
The Billionaire Behind Efforts to Kill the U.S. Postal Service [pdf] - Firebrand
https://www.inthepublicinterest.org/wp-content/uploads/ITPI_USPSPrivatization_July2020.pdf
======
teslabox
There are various advocates for allowing the USPS to return to the banking
business. They would put the exploitative check cashing stores out of
business.

Ellen Brown's has written a copy pieces advocating for postal banking.

 _What We Could Do with a Postal Savings Bank: Infrastructure that Doesn’t
Cost Taxpayers a Dime_ \- [https://ellenbrown.com/2013/09/23/what-we-could-do-
with-a-po...](https://ellenbrown.com/2013/09/23/what-we-could-do-with-a-
postal-savings-bank-infrastructure-that-doesnt-cost-taxpayers-a-dime/) (2013)

This piece concludes by suggesting the postal service is being looted so its
property portfolio can be sold off.

~~~
tdeck
> C.B. Richard Ellis (CBRE), the company holding the exclusive contract to
> negotiate sales for the $85 billion postal real estate portfolio, has sold
> off 52 postal properties for at least $79 million less than their fair
> market value. Worse, the buyers included its own business partners and
> shareholders, including Goldman Sachs. CBRE is chaired by Richard C. Blum,
> the husband of US Senator Dianne Feinstein, a family Byrne says has a
> history of accessing public pension funds to make private investments

The more I learn about Feinstein the more unhappy I become.

~~~
derwiki
It’s probably not fair, but I give her a lot of credit for stepping up when
Moscone and Milk were gunned down. Yea that was a long time ago and this is
unrelated. Doesn’t excuse it; I just try to remember what she has done for SF
as a whole.

~~~
NoNotTheDuo
She stepped right up and took the opportunity to fly a confederate flag THREE
times - all to curry favor from the Democrats. Even worse, especially in the
light of current events, is that she attempted prosecution of the black
activists that kept taking the flags down!

[https://lawandcrime.com/politics/feinstein-once-pushed-
for-t...](https://lawandcrime.com/politics/feinstein-once-pushed-for-the-
prosecution-of-black-activists-to-keep-the-confederate-flag-flying-in-san-
francisco/)

~~~
wahern
The flag had been there for 14 years. The one witness account in the Snopes
story says that the raising of the Confederate Stars and Bars was accidental,
and occurred many weeks after Feinstein ordered the removal of the long-
present Confederate battle flag upon a 3-day-long protest that ended with an
official removal request which Feinstein immediately granted:
[https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/dianne-feinstein-
confedera...](https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/dianne-feinstein-confederate-
flag/)

I don't think Feinstein is that politically craven. She has a spine, and a
relatively rigid one at that. Rather, her poor judgment, such as it is, is all
her own.

The Koch brothers and other anti-government radicals bank on the political
disaffection that such historical revisionism generates. If every politician
is a stooge, then there's no virtue in politics or government. Feinstein is no
stooge, and while I wouldn't vote for her in most years, IMO she deserves
respect as a strong, steadfast, and effective leader who almost incidentally
blew--and continues to blow--many stereotypes of women out of the water. (And
you can be all of those things, BTW, while also having flaws and a history of
mistakes.) She definitely doesn't deserve a cheap character assassination.

~~~
NoNotTheDuo
Hey, thanks for the link. Sincerely. Clearly, there is more to the story than
I first assumed and understood.

I do think there is still some debate about the timelines involved, though. A
1984 article in the Harvard Crimson indicates that the Fort Sumter flag was
raised prior to the California 100 flag:
[https://www.thecrimson.com/article/1984/5/9/a-viable-
alterna...](https://www.thecrimson.com/article/1984/5/9/a-viable-alternative-
pi-am-not/?page=single)

But the Snopes article indicates that Bradley brought down the California 100
flag in favor of the Fort Sumter flag.

I didn’t intend to “revise history” by my post. Hopefully no one takes it that
way.

~~~
wahern
I didn't mean to imply that _you_ were trying to revise history; I was
referring to the article you cited, and in turn the Bayview article cited by
that article.

