
Etc.
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unless something's happened that didn't make the news I though Bezos owned the Washington Post. Which is probably Enemy number 3 or 4
The Free Press is enemy #1. WaPo, CNN, NYT, LA Times et al are just the enemy's armies.
Off to MetaMod (Score:3, Insightful)
Someone who apparently thinks it's cool for the USPS to subsidize Amazon shipping, and also can't even get straight what media companies Bezos owns, should not be modded up. I invite everyone to head over to MetaMod [slashdot.org], where you can rate the choices the moderators make and give these moderators a bit of a spanking.
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Without subsidy the USPS will need to scale down massively, they can't compete in a free market environment.
Even then, they'll always run losses because the international treaties rapes every western postal service. If Trump wants to do something useful he should unilaterally get the US out of the treaty of Bern.
Re:Off to MetaMod (Score:5, Informative)
They only can't compete because Congress forces them to pre-fund their employees retirement for some ridiculous number of decades - something no other business in the country does.
Additionally, the USPS's charge is to connect every person in America no matter how remote and unprofitable. The point is to have a service to connect far away Alaska villages that have no profit motive for FedEx etc. to connect. It's the same with public transit - the point isn't to make money, it's to enable and improve our lives in a worthwhile way.
False. Any private CEO would get jail (Enron) (Score:4, Informative)
What the postal service was doing, and is supposed to stop doing, is the kind of accounting that sent Enron executives to prison. If anyone but the postal service was hiding a $120 billion liability, it would be called "fraud".
What they were doing is saying to employees "work for us today, and we'll not only pay you today, we'll keep paying you after you retire, until you die." Someone can retire from USPS at the age of 56, so their retirement payments may be almost as much as their salary, or even more. Over the course of 30 years of retirement, the worker might be owed $840,000. So they had workers doing the work in say 1995, promised to pay them hundreds of thousands of dollars "later", but never set aside any money to be able to make good on those promises.
They owe about $120 billion - for work already done, and hadn't set anything aside to pay it. Most "every other business in the country" funds your 401K or other retirement by sending their contribution to a third-party investment bank every time you get a paycheck. You work this month, they pay for it this month, including the retirement part. State retirement plans work the same way, at least where I'm from in Texas - whichever agency you work for, when they pay for this year's work, they also pay whatever retirement they'll owe for this year's work. They don't have you work today and say "we'll worry about how to pay for it 20 years from now".
In 2006 they were given fifteen years to get caught up on the retirement they owed. They haven't come come close, because they are losing money. Any "profit" has to go toward funding the retirement promises they've made, but the "profit" hasn't been nearly enough and the number of letters they carry has fallen 30% over the last ten years, so it's unlikely they'll ever be able to pay for the retirement they are promising today's employees. They'll need the taxpayers to bail them out.
https://www.cnbc.com/id/450184... [cnbc.com]
https://www.govtrack.us/congre... [govtrack.us]
Re:Off to MetaMod (Score:5, Informative)
Without subsidy the USPS will need to scale down massively, they can't compete in a free market environment.
The USPS is not subsidized by the US government/taxpayers. Their rates are set by the government, but they operate entirely on the funds that they generate directly.
Even then, they'll always run losses because the international treaties rapes every western postal service. If Trump wants to do something useful he should unilaterally get the US out of the treaty of Bern.
The USPS is profitable. The reported shortfall in their budget was due to congress passing a new requirement (which only applied to the USPS) that they pre-fund their retirement account fully within five years. Meaning that the full retirement package for every postal service employee is fully paid. If every employee retired now (even if they were just hired and thus are not eligible for retirement benefits...) the full amount of their retirement pension is covered.
It is not a bad thing, but it was done in such a way as to make the USPS look bad.
False and extra false (Score:3, Informative)
> that they pre-fund their retirement account fully within five years.
False. The five-year requirement is that every five years they have to calculate how far in the hole they are. (How much they owe to workers who have already worked, or are working on today, and whom they've promised decades of retirement pay to, without funding that promise.)
