Posted on 03/31/2018 12:29:47 PM PDT by ptsal
BTW, the problem with the Postal Service is that of outrageous salaries and benefits for administrators and “professionals,” same as with other government and global business offices.
Debt-plagued U.S. Postal Service eyes bipartisan bill to solve woes
It’s probably more accurate to say that Congress is subsidizing Amazon.
And other than probably being a win deal for Amazon, just as with defense contracting, I’m not sure that the feds subsidizing Amazon is unconstitutional.
Corrections, insights welcome.
When you add it up, the Bush family has done more damage to the Republican Party (and by extension to America) than almost any other single entity that I can imagine.
Look at the history why the U. S. Postal Service was formed. It was never intended to pay for itself, let alone make a profit.
When you add it up, the Bush family has done more damage to the Republican Party (and by extension to America) than almost any other single entity that I can imagine.
I am one of the guys getting screwed on the marriage of USPS and Amazon!
I am an Amazon Prime customer.
Used to get my amzon orders fast via USParel Sevice! No sweat rang my doorbell and handed me my stuff—USParcel Service #1~
NOW!!!!!
Late in the day I hike up to the USPS ::gangbox (I live in a condo complex) and have to hump my stuff down the block home!
Once ya go from USParcelServ to USPS, ya know what greatservice Vs, Ine[tnes really IS!
@Planet WTF!
***********
A 2017 analysis by Citigroup did conclude that the Postal Service was charging below market rates as a whole on parcels.
“I saw a quip in a recent article mentioning a law Congress passed that hamstrings the USPS from directly bidding against private enterprises like Fedex and UPS. Supposedly, Amazon plays that to their big advantage.”
The “real problem” with the USPS is that they are now having, by law, to pay into their employee retirement plan in sufficient amounts to allow them to distribute benefits to their retirees. Their “retirees” are the biggest problem the USPS faces. As the picture changed for the use of “government-mandated mail service, the USPS was very slow to react to their real employee needs. At it’s zenith, the USPS had 780,000 employees (1988), but as we all know government agencies exist primarily to give unneeded jobs to people who will vote Democrat. As a consequence, right now the USPS probably has twice as many employees as it really needs. Current employment is 503,000 and it is going down. I have read that to suport it’s current business, it should be half of that number. The USPS is where a number of retired military people go so they can double dip on their retirements.
The other thing that should pi$$ you off is that rather than buying mail service trucks from the automakers, they want to design a new “special truck” that will supposedly “last longer” at a projected cost of $60,000 per unit. Just hope our military has wiser planners.
Amazon is probably getting the book “media mail” rate very often.
The book rate is meant to subsidize learning.
Charity mailing (and I believe political mailings) are also subsidized.
The USPS must adjust its rates.
It probably needs to go to three days per week delivery for non-P.O. Box delivery. Businesses would get delivery Monday, Wednesday and Friday.
Not to nitpick, but Bezos is worth nowhere near $240 Billion. Try about half that much. Maybe.
During the my 38 years at USPS it was +10% Sunday premium.
So 90% of your mail order vinyl business is okay?
The Amazon ‘subsidy’ is dwarfed by the basically free shipping the USPS gives China. Anyone who buys from China off eBay will be familiar with it.
Hard to figure out how small postage costs are so high when the postman that delivers them is coming out to deliver regular mail anyway. Sorting at the post office will take place anyway.
Does the post office hire more employees just to deliver Amazon packages? No.
USPS already has some funny financing. It’s a giant piggy bank used by who knows what.
Republicans who came of age in the FDR era were deeply infected with “Me too’ism”. “Me too’ism” I define as a willingness to support, continue and expand the FDR welfare/socialist state. They don’t think it fundamentally wrong-headed, they’re convinced that with the necessary tweaking and money management it can be made to work better. Those few that were convinced its the wrong way to go were unable to articulate it properly and were therefore unelectable. You shouldn’t be too hard on them. A politician is not gong to favor something he knows means certain defeat a the polls. The “public (a voting majority!)” wanted “Socialism Lite”. That’s still pretty much the case.
Yes, he’s right up there with them! Basically from Eisenhower to Trump, almost sixty years, and basically only one good Republican President. It’s no wonder the Republic has been at risk, and Trump has so much swamp draining to do!
How about going back to like before the Civil War.
You want to receive or send mail, go to the post office.
That was probably in the general store.
I have been wondering if UPS and FedEx give priority treatment to big shippers also. It is apparent the shipping and mail is becoming third world for the masses.
The U.S. Postal Service and Amazon have a special relationship. In 2013, for instance, the USPS agreed to offer Sunday delivery of Amazon packages.
But shipping industry watcher and money manager Josh Sandbulte thinks there’s an ugly underside to the USPS-Amazon collaboration. Sandbulte, writing in the Wall Street Journal last week, argued that the USPS effectively subsidizes the price of shipping Amazon’s packages.
According the Sandbulte, Congress has barred USPS from setting its parcel prices below its costs, to keep it from unfairly undercutting competitors like FedEx and UPS. But the formula for calculating those costs, set in 2006, hasn’t kept pace as packages have come to make up a higher and higher percentage of USPS volume. The law set the share of infrastructure costs associated with packages at 5.5%, but boxes now make up around 25% of Postal Service revenue.
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Sandbulte cites an April analysis by Citigroup that put a price tag on the resulting distortion. If package delivery bore its fair share of Postal Service system costs, each box would cost $1.46 more to deliver. That “subsidy” is systemwide, and the USPS has courted other large e-commerce companies.
But Amazon’s size means that it benefits disproportionately, and ships around 40% of its deliveries with USPS. In Sandbulte’s view, this means the Postal Service is “picking winners and losers in the retail world.”
But Sandbulte’s investment firm holds FedEx stock, meaning he has a direct interest in critiquing the USPS, and his analysis is debatable on several points. He disingenuously describes the pricing situation as “a gift card from Uncle Sam,” which implies there’s tax money involved. But the USPS doesn’t receive tax revenues.
Additionally, USPS’s legal duty to provide universal service means that even at a discount, shipping boxes for Amazon helps it generate revenue from potentially unused capacity. Fixed costs aside, USPS package delivery is profitable, helping subsidize rural service and letter delivery. So there’s room for disagreement about whether the situation is actually unjust.
Amazon issued the following statement in response to Sandbulte’s claims: “As is the case with all of its customers, our partnership with USPS is reviewed annually by the Postal Regulatory Commission, which has spent decades reviewing and approving USPS costing and pricing practices. The Postal Regulatory Commission has consistently found that Amazon’s contracts with the USPS are profitable. Amazon has invested hundreds of millions of dollars in a network of more than 20 package sortation facilities that inject directly into the USPS last mile network bypassing most of USPS network. This investment resulted in more efficient processes as well as thousands of jobs and related economic benefits in local communities.”
Either way, Amazon is hardly alone in getting a boost from the USPS’s complex pricing. Thanks to international agreements through the United Nations, international shippers—especially those sending small packages from China—often get services at substantially below cost. That puts U.S. stores and domestic online sellers alike at a persistent disadvantage.
Link: http://fortune.com/2017/07/16/amazon-postal-service-subsidy/
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