[cronix]

Amazon doesn't send me shit I don't order and don't want. More than 95% of my mail is junk mail and there's nothing I can do about it. Circulating what the vast majority of people would consider as junk is the only thing really keeping the USPS in operation. Well that and they don't have to turn a profit and also have the protection of law to keep them going.

[deep-root]

Alternative take: USPS is really quite a remarkable business and worth learning about as a case study - from their fleet, to eating 90s darling FedEx alive, to overcoming artificially created political pressures (eg PECA), to becoming Amazon's chief US delivery partner, and much more.

Was curious: "marketing" mail was 18% of USPS revenue[1] (2020) and dropping. Low share of total earnings compared to Meta, Google, and soon Amazon's ad revenue.

[1] https://about.usps.com/newsroom/national-releases/2020/1113-...

[alpha_squared]

USPS would be, and historically has been, profitable if it weren't for the politicians actively trying to drag it down with arbitrary, arcane rules to protect their donors.

[rileymat2]

https://www.forbes.com/sites/ebauer/2020/04/14/post-office-p...

It is interesting, because shouldn't the expectation be that a pension be funded as the benefits accrue? That seems like the safe sustainable way to run things.

[lotsofpulp]

It absolutely should be. The question should not be why USPS was asked to fund accrued benefits properly. The question is why all the other city, county, state, and federal government accrued post employment benefits are not funded properly.

[gruez]

> arbitrary, arcane rules to protect their donors.

like what? The ones I heard of were prefunding the pension plans, but I’m not sure how that benefits any of “their donors”

[ceejayoz]

> I’m not sure how that benefits any of “their donors”

You can't see how kneecapping the USPS might help FedEx, UPS, and Amazon?

The point of making the USPS pre-fund their pension obligations was to be able to turn around and say "look at the horrible state of their finances, government is clearly so inefficient, we should privatize it".

[lotsofpulp]

USPS was simply required to fund accrued post employment benefit obligations, something that all non governmental entities have to do.

The reason governments can offer ridiculous post employment benefit obligations, such as above average defined benefit pensions and retiree healthcare, is that the laws governing funding for these benefits only applies to non governmental entities.

Not a surprise that politicians exempted governments from the same funding rules, opting instead to kick the can down onto future taxpayers and opt for offering voters lower taxes now. The real question is why only the USPS was asked to fund accrued benefits, and not every single other governmental entity in the US.

[ceejayoz]

https://about.usps.com/who-we-are/financials/annual-reports/...

> Unlike any other public or private entity, under a 2006 law, the U.S. Postal Service must pre-fund retiree health benefits.

[lotsofpulp]

This claim by USPS seems false:

>Other federal agencies and most private sector companies use a “pay-as-you-go” system, by which the entity pays premiums as they are billed.

There are very strict rules about how non governmental employers have to calculate deferred compensation liabilities, and how much funding they have to have. The relevant laws are ERISA 1974 and PPA 2006. Once the deferred compensation is accrued, the employer must value the liabilities using certain yield curves for high grade corporate bonds and maintain certain funding levels. It is why private employers stopped offering pensions, it is exorbitantly expensive if you properly account for it, especially with increasing lifespans.

I do not know what USPS means when it says "pre-fund", but the text of the USPS funding law is here in section 802. To me, it indicates that money needs to be set aside for accrued benefits (from the wording "future payments required"). I also do not know if USPS is true in its claims that non government entities do not have to fund retiree healthcare benefits. I am pretty sure it would be covered by ERISA and PPA 2006, just like defined benefit pensions are, OR retiree healthcare benefits are not protected by law and if a company wants to stop paying them, they can.

https://www.congress.gov/bill/109th-congress/house-bill/6407...

>`(d)(1) Not later than June 30, 2007, and by June 30 of each succeeding year, the Office shall compute the net present value of the future payments required under section 8906(g)(2)(A) and attributable to the service of Postal Service employees during the most recently ended fiscal year.

Section section 8906(g)(2)(A) is:

https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/5/8906

>(A) The Government contributions authorized by this section for health benefits for an individual who first becomes an annuitant by reason of retirement from employment with the United States Postal Service on or after July 1, 1971, or for a survivor of such an individual or of an individual who died on or after July 1, 1971, while employed by the United States Postal Service, shall through September 30, 2016, be paid by the United States Postal Service, and thereafter shall be paid first from the Postal Service Retiree Health Benefits Fund up to the amount contained in the Fund, with any remaining amount paid by the United States Postal Service.

