USPS has monopoly access to every mailbox in the US. Those boxes are installed at *customer expense* -- probably $20 billion worth of property in aggregate, gratis to the USPS. (Imagine if Amazon could force its customers to spend $20 billion for Amazon-only package receptacles!). If you don't believe me about the monopoly, look up the relevant statutes. Fedex, UPS, et al can't touch your mailbox.
Postal service’s pricing methodology upheld by appeals court
- Thread starter dealmaker
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we should shut the government down because it reduces the productivity of the private sector. it is time to reassess every government agency and regulation to determine whether it should continue to exist.
the Post Office in the UK and Netherlands is private.
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http://www.wgal.com/article/investigation-thieves-steal-mail-out-of-u-s-postal-boxes/17809573
the Post Office in the UK and Netherlands is private.
__________
http://www.wgal.com/article/investigation-thieves-steal-mail-out-of-u-s-postal-boxes/17809573
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Which is irrelevant to the fact that no private company anywhere would think it a bargain to get monopoly access to mailboxes in exchange for the requirements I listed above.
You may be surprised at how many state granted monopolies there are in the US. Literally thousands. Every single electric distribution company, gas company, and water company is a monopoly. Literally billions of dollars a year go to those monopolies. If one was really concerned about monopolies being per se a bad thing, it would make far more sense than get incensed about that, not a monopoly on mailbox use for Pete's sake!
I always thought that the US Postal Service was a Quasi-Governmental Agency. Can someone explain this?
I once read that it was the only agency that was once able to turn a profit, which Superstar2317 eluded to.
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P.S. How much would the cost of services need to go up percentage-wise to return the Post-Office to profitability and to cover its future pensions? Keep in mind this sort of increase affects the inflation/cost of living indexes and is counted. These indexes are tied into many bills, taxes, fee's and entitlements.
I once read that it was the only agency that was once able to turn a profit, which Superstar2317 eluded to.
ES
P.S. How much would the cost of services need to go up percentage-wise to return the Post-Office to profitability and to cover its future pensions? Keep in mind this sort of increase affects the inflation/cost of living indexes and is counted. These indexes are tied into many bills, taxes, fee's and entitlements.
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It's essentially like every regulated monopoly except there's no return on capital. They are allowed to set postal rates so that they exactly break even. if they ran a surplus they would have to lower rates until they broke even, if they run a deficit they have to raise rates to make it up. This is exactly how your investor owned electric, gas, or water utility works, except that they also get to extract somewhere between an 8% and 15% (depending on the utility and state) guaranteed profit as well. That's why you see utilities trying to build these fantastically expensive things like nuclear plants, 10% profit on a $6B ratebase is twice as much as 10% profit on a $3B ratebase! Sadly the vast majority of Americans are only vaguely aware this signicant part of our economy is a state granted monopoly and only a fraction of a percent understand the ratebasing that guarantees their profits and perversely incentivizes them to spend more money because that's the only way they can increase their profits. It's a mystery to me why supposedly "free market" conservatives don't care about this while railing on about something like the post office which is pretty much irrelevant by comparison in terms of size, dollars, and antethisis to capitalism and free markets. Hell Trump's even going to nationalize all the unprofitabl coal and nuclear plants in the country that lost in the free market to natural gas under the bullshit guise of "national security", how the hell is that a free market and why isn't every conservative screaming about it? (https://www.utilitydive.com/news/trump-administration-preparing-2-year-coal-nuke-bailout/524788/)
The socialistic practice of "ratebasing" needs to be looked at. It seems to me incentivising savings would be a more Libertarian approach and one that makes more sense...since Sig seems to go political in this Wall Street News thread.
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it is nothing new. he has always been an advocate for the Left ,