For sure one wonders exactly what was going through Feinstein's mind during
those 3 days. She's a deft, successful politician so I have little doubt there
was some self-serving motivations at play. But her defiance and obtuse
expression of authority in the face of a lawless action (however just) is
textbook Feinstein. And it taking only 3 days for her to order its removal is
fast even by today's standards, and even in San Francisco.

------
bhupy
Something I don't normally see discussed re privatization of US Postal Service
is that it doesn't appear to be a novel idea.

Singapore's postal service, SingPost, is a publicly traded company[1].

The UK's postal service, Royal Mail, is a publicly traded limited company[2].

Germany's postal service, Deutsche Post AG, is a publicly traded company[3].

Japan's postal service, Japan Post, is a publicly traded company[4].

I'm also yet to hear a convincing argument as to why the USPS enjoys a
monopoly in first class parcel mail. That is to say, sure let's keep USPS
state owned / public, but why can't FedEx/UPS/Amazon/DHL compete with the
USPS?

[1]
[https://sg.finance.yahoo.com/quote/S08.SI/](https://sg.finance.yahoo.com/quote/S08.SI/)

[2]
[https://www.marketwatch.com/investing/stock/rmg?countrycode=...](https://www.marketwatch.com/investing/stock/rmg?countrycode=uk)

[3] [https://www.boerse-frankfurt.de/equity/deutsche-post-
ag](https://www.boerse-frankfurt.de/equity/deutsche-post-ag)

[4] [https://finance.yahoo.com/quote/6178.T?p=6178.T&.tsrc=fin-
sr...](https://finance.yahoo.com/quote/6178.T?p=6178.T&.tsrc=fin-srch)

~~~
mktk1001
There's no incentive for public companies to serve rural areas.

~~~
reaperducer
You're being downvoted because most people believe it when FedEx or Amazon or
UPS say they serve 100% of Americans. There's no way they would do so if they
had to have the same footprint as the USPS.

Is Amazon going to run ships around the Great Lakes to deliver mail to vessels
moving between ports?

Is FedEx going to send a truck an a four-hour round-trip to deliver a single
letter to someone on an indian reservation for 50¢?

Is UPS going to charter bush planes to deliver mail to remote outposts in
Alaska, Samoa, Guam, and the Northern Mariana Islands?

There are post offices so far out in the middle of nowhere that while they
have a concrete pad for handicapped parking because it's required by the ADA,
no customers ever arrive by car, so there's also hitching posts for people's
horses, which is the primary mode of transportation. I don't see Amazon doing
that. It'll just say, "Wait 20 years for your mail while we work the bugs out
of our super-cool drone delivery service!"

~~~
sdinsn
> Is Amazon going to run ships around the Great Lakes to deliver mail to
> vessels moving between ports?

No, because using planes to deliver to regional distribution centers is much
more efficient.

> Is FedEx going to send a truck an a four-hour round-trip to deliver a single
> letter to someone on an indian reservation for 50¢?

The USPS does not deliver mail directly to the majority of reservation
residents. Most have to fetch their mail at the closest office, which could be
upwards of 1 hr away from them. This is because most reservation residences
don't actually have an address (which also prevents them from registering to
vote, which is another related issue).

> Is UPS going to charter bush planes to deliver mail to remote outposts in
> Alaska, Samoa, Guam, and the Northern Mariana Islands?

The USPS doesn't either. The USPS's Alaska Bypass has a minimum order weight
of 1000 lbs, it's designed for retailers. The USPS does not serve normal
consumers in very rural areas with standard mail features.

~~~
reaperducer
_No, because using planes to deliver to regional distribution centers is much
more efficient._

How do planes and distribution centers get mail to people at sea for months at
a time?

 _The USPS does not deliver mail directly to the majority of reservation
residents_

You're not wrong. But there are plenty of people in remote places on the rez
who do get mail hours from the nearest trading post. Just because they're not
the "majority" of people doesn't mean they don't deserve to be served.