> If every employee retired now (even if they were just hired and thus are not eligible for retirement benefits...) the full amount of their retirement pension
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Argentina took a different route: every package you get from abroad (especially China) is held by customs. Then they send you a letter demanding you pay them about USD 8 + import taxes. There's no "free shipping" here.
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I'm baffled as to how many people could have forgotten what the US Post looked like 10 years ago (pre-Amazon-boom).
It was failing and they were talking about reducing their delivery days even more than they already had. They were hemorrhaging money and could not find a way to bring themselves back from the brink. Why? Because they don't receive Government Funding and people had stopped sending letters.
Amazon made them relevant again, although I'm not terribly surprised that our current Drumpfster Fire is gl
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The US post was never supposed to be a private corporation. It doesn't matter if it turns a profit or not. It's one of the few things that the federal government is actually empowered to do.
The fact that a government service can't "compete" is no excuse to give Amazon corporate welfare.
The postal service doesn't need to be "relevant".
HELL, I wish there was a "no USPS" option on my own Amazon packages.
Re:Off to MetaMod (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't mind the postal service at all, as you've said they have improved.
But I do think Amazon could pay them more and the government prop up the post office less. Why does that have to hurt the post office? They could still deliver Amazon packages, just pay what it actually costs to ship them.
Because FedEX and UPS don't deliver to most of the rural US. Typical city dweller...most rural areas are only served by USPS which is why it runs at a loss. Also because leaders 100 years ago knew it was a good thing to promote a global mail/package delivery system.
They are subsidizing Amazon, also every rural address is subsidized as well as every other business that involves package delivery. This isn't political but somehow you (and Trump) are turning a very successful government service (over 100 years, can move a letter from one end of the country to the other in 3 days for less than 50 cents) into a political stunt. If you support reducing the USPS, then you are the type of person who politicizes everything to the detriment of everyone...and even worse without even trying to understand the situation which in this case is actually quite easy to understand.
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In Europe it's usual for any company offering a private postal service to have to accept the universal mandate, i.e. deliver everywhere for the same price.
I guess it raises prices slightly but it's like universal telephone/broadband/water/electric service.
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Then they have to charge everyone else higher rates, even those on low incomes. It's the equivalent of net neutrality. The post office can charge different rates for parcels by their size, their weight, or the distance being shipped, but they can't charge by who is sending the parcel or who is receiving the item.
Re:Fake News (Score:5, Insightful)
It's worse than that.
It may actually be a good point that the USPS should be charging Amazon more, but that common sense approach would have to apply to EVERY company and individual that ships a package via USPS.
Amazon is on track to provide its own delivery system. including the last mile.
The monopolistic ambiance of commerce regulators will allow it and USPS, UPS, and FedEx will hurt like hell, just as retail has, because of the "Amazon Effect."
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Congress should allow USPS to specifically charge Amazon more than others, on the grounds of preventing monopoly. Unfortunately that would be unpopular with consumers (and would violate Postal Neutrality). Maybe Trump's attempt of shaming USPS publicly into feeling stupid for helping Amazon would have some effect.
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Now that Net Neutrality is gone, can Postal Neutrality be far behind?
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It's true that I never grabbed you.
It's not just common sense (Score:3)
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Fuck the USPS, what we need is a last mile solution. And how we need to get that is to [literally?] hold the telco execs' feet to the fire until they give us what we paid for. Seriously, all this snail mail is dumb. It should just be packages.
Well maybe (Score:5, Insightful)
the GOP shouldn't have forced them to pre-fund the pension plan then.
Re:Well maybe... not. (Score:2, Insightful)
...and that makes them decide to charge less?
Kinda got that backwards.
If you have financial problems, you don't charge less money for something when you're already losing money on it.
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They aren't losing money on the shipping for Amazon, it was determined months ago when this first came out (as "revealed" by a hedge fund manager with ties to FedEx) that the USPS was still making a profit from Amazon, but realistically unless you are charging high dollar amounts, delivering to Rosebud, Nebraska is not going to be profitable.
However, even then they were profitable... up until the GOP required them to pay into pension funds for employees who do not even exist yet.
Re:Well maybe... not. (Score:5, Informative)
The USPS using accounting standards no other group (corporation or government agency) meets with regard to its pension. If it calculated its pensions costs using normal methods, its profitable.
