Posted by munro 20 hours ago
Its funded with the expectation of hypercapitalist efficiency.
Somehow they actually run a profit off delivering junk mail annually, but they also have amortized expenses such as pensions etc which are sinking them. Again as per above, as a hyper regulated universal service they can't declare bankruptcy, while at the same time they're hypercapitalist and somehow have to make due as the financials sink lower and lower.
Some say this is an intentional plan to destroy the postal system. You can't run on a political platform of destroying the office, it would be very unpopular to propose everyone pay more for for-profit mail delivery and did I mention who one of my corporate campaign donors is? but you can intentionally sabotage the USPS by always making the worst choice at every decision intentionally, and then "unavoidably we have to shut the service down for no known clear reason it just doesn't work". My guess is the intentional destruction will continue unabated until closure is announced.
Its currently illegal for private carriers to deliver normal non-urgent letters because the USPS is a monopoly. You can put a document in an envelope or small box and UPS it, but its technically quite illegal at the federal level. My guess is eventually UPS or Amazon or fedex will purchase a law to be able to sell normal ground service physical first class mail delivery. I'm betting on Amazon winning a contract for this.
My bills are all emails lost in my spam folder and I "just know" to visit my car insurance website and electric company website every month or so.
Its worth considering that junk mail delivery is hyper profitable for the USPS, so thats probably not going away when mail delivery gets privatized. What is going away is the 82 cent postage stamp. UPS ground saver is a couple bucks. It'll be cheaper to take a picture of a letter then order prints of the picture at Walgreens nearby my mother than to mail her a greeting card LOL. Walgreens charges 39 cents for a post card sized digital print and their letter size prints are a ripoff at $4.50, better off sending multiple post card sized prints.
> they can't declare bankruptcy
According to Amendment 14, section 4:
> The validity of the public debt of the United States, authorized by law, including debts incurred for payment of pensions and bounties for services in suppressing insurrection or rebellion, shall not be questioned.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fourteenth_Amendment_to_the_Un...
According to that clause, especially the bit with the comma, Congress & courts have held that government bodies cannot discharge debts in bankruptcy. They go through Chapter 9 of the bankruptcy code. Every other chapter in BK allows for some debts to be wiped away.
It's especially annoying in the UK case because there is such rich national data, but for so much of it the only join key is the postcode unit, which can change over time and for which no public polygon is available. Evidently the Ordnance Survey doesn't even keep historic vintages of its releases...