# What's with the hatred some have for the US Postal Service? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [August 13, 2012, 5:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-with-the-hatred-some-have-for-the-us-postal-service/631391 "2012-08-13T17:48:13Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 5
**Author:** ![Absolute](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/b2d939/32.png) [@Absolute](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Absolute)\ **Post date:** [August 14, 2012, 1:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-with-the-hatred-some-have-for-the-us-postal-service/631391/81 "2012-08-14T01:28:37Z")
> [@Acsenray](#): > > Because many of the Postal Service’s services are cheaper than market price. When UPS or FedEx don’t feel like finishing the delivery they hand it off to the postal service to complete the delivery, paying the postal service less than it would cost to deliver it themselves. They are then free to either pocket the difference or lower the price. Without the USPS to complete the last mile in those situations, UPS and FedEx would either have to hike their prices or take a cut in their profits. So people paying for UPS or FedEx are actually paying less than they would otherwise because the USPS is actually so efficient, they can actually hand free money to UPS and FedEx while still offering the most comprehensive and least costly service while giving their employees good compensation and benefits, all without taking a cent of taxpayer money. Privatize the Postal Service and everyone will be paying more for delivery services. Many won’t get any service. Employees will get paid less. This argument is a little nonsensical. What you describe is not a subsidy to UPS and Fedex. At least, not any moreso than it is a subsidy to anyone in the US who wants to ship a package to a person who lives in the middle of nowhere. The people subsidizing UPS and Fedex are the ones paying them more to deliver a package than the USPS would charge. ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [August 14, 2012, 1:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-with-the-hatred-some-have-for-the-us-postal-service/631391/82 "2012-08-14T01:31:31Z")
> [@jtgain](#): > > Federal retirement benefits and government health care, paid holidays, vacation, etc. Private employees would kill for what postal employees have. All paid for by you and me. Nope. First of all, Federal Holidays are about the same as those in the Private world, same with vacation pay and government health care. Health care is paid for partially by employees, much like most other workers. Retirement does have a small old-fashioned pension, which is paid for partially by the employee. Admittedly those are rare out there. The rest of the retirement is a 401K plan. Just like most workers have. The benefits are nice, no doubt. But barely make up for the lower pay. In fact UPS and Fedex have almost exactly the same benefits, but higher pay. True, they dont have the small old fashioned pension, but who works 30 years for one company anymore? Paying bills? Not only does not everyone have internet access but some firms don;t accept them. My water company for example. Letters? UPS and Fedex are frightingly arrogant and unreliable, and many times more expensive. Facebook? I dont do facebook. Privatiztion is often a bad idea. Take this article from the San Jose mercury news: ttp://www.mercurynews.com/bay-area-news/ci\_21298325/exodus-leaves-san-jose-wastewater-plant-shorthanded?source=rss "_A rash of resignations driven by recent pay and benefit cuts has left San Jose’s massive wastewater treatment plant severely short-handed,…he plant has lost 90 workers – 43 percent of its workforce – in the past three years, according to a city management report that said the shortage has required costly overtime for remaining employees…The city cut employee compensation 10 percent – mostly in salary and health benefits – to reduce job losses from budget deficits driven by rising retirement benefit costs. Voters also approved a June measure to reduce pension benefits. But Friday’s audit found plant employees’ compensation 10 percent below market rates…The proposed contract with the only qualified bidder, Telstar Instruments of Concord, that’s up for council consideration Tuesday calls for hiring up to three industrial electricians and six instrument control technicians over the next two years. The total annual rate for salary, benefits and overhead would come to $270,400 each for the electricians and $239,200 each for the instrument control technicians. That’s about 30 percent higher than the city’s total cost for its own instrument control technicians and 46 percent higher than for its electricians, said Ashwini Kantak, an assistant city manager overseeing the plant. And the higher cost is largely due to management overhead and profit. Both pay rates and benefit costs for Telstar’s instrument technicians are lower than the city’s, but Telstar’s overhead and profit markup is 285 percent compared to a 40 percent city overhead markup, Kantak said."_ So in other words, in this perfect example- by privatizing the City pays more, the workers get less and only the Company makes off better. ---