[pzduniak]

USPS being weak (AFAIK primarily because of this law) benefits their competition, who are lobbying against "fixing" it.

[cronix]

> if it weren't for the politicians actively trying to drag it down with arbitrary, arcane rules to protect their donors.

Is there a sector/program in the gov't where that isn't the case? Every entity that is created is just a new fiefdom to expand and lord over from the time it's created to infinity.

[thepasswordis]

If the USPS wasn’t a government agency, I would weld my mailbox shut and never look back.

USPS is profitable because we all accept the idea that companies are allowed to pay somebody to load literal trash through a hole in the side of my house.

[tsol]

I mean I also get important mail in there, as so I expect most people. Same way Google delivers multiple times more trash to my Gmail account but I don't say I need to stop using email

[hk__2]

> More than 95% of my mail is junk mail and there's nothing I can do about it.

This can be fixed. In France for example, it’s illegal to put junk mail in a mailbox that has a “stop pub” (= no junk mail) sticker on it. I have one, and as a result <5% of my mail is junk mail.

[GhettoComputers]

Not in America. It’s not illegal and it seems you still get junk mail.

[decebalus1]

> Amazon doesn't send me shit I don't order and don't want.

It did to me! I received about a dozen packages ordered from Russia/China and this stopped only after escalating with customer support to the point of cancelling my Amazon account.

> also have the protection of law to keep them going.

The law is actually what makes them weaker. Do some light research on why the USPS is not 'profitable'.

> More than 95% of my mail is junk mail and there's nothing I can do about it.

There is something you can do about it. See https://www.consumer.ftc.gov/articles/how-stop-junk-mail.

The USPS is a service, not a corporation, it shouldn't turn a profit. Does the army turn a profit? Or the navy? Why isn't anyone talking about the ATF 'losing' 1.2 billion a year while having overlapping responsibilities with countless other TLAs? How much money is our Coast Guard making us? Perhaps we should privatize the Coast Guard. Just saying..

As someone who didn't grow up in the US I never really understood the hate the USPS is getting. They've been systematically fucked by both sides of the political 'divide' and yet they still deliver my election ballot on time. They aren't even allowed (see both sides of the political divide) to set their own package prices, yet there is this continuous annoying stupid propaganda that they need to be profitable.

It's fine. in 20 years (if we survive as a country by then) when A-Z Epistle™ by Prime™ will be the only mail carrier for $9.99/month (or bundled with your Prime membership). They'll definitely find a constitutional loophole to make that happen.

Next time someone asks why the USPS isn't profitable, I'd gladly invite you to explain to me what is our ROI for the $83 billion spent sustaining the Afghan government.

[GhettoComputers]

My brother in hated of USPS being an unnatural monopoly! https://news.ycombinator.com/threads?id=GhettoComputers&next...

Its incredible how many people support this horrible service and think selling stamps makes it profitable.

[throwawayboise]

You can make a big dent in your junk mail by opting out at various direct marketing associations. It's a bit of a pain, and won't stop all of it, and you have to redo it periodically, but it does make a difference.

Now I just bin everything that's not first class, directly addressed to me by name before I even bring it into the house.

[pixl97]

>Amazon doesn't send me shit I don't order and don't want

Give it 10 years when Amazon is looking for new ways to increase profitability and shit's shipped to your door that you have to schedule a ship back or you'll end up being charged for it.

[kevin_thibedeau]

They already do it by hiding the "add to cart" button in favor of periodic shipments for certain consumables.

[tsol]

They'd send that by another carrier if there was no USPS. Everyone along the way profits from those adverts even if you don't-- that's why they pay valuable money to do to

[fma]

> Amazon doesn't send me shit I don't order and don't want.

Their equivalent are the ads you get on their home page or when you search for things.

[cronix]

I can ignore those digital ads and mostly do as the vast majority of the purchases are for things I know exactly what I want. In the case of physical mail I have to take periodic physical action to empty my mailbox (and physically recycle 95% of it, which I have to indirectly pay for) or they will quit delivering the mail and mark it as vacant. I don't think they are equivalent. I wonder how many waste disposal/recycling people this subsequently helps employ along the chain if you were to add up all of the tossed junk mail for a year. We're paying for all of that.