 _The USPS does not serve normal consumers in very rural areas with standard
mail features._

Either you and I define "rural" differently, or you haven't spent as much time
in rural places as I have.

~~~
Rebelgecko
Since they mentioned the Alaska bypass, they're probably talking about areas
that are only accessible by air. There's a situation kinda similar to the
epacket thing with China. USPS subsidizes package delivery in isolated areas
to the point that it's cheaper for the sender than deliveries to urban areas

------
bawana
Perhaps we should allow a private arm of the postal service to enter another
area important for communication: internet service. As it is now, internet
service is restricted to one or two providers in most regions. Prices are
ridiculously high compared to the rest of the world. And broadband in the US
is denied to many low profit areas. Yet we are in a time of COVID sanctions,
schooling and working remotely that all rely on the net. Broadband supply
needs more competition. The postal service is already delivering snail mail.
How is it they were never tapped to run the internet in the US but instead we
allow oligarchs to bleed us like Baron Harkonnen in Dune?

~~~
RodgerTheGreat
I would be _thrilled_ to pay USPS as an email provider or ISP, even paying a
premium to do so, if they offered comparable service in my area.

------
jedberg
The USPS missed a golden opportunity in the 90s. Almost no one had an email
address in the early 90s. The USPS was so afraid of email they refused to
embrace it.

They could have been the email address of record for everyone in the US if
they just set up a forwarding address for anyone who wanted it.

Heck, they could even do it now.

Imagine having a free foo@me.us email address that someone could only send to
if they paid for it, like the way mail works now.

That is the business they should get in to, along with killing all the check
cashing places by being a bank for unbanked like they used to be.

~~~
benhurmarcel
In France the post office (La Poste) did this from 2000. It did have success,
in the following years a lot of people used it as their main email service.
They even were mandated by the government to automatically provide an account
for all school students.

But they couldn't keep up with more modern services. Their webmail and storage
was laughable compared to Gmail and others, and people moved on. They still
operate, but it's basically just for older people who never changed now.

Post office companies can't compete with tech giants on email services.

------
seizethecheese
We are building a just-in-time distribution network on top of USPS (Bottomless
- YC W19) We're able to deal with their slowness because we predict demand in
advance using data from a smart scale.

It's quite astonishing how unreliable USPS is. We frequently see packages get
routed to a totally incorrect part of the country, derailing shipments for
several days.

Also, it seems like even USPS doesn't know when their packages will arrive.
The estimates they give are worse at predicting arrival time than just
inputing distance into a simple regression!

~~~
nxc18
Do you have any comparisons to other services? I’ve most often seen UPS route
things bizarrely and I’ve had several packages delivered a day or two late.

~~~
seizethecheese
We are USPS only at the moment.

------
vondur
Why does the postal service need to turn a profit? It's a government agency.
Are any other government agencies required to be profitable?

~~~
c3534l
It's not so much a government agency as it is a public corporation. In the
days when the postal service was founded, large corporations were rare enough
that they had to be created and initially funded by the government. Now we
have financial markets and concepts that allow for the streamlined creation of
large corporations, but it's closer to the modern concept of a utility than
anything else.

~~~
djur
It hasn't always been a public corporation. USPS only dates back to 1970.
Previous to that it was the US Post Office Department, a cabinet-level agency.
It was reorganized in 1970 in response to a strike:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/U.S._postal_strike_of_1970](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/U.S._postal_strike_of_1970)

------
alextheparrot
This is interesting timing, given the recent UPU changes that should help
shore up USPS by reducing the losses they experience from international
mailings. They estimate that this causes 400M in losses each year [0].

Though, overall, this has been a long arc of slowly trying different ways to
gut or kill the program in the last ~40 years.

[0] [https://mailingsystemstechnology.com/article-4596-The-US-
Rem...](https://mailingsystemstechnology.com/article-4596-The-US-Remains-in-
the-UPU-but-Changes-Are-Ahead-in-2020.html)

------
gdubs
One of the most memorable passages from Cliff Stoll’s “Silicon Snake Oil” was
about the reliability of snail mail. How you could scribble a person’s name on
a postcard, mess up a lot of details, and it still manages to get to them.

------
spiritplumber
Postal banking works really well in the countris in which it exists.

The best way to help USPS is to use them as your default shipping method: do
so.