**Author:** ![Smapti](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/smapti/32/17938_2.png) [@Smapti](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Smapti)\ **Post date:** [August 14, 2012, 1:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-with-the-hatred-some-have-for-the-us-postal-service/631391/83 "2012-08-14T01:41:58Z")
> [@suranyi](#): > > The DMV sends its annual registration stickers by mail, and I don’t know of another reasonable way for them to do it. More to the point, my state and at least one other does all voting via the USPS, and all states offer absentee voting via opt-in, particularly to our hundreds of thousands of service members overseas. Your ballot is mailed to you and you mail it back after filling it in. If the USPS is privatized or abolished, will I then have to pay FedEx $10 in order to exercise the franchise? Will we vote by email? Maybe we can just elect the president by a Facebook poll. ---
**Author:** ![Acsenray](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/acsenray/32/4519_2.png) [@Acsenray](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Acsenray)\ **Post date:** [August 14, 2012, 1:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-with-the-hatred-some-have-for-the-us-postal-service/631391/84 "2012-08-14T01:43:43Z")
Without the USPS to complete the delivery, UPS and FedEx would have to charge more or take less profit. That’s a subsidy. ---
**Author:** ![Lord\_Feldon](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lord_feldon/32/341_2.png) [@Lord\_Feldon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lord_Feldon)\ **Post date:** [August 14, 2012, 1:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-with-the-hatred-some-have-for-the-us-postal-service/631391/85 "2012-08-14T01:46:55Z")
> [@DrDeth](#): > > Letters? UPS and Fedex are frightingly arrogant and unreliable, and many times more expensive. I’m not saying UPS or FedEx would be better, but you can’t really use price against them here. They’re not actually allowed to have competitive prices for letters. ---
**Author:** ![al27052](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/41988e/32.png) [@al27052](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/al27052)\ **Post date:** [August 14, 2012, 4:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-with-the-hatred-some-have-for-the-us-postal-service/631391/86 "2012-08-14T04:05:16Z")
> [@Jim\_s\_Son](#): > > Wow a whole four posts before some lefty feels the need to use the predictable but still utterly repulsive charge that people who disagree with them are racists. Of course conservative blacks such as Clarence Thomas and Allen West can tell you of the hatred > they receive for not practicing group think. > And how well are the middle classes and lower classes faring in places where liberals hold power..like New York City, Chicago, and San Francisco. How are the schools in Washington DC? How is that hope and change we supposedly got in 2008? 41 months of unemployment over 8%, which doesn’t take into account those who drop out of the workforce and are unemployed? 46 million on food stamps. No prosecutions of the financial industry and a Treasury secretary and a number of White House staffers who don’t pay taxes > > As far as the USPS goes, it is semi private but they also have advantages in no taxes and government owned land for most of the buildings. It’s not the worse run government agency but then they do have competition in FedEx, UPS and others to keep them on their toes. > > As far as conservative opposition to municipal workers have unions, no less that Franklin Delano Roosevelt was opposed to them. They have a habit of using their power to elect politicians who will promise them generous benefits to get elected, damn the future generations who have to pay for it. Lots of municipalities are threatened with bankruptcy now. Look, there are 3 options here. 1. You hate minorities. 2. You hate the middle class. 3. You’re a partisan who’s so excited about capitalist economic theory that you haven’t thoroughly thought through the consequences of extreme privatization. So far as I can see, everybody who wants the USPS privatized falls into one of these 3 categories. ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [August 14, 2012, 5:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-with-the-hatred-some-have-for-the-us-postal-service/631391/87 "2012-08-14T05:06:28Z")
> [@Lord\_Feldon](#): > > I’m not saying UPS or FedEx would be better, but you can’t really use price against them here. They’re not actually allowed to have competitive prices for letters. Ok, we will compare small parcels, instead. ---
**Author:** ![fumster](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/e9c0ed/32.png) [@fumster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/fumster)\ **Post date:** [August 14, 2012, 6:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-with-the-hatred-some-have-for-the-us-postal-service/631391/88 "2012-08-14T06:02:12Z")
> [@al27052](#): > > Look, there are 3 options here. > > 1. You hate minorities. > > 2. You hate the middle class. > > 3. You’re a partisan who’s so excited about capitalist economic theory that you haven’t thoroughly thought through the consequences of extreme privatization. > > So far as I can see, everybody who wants the USPS privatized falls into one of these 3 categories. You forgot “4. Idiot” ---
