[dkjaudyeqooe]

> What would be awesome is if instead of this we gave a fuck ton of money to the post office and tried to solve this problem for everyone and also eroded amazon's competitive advantage.

Why hasn't this happened already? What makes you think it would actually happen?

[kyletns]

Takes political courage and public pressure. There is a little bit of that being exhibited by the current administration, but it's also pretty clear that another potential administration would have had a lot more potential to fix these problems.

[kortilla]

What? The current admin spearheaded some 3-6T in spending bills presumably for “infrastructure”. It seems like all of the support is there.

The problem is that nobody gets political credit for improving existing systems. That money will instead be pissed away on other political gifts and novelties.

[KittenInABox]

What do you mean "infrastructure" in quotes? The infrastructure bill is almost entirely infrastructure like roads, bridges, waterways, electricity, and broadband internet. (It's also only 1T. Not 3-6.)

[kyletns]

Thanks KittenInABox.

Politicians absolutely do get credit when they improve actual systems and improve people's lives. People like it, and will vote those politicians back into office. But it has to be actual, felt, day-by-day changes in their lives (such as fixed roads, the USPS offering free check cashing, or even a friggin relief check in the mail with the president's signature on it). The current infrastructure bill(s) promise that real support, but they didn't fund it enough imo and it's far from clear that they'll be able to use the money they did get to make meaningful changes in people's daily lives.

[kwhitefoot]

To some extent it seems to have happened in China.