Re:Well maybe... not. (Score:5, Insightful)
The USPS using accounting standards no other group (corporation or government agency) meets with regard to its pension. If it calculated its pensions costs using normal methods, its profitable.
Perhaps other groups *should* pre-pay their pensions. Pensions which were calculated using "normal" methods are going belly up all over the place.
Here's a small sampling the Pension Benefit Guarantee Corp's big ticket writeoffs...
Delphi Autoparts ($6.1B underfunded)
United, USAir, Delta, PanAm, TWA Airlines ($7.4B+$2.8B+$1.6B+$0.8B+$0.7B underfunded)
Bethlehem, LTV Steel ($3.7B+$2.1B underfunded)
Then there's the United Mine Workers of America pension bailout that's been kicking around congress that people think will cost $600B...
And there's the Central States Pension fund insolvancy controversy.
The problem with pensions for industries that are crashing is that with "normal" accounting rules they can assume historic contribution rates in their actuarial computations even if they are in decline (like the auto, steel, coal and trucking businesses). Then the pensions need bailing out and retirees collect pennies on the dollar (most pensions are only insured at 30cents/dollar and that assumes that the underwriting remains solvent, which is the problem with the PBGC, UMWA, and Central States pension authorities). Some might think it is a *good* idea that the postal services don't use "normal" accounting rules for their pensions. Unless they only listen to talking points spit out by talking heads.
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So where did you find that lie?
Re:Well maybe... not. (Score:4, Informative)
I'm not talking about prepayment of pension funds. I'm talking about how, uniquely among federal agencies, when new information changes the funds needed for prepayments such that the USPS overpayed, it neither gets a refund nor even to count those overpayments in a previous year as towards the payments required in a current/future year. The account is just permentantly overpaid. In 2012, it was to the tune of 11.2 billion
Guessing from your claim that this is a lie, I assume you're pretty conservative. There are a lot of sources, but even the Heritage Foundation has supported these claims.
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First they were not not unique there were other agencies that were having the same issue. Second they were not overpaying, if you read the Heritage Foundation articles the USPS complaints were that people were dying earlier and stayed in similar jobs longer then the normal person, it is like complaining that you overpaid for car insurance because you had no a
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No, that wasn't the issue at all. It was carrying forward issues from the switchover in '74 with regard to payrates and such.
Re:Well maybe... not. (Score:4, Interesting)
You might. National postal services are often expensive to run because they have a mandate to offer comparable service everywhere, not just on profitable runs. For example, the private courier services will not bring a package nearer than 100 km to my parents' home, but the national postal service delivers within walking distance.
Decreasing the price of to capture more of the market and fill underused capacity can improve profit.
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No no, you don't get it. Sure you lose money on each individual unit, but you make up for it with volume! Trust me, I have an MBA.
Re:Well maybe... not. (Score:4, Insightful)
Congress controls how much USPS can raise rates. The same Congress that sabotaged them with a 75 year pension fund is also sabotaging them with forcing them to keep their rates absurdly low.
Re:Well maybe (Score:5, Insightful)
Yes, because paygo pension funds are doing so wonderfully.
All pension funds should have been pre-funded from the start and never have been backed by the faith and credit of government. Only the most basic wellfare should be paygo and paid from general revenue instead of complicated payroll tax line items and trust funds (government shouldn't be in the business of maintaining investment funds).
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Sick, evil people like you just hate postal workers and want to deny them benefits they are suppose to get!
Re:Well maybe (Score:5, Informative)
So fuck the government employees, eh? How about the ones at the FDA that keeps poisons out of your food and drug supply. How about fucking them and see what happens to you? Maybe you'd like to fuck the NTSB people, they won't mind if your ass gets whacked in the next airline disaster because you fucked them out of job. And while you are at it, fuck the people at the SSA, Grandma would like to come and live with you. Save your pennies, her meds are expensive. And you can fuck the people at EPA, the ones who haven't already quit in disgust over that overgrown asshole in the White House. Those chemicals in your drinking water will be good for you.
Jesus, you are a stupid fuck.