~~~
missedthecue
why would I want to help the USPS at a cost to me?

~~~
inetknght
because you're only considering short term monetary cost at the _cost_ of long
term benefit

~~~
missedthecue
how so

~~~
inetknght
Mail going through the USPS has a right to privacy. Mail through commercial
carriers does not. Unfortunately that privacy often doesn't get factored into
the cost.

------
load
It seems like Koch wants to keep pushing consensus to privatize the postal
service by weakening funding for it, which is, either intentionally or
unintentionally, economically harming it. I'm on the fence over whether 'kill'
is the right word for this though.

------
jorblumesea
It often feels like the social contract in American society is breaking down.
Many of the rich elite in the US care nothing for the common person, and only
adhere to their bubble of the wealthy and powerful. Crushing institutions that
help people, or blocking the creation of new ones that might, are done so for
ideological reasons even if practically speaking they might work or help
people out.

At some point the wealthy and political in the US might have somewhat acted in
the interest of the American people. But now it feels like almost every move
is to the detriment of the average person.

If things continue like this, America is in real trouble.

------
xyst
Haven't finished reading it, but I was not surprised that the Koch family is
behind this special interest group.

The family has been fucking the US and world long before Trump was elected.
They have a history of funding fake climate change science in order to push
favorable legislation for the O&G industry.

Anything that might benefit society (healthcare, social support, ...), they
have fought against or funded a PAC to do their dirty work.

------
crb002
The US Postal Service should be funded like NASA. It can contract out to
companies like Amazon - just like NASA contracts to SpaceX.

------
8bitsrule
James Buchanan's ideas and Koch money are the subject of Nancy MacLean's 2017
book "Democracy in Chains: The Deep History of the Radical Right's Stealth
Plan for America"

[https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/30011020-democracy-in-
ch...](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/30011020-democracy-in-chains)

~~~
nickff
"Democracy in Chains" is irredeemably flawed, and has been completely
discredited by a series of prominent reviewers.[1][2] There are many more
reviews which reveal the scope of fabrication in this book, but it suffices to
say that the work should be considered 'fiction', perhaps in the 'fantasy'
category.

[1]
[https://pubs.aeaweb.org/doi/pdf/10.1257/jel.20181502](https://pubs.aeaweb.org/doi/pdf/10.1257/jel.20181502)

[2]
[https://criticalinquiry.uchicago.edu/jack_rakove_reviews_dem...](https://criticalinquiry.uchicago.edu/jack_rakove_reviews_dem..).

[3] [https://www.vox.com/the-big-
idea/2017/7/14/15967788/democrac...](https://www.vox.com/the-big-
idea/2017/7/14/15967788/democrac..).

------
sizzle
Why can't the US Gov bail out the USPS like big banks?

~~~
hellotomyrars
Because corporate welfare is good because it'll create jobs and put money in
the working man's pocket and anything with social value is a waste/drain on
our strained resources and we'll have to raise taxes and you can't do that!

/s

------
anonu
Getting rid of the USPS has tremendous national security implications. It's a
"network" that doesn't rely on the internet.

Imagine we had to deliver a vaccine to everyone within a week. The USPS knows
everyone's address and where people live. They would be the go to institution
to do this.

------
trts
Skimmed this long PDF after getting clickbaited by the headline and it begins
with the premise that without the USPS, we would be left only with email

>The federal agency plays a crucial role in U.S. supply chains, commerce, and
basic communication—which email simply cannot replace—by processing and
delivering nearly 500 million pieces of mail on an average day.

But I did have a number of questions like,

Wouldn't it be bad if we abolished the post office since there's always been
one in my neighborhood?

Why does this person have a particular issue with a quasi-governmental agency
that is a rounding-error in the federal budget? What about the trillions in
defense and deficit spending?

Isn't 90% of what comes to my mailbox spam that I just forward on to the
landfill?

Do most other countries have a public postal service? Why or why not.

Don't I avoid the post-office at all costs unless there's an automated kiosk
that happens not to be out of service?

Why is this on Hacker News?

~~~
ip26
_Why does this person have a particular issue..._

No one knows for sure. This person also has issues with other tiny pieces of
the federal budget, such as the CPB.

Various theories are advanced, such as political strategy (kill mail-in-
ballots, NPR is seen as leaning slightly left) or profiteering (the USPS has a
large pension fund, perhaps an appealing target for a corporate raid).

