• teamevil@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        82
        ·
        6 days ago

        Which the stupid Republicans will use to continue to try to privatize something that should never have been privatized and should never be privatized The Republicans are the Nazis now and they need to be stopped

        • reddig33@lemmy.world
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          6
          ·
          edit-2
          5 days ago

          Education? Medical care? The electrical grid? Oh, no you’re talking about privatizing the post office. It gets so confusing since Republicans want to privatize well, everything.

      • lightnsfw@reddthat.com
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        29
        ·
        5 days ago

        That’s probably part of the plan. They want the post office gone to make room for private companies. Fuck all the people that live in remote areas where it isn’t profitable to have mail I guess.

      • ryathal@sh.itjust.works
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        13
        arrow-down
        32
        ·
        6 days ago

        Chinese packages are a net negative for the post office, you can probably find articles about that from Trump’s first term.

        • BertramDitore@lemm.ee
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          20
          ·
          6 days ago

          The USPS was never intended to turn a profit. It’s not a business. Its entire purpose is to deliver mail to every American, regardless of where they’re located. Making that profitable was never realistic nor necessary for a government service.

          • ryathal@sh.itjust.works
            link
            fedilink
            arrow-up
            8
            arrow-down
            8
            ·
            6 days ago

            It doesn’t have to profit, but it also doesn’t have to subsidize incoming packages from China.

              • bjorney@lemmy.ca
                link
                fedilink
                arrow-up
                9
                ·
                5 days ago

                The UN Postal Union sets guidelines for international mail that dictates developing countries shouldn’t have to pay full price to send mail to developed countries. Basically if it costs $30 to ship something from a developing country, they would charge $20 and the destination country would pay for the shortfall (dollar values not real). China was a much smaller economy when this agreement was drafted.

                The US renegotiated this agreement with the United postal union in 2019/2020 but there were still come compromises made - while the amount of subsidization is minimal compared to 10 years ago, USPS still allegedly eats some losses on every package from China.

                Basically Trump is mad because the deal he personally negotiated 5 years ago wasn’t good enough. Same thing that happened with his trade agreement with Canada

                • prole@lemmy.blahaj.zone
                  link
                  fedilink
                  arrow-up
                  1
                  ·
                  edit-2
                  5 days ago

                  You’re ignoring the fact that the person who ordered the thing is in America, and are acting like this is a subsidy for China.

                  Not everything is zero-sum.

                  • bjorney@lemmy.ca
                    link
                    fedilink
                    arrow-up
                    2
                    ·
                    5 days ago

                    Yeah, and the person who ordered the thing from China is getting their shipping cost subsidized by the American taxpayer, while someone who orders something domestically has to pay for 100% of their own shipping. It literally is a subsidy for China

        • Cornelius_Wangenheim@lemmy.world
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          11
          arrow-down
          1
          ·
          edit-2
          5 days ago

          I don’t know why you got down voted because it’s 100% true. NPR did a fairly good episode on it: https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2018/08/01/634737852/episode-857-the-postal-illuminati

          Edit: To summarize, there’s an international org (UPU) that controls the amount postal services can charge each other to deliver mail/parcels. The current due is below what it costs to actually deliver a parcel, so a package from China actually costs the USPS money. That cost gets passed on as higher domestic fees, leading to a situation where a shipper is charged ~5x more to ship something domestically compared to what a company in China is charged to ship to the US.

        • Empricorn@feddit.nl
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          5
          arrow-down
          1
          ·
          6 days ago

          Everything they do is a “net negative”! My company’s IT and HR departments don’t generate any revenue at all…

    • AA5B@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      7
      ·
      6 days ago

      How did Bezos let this happen? Didn’t he buy his way into the administration for reasons?