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Do you care about people you don't know, have never met and probably will never meet?
Personally? No. I don't. But I do care about what happens to them, for two reasons. One, it might affect me. Two, it sets a precedent, which might affect me. You don't have to give two shits about someone to care about their fate. All you have to do is understand that we are all connected. Even if they commit suicide, that will wind up costing you money. Wouldn't you rather the maximum number of other people were happy and healthy, so that you don't get any of their suffering on you?
At least with a private business they have to make some effort to please you to prevent you from going with a competitor.
That's the theory, but g
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Yep, I don't see why government employees should get preferential treatment and have their pensions be untouchable.
There is nothing to raid though in government pension funds, it's a gaping black hole.
I'll go against the Slashdot groupthink (Score:3, Insightful)
I think he's right - the USPS is subsidized and should not hand that subsidy to megacorps like Amazon.
Let Amazon use UPS or FedEx.
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I'd prefer that they just privatize/sell the USPS and let it compete on even terms with UPS, FedEx, DHL, etc.
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The cost of receiving mail should reflect what it costs to deliver it. The USPS's inability to accomplish that is why they're losing billions.
Also, the post offices already exist. No new structures would need to be built. The USPS is currently managed like a government entity, while not being funded by taxpayer money. It will forever be a money sink as long as that remains true.
Re:I'll go against the Slashdot groupthink (Score:5, Interesting)
First, Amazon does use UPS. UPS, FedEx and DHL outsource the non-profitable part of their deliveries to the USPS. Honestly, that's the subsidy Trump ought be railing against. (From a technical point of view. It may be better politically/rhetorically to choose one high profile customer like Amazon).
Second, subsidizing some things (like roads), even for megacorps like Amazon, is important. It makes it easier for those megacorps to start up, and their competitors to start up as well. However, the typical payoff for that is supposed to be corporate tax dollars over and above the subsidy from the successful megacorps.
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All roads including railroads, or just whatever benefits Big Oil the most? Because "today's trains are an average of four times more fuel efficient than a typical truck [clarencegooden.com]."
There's a case to be made (Score:4, Interesting)
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No postal neutrality either in TRump America...
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USPS uses FedEx, UPS, and DHL for their logistics networks. They're the backbone of the USPS.
Source: I worked for DHL. We carried a lot of mail for USPS.
Re: I'll go against the Slashdot groupthink (Score:3)
They did use FedEx and UPS.
The USPS was being left out of the package delivery business until they lowered the rates they charged for delivery to compete with UPS and FedEx.
Does it surprise anyone that Amazon would go with the cheaper carrier ?
If anything UPS and FedEx should be complaining about how it's impossible to compete with the USPS while they're subsidized by the USG.
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If anything UPS and FedEx should be complaining about how it's impossible to compete with the USPS while they're subsidized by the USG.
UPS and FedEx hand their small packages off to the USPS, which gives them a deal on the postage. Without that deal, the USPS would be gone by now.
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Let Amazon create their own delivery service from point A-Z.
Then, like their AWS, they will ramp a whole (foods) new disruptive industry.
Re: I'll go against the Slashdot groupthink (Score:4, Informative)
I believe that the USPS is charging Amazon a "market determined rate" which is competitive with UPS and FedEx. Where I live, most Amazon packages are delivered by UPS since I presume it is cheaper. Sometimes it will be FedEx or USPS or some independent guy in a beat up old truck. I assume Amazon has sophisticated shipping cost software which chooses the best rate. If the USPS charged more, Amazon would just switch to UPS, etc.
This is the free market in all of it's raw glory.
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The parent post was simply pointing out with a hyperbolic example that as a government agency the USPS cannot specifically treat Amazon different from other companies and refuse their business. The only way they could turn away Amazon's business (as GP post called for) would be to ban commercial use of USPS's services, which is obviously stupid.
I'm not sure why you would think the parent post is seriously advocating that position though, it's obviously a sarcastic post.
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Package delivery is not a service which needs to be socialized. An argument can be made for letters, because official letters need delivery guarantees, but leave packages to the market.
