Not so much an Amazon problem. As with a lot of services, we see quality private sector services (OnTrac, DHL, FedEx) being consistently better than bloated government services operating at a loss and subsidized by taxpayers. I wonder how much further the USPS would dip if Amazon stopped doing business with them.
"The Postal Service receives no tax dollars for operating expenses, and relies on the sale of postage, products and services to fund its operations." [1]
"a congressional mandate to prefund retirement health care benefits"
I'm not saying that's a bad idea in isolation. However if you're trying to make a political point that your enemy is a failure, merely force your enemy to do something sensible that no one else is forced to do, then when that destroys them, you can blame them for it, or something like that.
That was just round one. Here's round two of how to destroy the USPS, done in two simple quotes from the same story:
"In addition, it would give access to another $10 billion loan backed up by Postal Service property, which would have to be sold a decade later to pay off that loan."
"And individual Democrats and Republicans are united in their effort to prevent their own neighborhood post office or postal plant from closing."
Ta da! We require you to take out a loan, which you need because we forbid you from managing your own business, furthermore we also specifically forbid you to repay the loan. I'm sure nothing bad could happen in that situation LOL. I give 100% odds that this scheme will hit the fan as "proof of usps and bureaucrat mismanagement" when it is actually 100% the fault of congress meddling, of which at about 50% are trying to manufacture a political point to fit a predetermined agenda.
The problem with meaningless sloganeering is even if a slogan is generally correct, there will of course be outliers in opposition. This seems to be the case with the USPS. It would seem that blind faith based belief is so weak, the only way to enforce conformity is to intentionally sabotage a minor outlier.
The TLDR is they're being set up. (Edited to add, its the old game of take away authority needed to succeed, while leaving behind the responsibility of resulting failure. For a .gov, the USPS is actually pretty well managed, which is why its being targetted).
They're being set up the same way that Social Security has been set up to go bankrupt, Medicare has been set up to go bankrupt, Obamacare has been set up to crash and burn, the Community Reinvestment Act was set up to cause a housing bubble, government backed student loans were set up to cause hyper-inflation of education costs...
You see a pattern?
They're being set up because they are part of a system that has failure baked in from the beginning. Not failing is the odd surprise when it comes to government control of large complex business entities -- and even then the question of whether or not some apparent success is actually failure depends upon how closely you look at how much it cost to prevent catastrophic collapse (ie, the military).
In a comic twist UPS (not USPS) is well known in my locale for sending out trucks making "2 day" deliveries with just slips, no packages. That way they can't get refund requests for failure to deliver on schedule. Holy cow do they get embarrassed when I fling the door open and catch them. "well, uh, err, sorry sir but we don't actually, uh, have your package, not just yet, but I do have a delivery failure note and I promise to deliver it for real tomorrow"
(edited to add: this almost solely happens around christmas rush time, another reason why I really don't care as long as it gets here before the 24th)
I subscribe to prime because on long term average its way faster than supersaver so I didn't get the guy in trouble, besides he's kinda my lifeline and pissing him off over nothing would be a dumb idea.
Last mile delivery seems to be a natural inherent monopoly, whats keeping the competitors alive is the extreme variability in station-station shipping where competition can actually exist (like milwaukee to chicago, not house to house)
That might be exactly what needs to happen. The post office needs to fail so it can be rebuild in a better state. Allowing it to continue to exist as it stands is certainly no option.
Why? Sounds like in Brooklyn, per the article, that needs to happen pretty badly. And the accounting is corrupt, well, welcome to America. But aside from unique local issues and stereotypical financial corruption, whats the problem with the USPS?
My understanding is its embarrassingly profitable for a .gov organization, until politicans play "hollywood accounting" games to make it look unprofitable for obvious political spin reasons. So that's how it remains in business for decades despite being reported continuously as a disaster.
The main problem is some long story about political polarization, which supposedly is always wrong. However, if the USPS workers were "correctly" polarized like the teachers union, they wouldn't be punished with hollywood accounting. It explains a lot about their retirement fund vs the local school districts retirement funding level, or even state gov retirement funding levels. The story is not just accounting corruption for political reasons, but WHY those political reasons exist vs other .gov groups in much worse conditions.
Comments
Not so much an Amazon problem. As with a lot of services, we see quality private sector services (OnTrac, DHL, FedEx) being consistently better than bloated government services operating at a loss and subsidized by taxpayers. I wonder how much further the USPS would dip if Amazon stopped doing business with them.
subsidized by taxpayers
"The Postal Service receives no tax dollars for operating expenses, and relies on the sale of postage, products and services to fund its operations." [1]
[1] http://www.carper.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/postal-reform-...
