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Trump Wants Postal Service To Charge 'Much More' For Amazon Shipments (reuters.com)
President Donald Trump said the U.S. Postal Service should charge Amazon more to deliver packages, the latest in a series of public criticisms of the online retailer and its billionaire founder. From a report: "Why is the United States Post Office, which is losing many billions of dollars a year, while charging Amazon and others so little to deliver their packages, making Amazon richer and the Post Office dumber and poorer? Should be charging MUCH MORE!" Trump wrote on Twitter. The president's tweet drew fresh attention to the fragile finances of the postal service at a time when tens of millions of parcels have been shipped all over the country for the holiday season. The U.S. Postal Service, which runs at a big loss, is an independent agency within the federal government and does not receive tax dollars for operating expenses, according to its website. The U.S. president does not determine postal rates. They are set by the Postal Regulatory Commission, an independent government agency with commissioners selected by the president from both political parties. That panel raised prices on packages by almost 2 percent in November.
the GOP shouldn't have forced them to pre-fund the pension plan then.
Your hair look like poop, Bob! - Wanker.
I think he's right - the USPS is subsidized and should not hand that subsidy to megacorps like Amazon.
Let Amazon use UPS or FedEx.
i mean why does the USPS operate at a loss subsidizing/enabling one of the largest companies in the US to make more money?
(i hate agreeing with Trump)
Slashdot Editors, is there any chance that we can talk about something other than President Trump today?
There have been numerous submissions attacking him in one way or another.
The word "trump" currently appears on the front page 11 times!
How many times does the term "linux" appear? Zero!
How many times does the term "programming" appear? Only twice!
How many times does the term "math" appear? Zero!
If we were really this interested in President Trump, then we'd go visit the websites of CNN, or MSNBC, or the NYT, or one of the many other web sites covering politics.
The whole point of Slashdot is to cover news that the mainstream media doesn't focus on.
They're already very focused on President Trump. Slashdot shouldn't be. We're here to learn about things like Linux, programming, software, computing, electronics, math, and science. We're not here for politics!
Seems like that story is lacking some important context; something I just read about earlier (and not because of the tweet) is that Amazon gets about $1.46 per box in subsides due to first class mail costs.
Amazon is making a LOT of money, why does the federal government need to be giving them what amounts to a huge break on shipping? As a Prime member I'm sure that would raise my rates but I don't think everyone in the U.S. should be paying for my quicker shipping.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
...and that makes them decide to charge less?
Kinda got that backwards.
If you have financial problems, you don't charge less money for something when you're already losing money on it.
Want to live in a remote area? Well, you should be prepared to pay for it.
Someone who apparently thinks it's cool for the USPS to subsidize Amazon shipping, and also can't even get straight what media companies Bezos owns, should not be modded up. I invite everyone to head over to MetaMod, where you can rate the choices the moderators make and give these moderators a bit of a spanking.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
But as for those in REMOTE areas or PO Boxes that UPS and Fedex won't service affordably...... the USPS serve a useful public function. They're not subsidizing Amazon so much as they're subsidizing mail order: but for some in remote areas, mail order is the only practical way of purchasing some simple necessities that can't be had from a local Walmart, because there is no local Walmart.
First off, the President of the United States should not be referring to individual companies that should be charged more. If the postal rates are incorrect, they should be adjusted for everyone.
Second off, the postal service does serve a useful purpose for areas that are not served well by alternatives and we should preserve that, even if it costs some money. Package rates to and from those areas can and should be a bit higher to deal with reality. Subsidies if they exist should mainly be for standard first class letters, but not for junk mail and other crap.
Postal service is a fundamental piece of our infrastructure, just as roads, just as well internet is these days. If you want jobs in an area, you need all three and various other things as well. Some of the blue states have very nice infrastructure which makes it attractive for people with certain skills which then makes it attractive for companies...
It's worse than that.
It may actually be a good point that the USPS should be charging Amazon more, but that common sense approach would have to apply to EVERY company and individual that ships a package via USPS.
Amazon is on track to provide its own delivery system. including the last mile.
The monopolistic ambiance of commerce regulators will allow it and USPS, UPS, and FedEx will hurt like hell, just as retail has, because of the "Amazon Effect."
It little behooves the best of us to comment on the rest of us.
The USPS using accounting standards no other group (corporation or government agency) meets with regard to its pension. If it calculated its pensions costs using normal methods, its profitable.
Perhaps other groups *should* pre-pay their pensions. Pensions which were calculated using "normal" methods are going belly up all over the place.