The treaty of Bern says otherwise, but fuck that noise ... it's just a massive subsidy for China at this point.
is he wrong? (Score:2, Insightful)
i mean why does the USPS operate at a loss subsidizing/enabling one of the largest companies in the US to make more money?
(i hate agreeing with Trump)
Re:is he wrong? (Score:5, Informative)
The post office operates in the black. It is the pension rules [cnbc.com], or maybe somebody's misinterpretation of them, that fuck things up.
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The post office operates in the black. It is the pension rules [cnbc.com], or maybe somebody's misinterpretation of them, that fuck things up.
They may technically operate in the black if they decide to screw over the entire workforce by abandoning previous pension contracts (how you can ethically separate that I really do not know),
It's not that the USPS is abandoning anyone, but the law passed by Congress requires the USPS to "pre-fund" the benefit obligations rather than the previous pay-as-you-go model so they're chunking away a huge amount of money up-front every year - which reduces their available funds on hand. From the article link above:
US Postal Service workers have a retiree health care benefit in addition to their pension. Before Congress passed the Postal Accountability and Enhancement Act of 2006, the USPS operated under a pay-as-you-go model for retiree health care funding. The new law requires the Postal Service to pre-fund its benefit obligations.
Members of the postal workers union say the pre-funding requirement has created a fiscal mess. Some people have even claimed that law has the effect of requiring the postal service to fund retirement obligations for people who are not yet employed by the USPS--potential future employees.
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It's not that the USPS is abandoning anyone, but the law passed by Congress requires the USPS to "pre-fund"
Or in other words, FUND. As in, make sure the money is there to meet obligations.... You know, the way that most cities and the government itself is not doing and thereby screwing over people at some undetermined point when they run out of money and there's nothing to cover pension obligations. If the pension obligations are too high, maybe they should lower them at least for current?
Some people ha
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You'd maybe have point here if private business were required to operate this way.
But that's not how it works in reality. Business pay out of their operational funds as a cost. They don't put aside the full expected pension for every employee at the time of hire.
The USPS has something close to 400 billion dollars set aside for future pension payments, and the requirements to do so is the only thing causing them to operate in the red.
Re:Still losing money per Amazon box. (Score:4, Insightful)
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The idea is that it promotes commerce for all American's (citizens and companies), not just a few living in big cities. So by lowering the barrier to sending information and goods, it strengthens the country as a whole.
That said, I could see it still being within those guidelines to charge large players a progressive rate. The more one uses a subsidized service, the more one has to pay.
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You're not agreeing with him.
He can't talk about Amazon and exclude all others.
It's not a matter of, "... the largest companies ..." it's "all companies and individuals."
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The article is really biased claiming the USPS "deficit has ballooned to $61.86 billion," however, even in the article this is due to "$73.4 billion in unfunded pension and benefits liabilities."
As others have pointed out, the USPS is in the black unless you take pensions into account. However, most businesses prefund their pensions because it is required for them under Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974 (ERISA) so the USPS should be required to also.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
Can we talk about something other than Trump? (Score:3, Insightful)
Slashdot Editors, is there any chance that we can talk about something other than President Trump today?
There have been numerous submissions attacking him in one way or another.
The word "trump" currently appears on the front page 11 times!
How many times does the term "linux" appear? Zero!
How many times does the term "programming" appear? Only twice!
How many times does the term "math" appear? Zero!
If we were really this interested in President Trump, then we'd go visit the websites of CNN, or MSNBC, or the NYT, or one of the many other web sites covering politics.
The whole point of Slashdot is to cover news that the mainstream media doesn't focus on.
They're already very focused on President Trump. Slashdot shouldn't be. We're here to learn about things like Linux, programming, software, computing, electronics, math, and science. We're not here for politics!
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Then stop talking and start contributing. But talk is cheap and finding interesting stuff isn't, right?
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Why not mention Amazon subsidies? (Score:5, Insightful)
Seems like that story is lacking some important context; something I just read about earlier (and not because of the tweet) is that Amazon gets about $1.46 per box [hotair.com] in subsides due to first class mail costs.