**Author:** ![fumster](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/e9c0ed/32.png) [@fumster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/fumster)\ **Post date:** [August 14, 2012, 6:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-with-the-hatred-some-have-for-the-us-postal-service/631391/89 "2012-08-14T06:04:27Z")
> [@Smapti](#): > > Maybe we can just elect the president by a Facebook poll. “Well Tom, as you can see, the incumbent is second in “Likes” behind a funny video of a baby goat”. ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [August 14, 2012, 6:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-with-the-hatred-some-have-for-the-us-postal-service/631391/90 "2012-08-14T06:19:41Z")
> [@Acsenray](#): > > It seems to me you haven’t offered _any_ actual problem with the Postal Service. Of course he has. People who are not as good as he is are making a decent living. Not to mention that people too poor to have internet access have the audacity of wanting to communicate with each other, get bills and catalogs and the like. ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [August 14, 2012, 6:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-with-the-hatred-some-have-for-the-us-postal-service/631391/91 "2012-08-14T06:27:16Z")
> [@Debaser](#): > > Just to clarify, I’ve been out of that industry for quite a while now. Even so, you can explain to us how the USPS is forcing industry to send DM. After all, all catalogs are on line, so LL Beans or whoever could save a bundle of money by stopping their mailings. Or maybe, just maybe, the USPS helps them make money. Which is a good thing in my opinion. ---
**Author:** ![Mekhazzio](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/b38774/32.png) [@Mekhazzio](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mekhazzio)\ **Post date:** [August 14, 2012, 10:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-with-the-hatred-some-have-for-the-us-postal-service/631391/92 "2012-08-14T10:56:19Z")
> [@Leaper](#): > > This actually triggers a related question: what is it EXACTLY about the Post Office that allows them to have their postal coverage for the rates they charge for first class stamps? Because the USPS, has a goal that isn’t just “make the most money you possibly can in the shortest possible time”. The highest priority is not to maximize profit, but to maximize access. Clearly, they would be more profitable by dropping rural service, increasing rates to what the market will bear, and reducing employee wages and benefits. That’s what every private parcel service does, so presumably, that’s the way to optimize return on investment in this sector. It follows, then, that’s exactly what the USPS would do, were it to be changed into an independent for-profit enterprise. Whoever was wealthy enough to invest in it during the changeover would make out like a bandit from the short-term spike as it matches its competitors. Everyone else in the country would lose a cheap, reliable service. In other words, it’s exactly like every other Republican economic proposal. Socially destructive in the long term and individually completely daft, unless you’ve got gobs of money to fling around. ---
**Author:** ![BobLibDem](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/boblibdem/32/3149_2.png) [@BobLibDem](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BobLibDem)\ **Post date:** [August 14, 2012, 11:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-with-the-hatred-some-have-for-the-us-postal-service/631391/93 "2012-08-14T11:21:45Z")
> [@fumster](#): > > You forgot “4. Idiot” And “5. Asshole” ---
**Author:** ![kayaker](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kayaker/32/441_2.png) [@kayaker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kayaker)\ **Post date:** [August 14, 2012, 11:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-with-the-hatred-some-have-for-the-us-postal-service/631391/94 "2012-08-14T11:34:17Z")
> [@bouv](#): > > It’s still amazing to me that for less than 50 cents, I can send a letter from where I live in New England, all the way to the southern end of California. And it will get there in just a few days, no less! Incredible! A minor point in the overall debate, but the last time I sent a “letter” was 47 years ago. I was six years old and my mom forced me to thank an aunt for the ugly sweater she gave me for my birthday. ---
**Author:** ![Debaser](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/3da27b/32.png) [@Debaser](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Debaser)\ **Post date:** [August 14, 2012, 12:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-with-the-hatred-some-have-for-the-us-postal-service/631391/95 "2012-08-14T12:05:19Z")
> [@suranyi](#): > > First of all, there are many tax forms which cannot be filed electronically, at least not yet. For example, the form you file if you donate your car to charity must be mailed in. I’ve donated two cars to charity. Never sent in any form. ---
**Author:** ![Debaser](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/3da27b/32.png) [@Debaser](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Debaser)\ **Post date:** [August 14, 2012, 12:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-with-the-hatred-some-have-for-the-us-postal-service/631391/96 "2012-08-14T12:06:40Z")
> [@suranyi](#): > > The DMV sends its annual registration stickers by mail, and I don’t know of another reasonable way for them to do it. In NH, you go to town hall to handle that. They hand it to you once you pay. Is that reasonable? ---