Not directly, but they get special loans that are government funded. Guess where the money will come from when they default?
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/11/16/us/politics/postal-service...
Other than for hollywood accounting reasons or a political stunt, why would a profitable agency default?
One could ask why a profitable agency would take out billions of dollars in loans.
"theoretically profitable" is not the same as "profitable"
http://money.cnn.com/2012/03/05/news/economy/postal_service_...
"a congressional mandate to prefund retirement health care benefits"
I'm not saying that's a bad idea in isolation. However if you're trying to make a political point that your enemy is a failure, merely force your enemy to do something sensible that no one else is forced to do, then when that destroys them, you can blame them for it, or something like that.
That was just round one. Here's round two of how to destroy the USPS, done in two simple quotes from the same story:
"In addition, it would give access to another $10 billion loan backed up by Postal Service property, which would have to be sold a decade later to pay off that loan."
"And individual Democrats and Republicans are united in their effort to prevent their own neighborhood post office or postal plant from closing."
Ta da! We require you to take out a loan, which you need because we forbid you from managing your own business, furthermore we also specifically forbid you to repay the loan. I'm sure nothing bad could happen in that situation LOL. I give 100% odds that this scheme will hit the fan as "proof of usps and bureaucrat mismanagement" when it is actually 100% the fault of congress meddling, of which at about 50% are trying to manufacture a political point to fit a predetermined agenda.
The problem with meaningless sloganeering is even if a slogan is generally correct, there will of course be outliers in opposition. This seems to be the case with the USPS. It would seem that blind faith based belief is so weak, the only way to enforce conformity is to intentionally sabotage a minor outlier.
The TLDR is they're being set up. (Edited to add, its the old game of take away authority needed to succeed, while leaving behind the responsibility of resulting failure. For a .gov, the USPS is actually pretty well managed, which is why its being targetted).
TLDR is they're being set up
They're being set up the same way that Social Security has been set up to go bankrupt, Medicare has been set up to go bankrupt, Obamacare has been set up to crash and burn, the Community Reinvestment Act was set up to cause a housing bubble, government backed student loans were set up to cause hyper-inflation of education costs...
You see a pattern?
They're being set up because they are part of a system that has failure baked in from the beginning. Not failing is the odd surprise when it comes to government control of large complex business entities -- and even then the question of whether or not some apparent success is actually failure depends upon how closely you look at how much it cost to prevent catastrophic collapse (ie, the military).
In a comic twist UPS (not USPS) is well known in my locale for sending out trucks making "2 day" deliveries with just slips, no packages. That way they can't get refund requests for failure to deliver on schedule. Holy cow do they get embarrassed when I fling the door open and catch them. "well, uh, err, sorry sir but we don't actually, uh, have your package, not just yet, but I do have a delivery failure note and I promise to deliver it for real tomorrow"
(edited to add: this almost solely happens around christmas rush time, another reason why I really don't care as long as it gets here before the 24th)
I subscribe to prime because on long term average its way faster than supersaver so I didn't get the guy in trouble, besides he's kinda my lifeline and pissing him off over nothing would be a dumb idea.
Last mile delivery seems to be a natural inherent monopoly, whats keeping the competitors alive is the extreme variability in station-station shipping where competition can actually exist (like milwaukee to chicago, not house to house)
Holy shit that's insane! I would report this pattern first the UPS upper brass and then, promptly, to the better business bureau.
Losses by the Post Office are largely due to Congressional oversight. USPS can't stop Saturday delivery and has to overpay their pension obligations.
That might be exactly what needs to happen. The post office needs to fail so it can be rebuild in a better state. Allowing it to continue to exist as it stands is certainly no option.
Why? Sounds like in Brooklyn, per the article, that needs to happen pretty badly. And the accounting is corrupt, well, welcome to America. But aside from unique local issues and stereotypical financial corruption, whats the problem with the USPS?
My understanding is its embarrassingly profitable for a .gov organization, until politicans play "hollywood accounting" games to make it look unprofitable for obvious political spin reasons. So that's how it remains in business for decades despite being reported continuously as a disaster.
The main problem is some long story about political polarization, which supposedly is always wrong. However, if the USPS workers were "correctly" polarized like the teachers union, they wouldn't be punished with hollywood accounting. It explains a lot about their retirement fund vs the local school districts retirement funding level, or even state gov retirement funding levels. The story is not just accounting corruption for political reasons, but WHY those political reasons exist vs other .gov groups in much worse conditions.