------
bmitc
The amount of narcissism these people (the Koch's, for example) have is just
astounding. If you're a billionaire, what could possibly be a reasonable
explanation for why you even care about the post office? Why are these people
so hell bent on hurting people to feed their own narcissism?

The USPS could be improved but struggles primarily due to active efforts to
kill it off. But it's a wonderful idea of a service that definitely should
exist and be improved. What's next to kill off? Libraries? Public schools? The
USPS, libraries, public schools provide basically guaranteed service to
anyone, anywhere. They're wonderful institutions. Are they perfect? No. But
very few institutions are, and these provide a helpful service to people. We
should focus on improving them instead of spending so much money to kill them.

I've learned that the USPS has free package pickup since someone is basically
guaranteed to be in your neighborhood every day, which has been a wonderful
service during this viral breakout. By having USPS pickup my small packages,
it keeps me out of their stores away from other people and employees. I simply
purchase a label online and schedule the free pickup, next day if it's a
weekday. It's a minimum of $11 for UPS to come pickup your package at a
residential address, even if they're already coming to your address for
another delivery that same day.

~~~
sparkling
Its easy to point at a greedy billionaire who wants to ruin [insert public
service here] so that he can squeeze out another dollar for himself.

But have you considered that they _genuinely_ belive that minimal government
and more privatization leads to overall better results? It might just be that
they have good intensions, that they really wish for a better outcome for all.

I don't share that view, but i do think that there is a fraction of hardcore
liberterians that truly believe we'd be better of without many of the
government-founded services such as libraries, schools etc. - and while i do
not agree with that, those people are still entitled to their opinion and are
allowed to lobby for it.

~~~
quickthrowman
> But have you considered that they _genuinely_ belive that minimal government
> and more privatization leads to overall better results? It might just be
> that they have good intensions, that they really wish for a better outcome
> for all.

Yes, and that makes it even worse. They’re so out of touch with common people
and so insulated from routine everyday life, their opinion shouldn’t count for
anything.

I don’t care if joe programmer on HN or Jeff the General Contractor at the bar
are advocating for dismantling the post office because of libertarian
ideology, because they have neither the power nor resources to affect change.

I do care when insanely wealthy billionaires who are completely insulated from
the rest of society argue for horseshit like this because they have power to
change it, and it’s for ideological reasons.

It’s pure narcissism to argue for a position that would negatively affect
millions of people when the one arguing for change wouldn’t suffer one damn
bit and in effect disregard everyone else’s suffering for their ideological
bullshit position.

The existence of billionaires combined with Citizens United is an actual
problem, the post office is not.

~~~
bmitc
I agree with you in that wealthy people are given too much power in the U.S.
In the U.S., becoming wealthy has somehow become a fast pass to do basically
whatever you want and inflict change that could affect millions of people
negatively or be self-beneficial (to the wealthy person) or both.

Allowing individuals to accumulate so much wealth is just not good for the
common people, and the fact that our government is so inept at managing money
isn't a good enough reason to allow individuals to reach such power and
wealth. If they are allowed to accumulate such wealth, there should be much
stronger laws preventing their influence in government policies.

~~~
8ytecoder
Almost like a warlord. They have the power to rule us (albeit indirectly) with
their wealth and lobbying power instead of weapons and fear.

~~~
Frondo
When I saw that Jeff Bezos increased his wealth by $13 billion in a single day
recently, when 28 million Americans are facing potential eviction, I just
thought...we have kings again.

------
exabrial
I can't imagine the number of tons of paper and c02 we would save the planet
if we got rid of it. All they do is deliver spam that's thrown away. I fully
support selling it off to private companies.

------
DevKoala
[https://facts.usps.com/table-facts/](https://facts.usps.com/table-facts/)

From those figures it looks like > 90% of the USPS throughput benefits the
marketing operations of private companies and scammers.

------
Matticus_Rex
It's funny how it's painted as malice and conspiracy, while the arguments on
the other side are grounded in research and theory. The Kochs are the left's
Soros conspiracy.