**Author:** ![Debaser](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/3da27b/32.png) [@Debaser](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Debaser)\ **Post date:** [August 14, 2012, 12:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-with-the-hatred-some-have-for-the-us-postal-service/631391/97 "2012-08-14T12:08:46Z")
> [@Cheesesteak](#): > > So, everything the PO does can be done better some other way, yet you’ve paid to have a PO box, and paid to get a new mailbox installed when the PO box wasn’t convenient enough. Of course. You have to use the USPS now, but you wouldn’t if you got rid of it. > [@](#): > > You use the post office, for bills and to get entertainment delivered to your door. The PO does this at a low enough cost that you can pay Netflix $8 a month to get things repeatedly mailed to and from your house. That business model only made sense for a short time. It’s already outdated and is moving online. > [@](#): > > Do you think UPS is going to deliver a 50 cent letter to your door? Folks have trouble getting their driver to ring their doorbell for a $15 package, and he’s going to make an extra stop to drop off a DVD? Right now UPS is prohibited from even trying. Only the PO is allowed to send non-urgent letters. ---
**Author:** ![Marley23](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Marley23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marley23)\ **Post date:** [August 14, 2012, 12:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-with-the-hatred-some-have-for-the-us-postal-service/631391/98 "2012-08-14T12:47:31Z")
> [@al27052](#): > > Look, there are 3 options here. > > 1. You hate minorities. > > 2. You hate the middle class. > > 3. You’re a partisan who’s so excited about capitalist economic theory that you haven’t thoroughly thought through the consequences of extreme privatization. > > So far as I can see, everybody who wants the USPS privatized falls into one of these 3 categories. > [@fumster](#): > > You forgot “4. Idiot” > [@BobLibDem](#): > > And “5. Asshole” There’s been a lot of well poisoning here, the insults were that much more inappropriate after someone began arguing against funding the postal service. Tone your rhetoric down to rational levels and stay far away from insulting other posters or warnings will be issued. ---
**Author:** ![Lightnin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lightnin/32/180_2.png) [@Lightnin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lightnin)\ **Post date:** [August 14, 2012, 12:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-with-the-hatred-some-have-for-the-us-postal-service/631391/99 "2012-08-14T12:53:52Z")
> [@Debaser](#): > > Of course. You have to use the USPS now, but you wouldn’t if you got rid of it. If it’s working right now, why try to destroy it? We’re talking, well, a lot of jobs. Why are you so eager to see them out of work just because you think their job could be done better by a private corporation? As I recall, veterans are preferentially hired by the Post Office- why do you want to remove potential jobs, especially in this economy? And really, have you even shown a good example of how the USPS is doing something wrong that a private corporation can do better? > [@Debaser](#): > > That business model only made sense for a short time. It’s already outdated and is moving online. Then you don’t need to do anything. If you’re right, the USPS’ days are numbered, and they’ll die a natural death- we don’t need to shut them down or pull ridiculous prefunding schemes to drive them out of business. I think the fact that you (collective you) feel the need to shut it down is a good indication that it’s _not_ becoming outdated. It’s also fairly strange that the same people who enshrine the Constitution are so hell-bent on getting rid of the USPS. Guns are good, but mail is bad!? ---
**Author:** ![BobLibDem](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/boblibdem/32/3149_2.png) [@BobLibDem](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BobLibDem)\ **Post date:** [August 14, 2012, 1:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-with-the-hatred-some-have-for-the-us-postal-service/631391/100 "2012-08-14T13:22:53Z")
If someone wants to send me a bill or an invitation or whatever, they can misspell my name, get the wrong address, muff the zip code, and most times it winds up in my mailbox anyway. Someone flubs one character of my email address, I will not get it. I’ve got lots of email addresses, some of which I check more frequently than others. Some I abandon. My postal address rarely changes, so if something is important, then it should go there. I’ve heard many times “boo hoo hoo, the USPS has a monopoly on non-urgent letters”. How many companies are champing at the bit for the chance to pick up a letter, take it across the country, and deliver it for 45 cents? Answer: ZERO. My 45 cent stamp covers the cost of delivery, gives secure employment with benefits to a good many workers who in turn patronize businesses all around the nation, and gives them a pension with ZERO contributions from the government. Hell of a deal if you ask me. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-with-the-hatred-some-have-for-the-us-postal-service/631391.md?page=4) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-with-the-hatred-some-have-for-the-us-postal-service/631391.md?page=6)