Amazon is making a LOT of money, why does the federal government need to be giving them what amounts to a huge break on shipping? As a Prime member I'm sure that would raise my rates but I don't think everyone in the U.S. should be paying for my quicker shipping.
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Actually, Amazon uses a mix of carriers, and has been making aggressive investments to build its own delivery capacity. The largest carrier by number of packages that Amazon uses is UPS. It also uses FedEx and OnTrac more than USPS based on its financials and its public statements.
USPS is primarily used for non-time sensitive shipping (read: free super saver whatever).
Still, in recent years, they have been making investments in the US and Europe to have a greater stake in regional carriers and to build in
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so it's happening anyway, and Trump can just take credit for it regardless?
thank god; at least it minimizes the damage.
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Because otherwise Amazon would be using UPS and a bunch of postal workers would be out of a job. What needs to be taken care of is the massive waste in the postal system and any other de-facto government corporation.
At one point, you were able to ship a box across the country for a few bucks, when I went on school trips, mail was being manually sorted into bins and machines have since then pretty much taken over where entire postal offices are now fully automated. Costs have risen exponentially to the point
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Everyone in the US is Amazon customer (and if not - Walmart or all the other online retailers).
Raising rates will simply increase prices for everyone. That will make consumers poorer, and reduce the amount of business they do on Amazon and other online retailers, hurting their profits and US economy.
Incidentally, it is cheaper to mail a product from China to the US than to mail the same package in the US internally. This is because China realizes importance of shipping and has creative and less expensive sh
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Everyone in the US is Amazon customer
That is a pretty broad statement, which I can assure you is not true.
But even WERE it true, I can also issue you I receive a lot more boxes than most people - so other people are still paying for my shipping. While I appreciate the gift I just think it would be better if that load were placed more heavily on me instead of them.
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Because that observation doesn't support the hourly righteous indignation//"Trump is a buffoon" requirements for Slashdot posts.
postal service can stop pre-funding pensions 75 (Score:5, Informative)
postal service can stop pre-funding pensions for 75 years later.
Re: postal service can stop pre-funding pensions 7 (Score:4, Insightful)
Pre-funding the pension and spinning it off so the money is untouchable except by the people who are supposed to receive it prevents the possibility of pension bankruptcy [nytimes.com]. The way most pensions are set up (merely as a separate account within the company) leaves them vulnerable to abuse (embezzlement, underfunding) and bankruptcy. If the company goes bankrupt, the pensioners become merely creditors. They may not get paid until after other creditors, with the possibility of receiving only pennies on each dollar they were promised in pensions if they're far enough down the bankruptcy totem pole.
With a pre-funded pension operating independently (like a 401k or IRA), this cannot happen. The company made an obligation to pay Joe into his retirement, and they put the money to pay for it into his pension plan while he was working, thus insuring he gets paid even if the company ceases to exist. The only catch is instead of giving Joe a guaranteed fixed pension in his retirement, the pension should be defined as $x/mo being invested on his behalf while he's working, and his pension is whatever that works out to after compounding interest when he retires and begins collecting it (since his lifespan and investment growth is unpredictable).
Social Security has the same problem. The money you pay into SS is not being "saved" for your retirement. It's being used to pay current retirees (with a buffer of about a decade). Likewise, when you retire, the money you get from SS will not be money you put into it. It'll be money that the then-current generation of workers are paying into it. This happened because when SS was first enacted, the very first recipients got paid even though they'd never contributed a dime into it. (This is why SS is often accused of being a pyramid scheme, although that's slightly different.) If you want to guarantee SS solvency, you have to change it to a system that's pre-paid, like the USPS pension. Otherwise it could stay solvent or it might not, depending on inflation (cost of living), population growth, and increases in the average lifespan. Right now, there are about 2.9 workers per retiree. As that number goes down (due to decreasing birthrate and increasing lifespan), the risk of SS insolvency goes up.
Competitive market (Score:2)
"Why is the United States Post Office, which is losing many billions of dollars a year, while charging Amazon and others so little to deliver their packages, making Amazon richer and the Post Office dumber and poorer?
The postal service is providing a service to the public at a rate set by them. They're in direct competition with UPS and Fedex and shouldn't have HIGHER prices than their competition.