Here's a small sampling the Pension Benefit Guarantee Corp's big ticket writeoffs...
Delphi Autoparts ($6.1B underfunded)
United, USAir, Delta, PanAm, TWA Airlines ($7.4B+$2.8B+$1.6B+$0.8B+$0.7B underfunded)
Bethlehem, LTV Steel ($3.7B+$2.1B underfunded)
Then there's the United Mine Workers of America pension bailout that's been kicking around congress that people think will cost $600B...
And there's the Central States Pension fund insolvancy controversy.
The problem with pensions for industries that are crashing is that with "normal" accounting rules they can assume historic contribution rates in their actuarial computations even if they are in decline (like the auto, steel, coal and trucking businesses). Then the pensions need bailing out and retirees collect pennies on the dollar (most pensions are only insured at 30cents/dollar and that assumes that the underwriting remains solvent, which is the problem with the PBGC, UMWA, and Central States pension authorities). Some might think it is a *good* idea that the postal services don't use "normal" accounting rules for their pensions. Unless they only listen to talking points spit out by talking heads.
Congress controls how much USPS can raise rates. The same Congress that sabotaged them with a 75 year pension fund is also sabotaging them with forcing them to keep their rates absurdly low.
"We need to get over this notion, that, for Apple to win... Microsoft must lose." - Steve Jobs, 1997
Between this and his publicly stated desires to shut down certain news organizations and an entire television network, how is it not obvious to every single person in these United States that the 'person' (using the word loosely here) we're dealing with should never have been elected POTUS in the first place? Seriously, it's like we're living in a perpetual nightmare.
That's actually the way pensions should be funded. Not as nebulous future payouts based on unrealistically optimistic projections of investment returns, which saddle future generations with debt when the actual returns fall short of those projections. It was literally Wimpy's "I'll gladly pay you Tuesday for a hamburger today" ad infinitium. The Republicans caught a lot of flak for changing the requirement, but they correctly saw that the pension funds were being abused to shift debt from the present into the future (instead of giving the union a wage increase, you promise them a bigger pension). They changed the funding requirement to stop that abuse cold. You can no longer promise the postal union barrels of free beer in their retirement, and leave it up to future generations to figure out how to pay for it. You make the promise today, you have to pay for it today. This was crucially needed because without it, wage negotiations amounted to unions demanding the world, and managers agreeing to give it to them because they knew they'd be retired by the time anyone had to figure out how to fulfill their concessions.
Pre-funding the pension and spinning it off so the money is untouchable except by the people who are supposed to receive it prevents the possibility of pension bankruptcy. The way most pensions are set up (merely as a separate account within the company) leaves them vulnerable to abuse (embezzlement, underfunding) and bankruptcy. If the company goes bankrupt, the pensioners become merely creditors. They may not get paid until after other creditors, with the possibility of receiving only pennies on each dollar they were promised in pensions if they're far enough down the bankruptcy totem pole.
With a pre-funded pension operating independently (like a 401k or IRA), this cannot happen. The company made an obligation to pay Joe into his retirement, and they put the money to pay for it into his pension plan while he was working, thus insuring he gets paid even if the company ceases to exist. The only catch is instead of giving Joe a guaranteed fixed pension in his retirement, the pension should be defined as $x/mo being invested on his behalf while he's working, and his pension is whatever that works out to after compounding interest when he retires and begins collecting it (since his lifespan and investment growth is unpredictable).
Social Security has the same problem. The money you pay into SS is not being "saved" for your retirement. It's being used to pay current retirees (with a buffer of about a decade). Likewise, when you retire, the money you get from SS will not be money you put into it. It'll be money that the then-current generation of workers are paying into it. This happened because when SS was first enacted, the very first recipients got paid even though they'd never contributed a dime into it. (This is why SS is often accused of being a pyramid scheme, although that's slightly different.) If you want to guarantee SS solvency, you have to change it to a system that's pre-paid, like the USPS pension. Otherwise it could stay solvent or it might not, depending on inflation (cost of living), population growth, and increases in the average lifespan. Right now, there are about 2.9 workers per retiree. As that number goes down (due to decreasing birthrate and increasing lifespan), the risk of SS insolvency goes up.
For 75 YEARS into the future? If every employer was required to do that, they would never offer pensions ever. And if such was required, no one would be opening new business. The notion is absurd
"When life gives you lemons, don't make lemonade. Make life take the lemons back!" -- Cave Johnson