~~~
baxter001
Is that those two french brothers who tried to publish fake physics papers?

~~~
catalogia
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Igor_and_Grichka_Bogdanoff](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Igor_and_Grichka_Bogdanoff)

I'm speechless.

------
cwhiz
I can imagine a future without the USPS. A future where I don’t have a weekly
chore of sorting through the spam to decide which to throw away and which to
recycle.

And a future where I don’t have giant boxes “delivered” into my tiny mailbox
that could fit maybe a stack of 25 envelopes.

And a future where 20% of packages don’t arrive.

I can see why people want to avoid this.

------
ngcc_hk
I would say that losing to China so that it is cheaper to post from China to
USA than from local to USA is a big deal. If they can get it cheaper than DHL,
but slower and still hold onto the great ride of goods moving ... Just if

------
rufus_3
I hope the billionaire is successful. For some reason every other courier that
delivers to my address manages to bring my deliveries right to my doorstep -
UPS, FedEx, DHL, Amazon, GrubHub, local pizza restaurants, etc. all manage to
enter my apartment complex, locate my unit, and leave my items right at my
door. The only exception is USPS, which consistently leaves a slip in my
mailbox pretending that they "had no access" to my apartment, even though the
gates are wide open during the daytime when they arrive. Instead of delivering
my items, every time I have to drive several miles to the Post Office the next
day, mask up for Covid, and wait in the long line to retrieve my packages.

Every aspect of my experience with USPS is dissatisfying - they can't be
defunded soon enough.

------
InTheArena
The USPS's primary revenue source is as a Spam delivery service. That basic
problem is why it has refused to modernize. Anything with any significant
value is already sent via Amazon, FedEx, DHL or UPS, or hand-delivered (in the
case of really valuable stuff).

See:

[https://www.insidesources.com/outbox-vs-usps-how-the-post-
of...](https://www.insidesources.com/outbox-vs-usps-how-the-post-office-
killed-digital-mail/)

The USPS has to be reformed and it needs a new purpose in life, other then
stable government job for people. There needs to be significant value that
others cannot meet. The reformation that is needed is being blocked.

For example, how about allowing me to pay $5 a month to not have you deliver
crap into my inbox? Or to fully digitize the process, so I don't have a
recycle bin full of crappy products, alumni magazines, and pizza coupons that
I don't need or want.

Oh. And stop selling my data to third parties as well. Looking at you NCOA
database.

~~~
standardUser
"...any significant value is already sent via Amazon, FedEx, DHL or UPS"

And then those things are handed off to the USPS for "last mile" delivery to
the millions of rural addresses that UPS and FedEx don't delivery to directly
with their own vehicles.

USPS serves some very critical purposes, and ensuring mail 'works' for all
citizens, even those with deep rural addresses, is one of them.

~~~
hirundo
I live in a rural area. The nearest USPS delivery is at a post office 11 miles
away. UPS and FedEx deliver to my front door. It has been the same in two
other rural areas I've lived in. New Mexico, California and Arizona. I've
never lived in a place that USPS delivered to that UPS and FedEx did not.

~~~
adrr
UPS and Fedex can be 3x the price to deliver to remote areas. I work for
e-commerce company and we ship Usps to certain zip codes with USPS. I am sure
USPS loses money on these shipments especially to Alaska where the surcharge
can be up to $30 with UPS.

------
armitron
Having lived in four different US states and in a number of European countries
(currently resident in Germany), all I can say is good riddance.

USPS is by far the worst mail service I have ever encountered. It's so bad
that there's absolutely no doubt in my mind that one can do a lot better,
assuming one is allowed to compete. And even though they proudly say they
receive NO money from the federal government, they do receive subsidies in the
hundreds of millions.

~~~
_emacsomancer_
All of the other major delivery services in the US (UPS, FedEx, DHL, Ontrac)
are horrible and far worse than the USPS. And without the USPS to compete
against, they'd be even worse.

~~~
RodgerTheGreat
To say nothing of the fact that other delivery services frequently rely upon
USPS for last-mile delivery in more rural (read: less- or un-profitable)
areas, and those areas would simply not be served by a privatized postal
service.

~~~
_emacsomancer_
Yes, without the USPS lots of people would have to drive into the nearest town
to get anything, and presumably letters would become completely cost-
prohibitive to send even to people in cities.

But even setting these things aside, USPS is almost always a better experience
as either sender or receiver than any of the other competitors in the US.