But as for those in REMOTE areas or PO Boxes that UPS and Fedex won't service affordably...... the USP
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
Want to live in a remote area? Well, you should be prepared to pay for it.
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Given those small, rural communities largely supported Trump... you’d think he’d be more aware of stuff like this.
Or you would, if you had t spent the past two or three years witnessing just how little thinking he does.
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But as for those in REMOTE areas or PO Boxes that UPS and Fedex won't service affordably...... the USPS serve a useful public function. They're not subsidizing Amazon so much as they're subsidizing mail order: but for some in remote areas, mail order is the only practical way of purchasing some simple necessities that can't be had from a local Walmart, because there is no local Walmart.
First off, the President of the United States should not be referring to individual companies that should be charged more. If the postal rates are incorrect, they should be adjusted for everyone.
Second off, the postal service does serve a useful purpose for areas that are not served well by alternatives and we should preserve that, even if it costs some money. Package rates to and from those areas can and should be a bit higher to deal with reality. Subsidies if they exist should mainly be for standard f
What they really want (Score:2)
This is presumably a profitable business for the USPS, an increase in prices would just drive the business elsewhere.
What they want is the end of the USPS, with private services replacing it. Removing a profitable business from the USPS furthers this aim.
Trump has a point, actually .... (Score:2)
Once you get past his usual "puffery", using extreme-sounding adjectives in every other sentence .... there's kernel of truth behind what he said.
Amazon doesn't really need to receive government subsidies to ship items below normal cost. This shouldn't be about charging Amazon MORE than everyone else pays to ship packages, or even a suggestion that shipping prices aren't high enough across the board. But we absolutely SHOULD ask why it makes any sense to cut Amazon a special break.
By contrast, Amazon isn't
Gub'ment At Work (Score:3)
PensionBillions (Score:4)
http://www.businessinsider.com... [businessinsider.com]
The problem is compounded by decreasing snail mail usage.
Trump, emulating Putin, demands oligarchs be loyal (Score:2)
It becomes more and more obvious.
Trump, delusionally thinking that the world revolves around him, demands "loyalty" and "praise" just like a comic-book evil dictator.
Putin found that Russia's "new" oligarchs were particularly susceptible to bullying and threats.
He bankrupted some and threw some in jail -- the rest fell in line.
Trump thinks he can do this to Bezos.
I don't think this model will work in the United States today.
NOT because of our great tradition of "democracy".
Rather, I think that America's oli
Degenerate and despot (Score:5, Insightful)
The problem is the funding of pensions... (Score:3)
The problem with the USPS is that they are required to fully-fund retirement benefits (including health benefits) for *** 75 YEARS ****. This happened in 2006.
Since then, there have been several proposals to reduce this restriction given the landscape of decreasing postal volumes. Every single one has either been shot-down by Republican congresses or not even brought to the floor. Why? Because UPS and FedEx are two massive political donors/special interests. They spent millions to lobby against such legislation.
THAT is the real problem with the USPS. If you want to fix it... then the retirement benefit funding plan needs to be changed to be commensurate with what UPS and FedEx have to do. That would fix the problem really quick.
Re: (Score:2, Troll)
For those waiting, we will never hear a reply because that claim of 75 years for funding retirements is a false and a well known lie spread by a bunch of people who hate the post office employees and are trying to prevent the post office from having the money they need to pay the pensions that the employees agreed to.
The people spreading this lie like mixing some truth with their sick lies. The
Yet, Amazon pays more than china (Score:2)
As I read the article (Score:2)
He wants the postal service to ONLY charge Amazon more to send packages.
Can we say network neutrality?
Bozo (Score:2)
Bozo the clown thinks the Post Office can save itself by pricing itself out of the market. Way to grab that logical pussy.
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Re: (Score:3)
The overhead of accepting a single package from an individual is likely MUCH higher than accepting that package from Amazon.
Amazon correctly (well, usually) packages what they ship - they don't use materials that USPS doesn't like (like string to hold the box shut) or old broken down boxes with labels all over them -- Amazon never asks a USPS clerk at the front counter "can you give me some tape to close this box better?"