Yves here. The US Postal Service has been in Republican crosshairs for a long time but Trump looks as if he will be able to achieve the pet aim of privatization. This move would go beyond the Trump objective of taking the US back to the 1890s. An inexpensive and efficient government-run letter and parcel delivery service is part of being a civilized country. As most of you know, Ben Franklin was the first Postmaster General, staring in 1775. He is spinning in his grave over the present scheming, which will be contrary to the public good by making postal service less efficient and more expensive. But the objective now is more looting….which is contrary to the pretense that Trump is trying to restore American’s competitiveness. Rentierism results in higher product costs.
It’s appalling that to have to restate basics. Here in Thailand, the postal service is much better than that of the US. Offices are open every non-holiday of the week, including Sunday, with Sunday hours at one office 8:30 AM to 7:00 PM and 8:30 AM to 2:00 PM at another. I sent a letter that was correctly addressed by international tracked letter service, which was not delivered on the US end with the incorrect designation of “Addressee unknown”. It came all the way back to me here.
As this article explains, the Postal Service customers that will suffer the most are in remote areas, which means rural and/or not part of the 48 states. The rural contingent is often depicted as hard core MAGA, so this is another example of Trump kicking the non-plutocrat part of his base to the curb. The press has already described how the closure of post offices in small communities has dealt a death blow to them, that the post office was a critical anchor. Expect more of the same.
By Julia Conley, a staff writer for Common Dreams. Originally published at Common Dreams
As U.S. President Donald Trump and his centi-billionaire ally Elon Musk revive the right-wing dream to privatize the public mail system, an analysis released Tuesday details how the pain already inflicted on over 100 million Americans by the for-profit delivery industry will only get worse if Trump’s plan succeeds.
Americans already have the option of using private companies like FedEx and UPS to mail packages, and in about 25,000 ZIP codes where 102 million people live—about a third of the U.S. population—the corporations already pile on extra charges for deliveries, according to the report by the Institute for Policy Studies (IPS).
Some of the ZIP codes lie in Alaska and Hawaii, where sending mail from the contiguous U.S. is predictably more expensive.
But private carriers also charge “remote surcharges” to about 8% of all U.S. ZIP codes because they are in mountain communities, ranchlands, and other remote areas that are home to nearly 4 million people. According to IPS, people pay up to $15.50 for deliveries in these regions when they use FedEx or UPS, but with the USPS universal service obligation, they pay nothing if they use the public mail carrier.
Thirty-five percent of U.S. ZIP codes are in rural areas where 35 million people pay up to $8.30 in “extended area surcharges” when they use a private delivery company. The companies also charge up to $6.20 for deliveries to certain suburban areas and smaller towns that are home to 19 million.
“Today’s higher FedEx and UPS delivery rates are just a taste of what would come if the Trump administration succeeds in privatizing the U.S. Postal Service,” said report author Sarah Anderson, director of the Global Economy Project at IPS. “Without competition from our public Postal Service, for-profit firms would jack up delivery fees on as many customers as possible.”
Without USPS, the companies could also add to the various extra charges they already impose on customers for Saturday deliveries, fuel, and residential deliveries.
The rural communities that are currently served by USPS at no cost to residents would face a wide range of impacts if Trump moves forward with a reported plan to disband the Postal Board of Governors and place the service under the control of the Department of Commerce—a likely first step toward privatizing the agency.
On top of higher costs, these communities would lose postal jobs that pay decent wages with benefits as rural post offices would close. Military veterans, who use USPS to get 84% of their prescriptions and more than 25% of whom live in rural areas, would face potential disruption of essential services, and rural residents would could lose the ability to vote by mail.
Small businesses could face higher shipping costs, leading to lower profits or higher prices for their customers.
Privatizing USPS “could jeopardize our entire system of universal postal service,” said Anderson.
The report was published weeks after Musk told a group of Wall Street bankers that USPS is a top target as he seeks to privatize the federal government “as much as possible,” and after a Wells Fargo report laid out a five-step plan for privatizing the service.
The bank included in its framework raising USPS parcel service prices by as much as 30%-140%, to “generate economic parcel profits on a standalone basis,” selling the service’s parcel business to private investors, selling postal real estate to commercial bidders, imposing mass layoffs on USPS’ 600,000 workforce, and repealing the Postal Reorganization Act of 1970, which converted the USPS into an independent agency.
IPS warned that postal privatization would “destroy a vital and truly democratic public service.”
“This extensive, centuries-old network helped build up America’s democracy and economy by spreading information and goods to every corner of the country,” said IPS. “Over its 250-year history, USPS has continually reinvented itself in response to changes in technology and the evolving needs of our society. Rather than selling this public treasure off to the highest bidder, we should explore opportunities for strengthening the Postal Service to deliver even better services to the American public in the 21st century.”
Jeff Bezos is probably interviewing candidates with the potential to be the next Lee Harvey Oswald. “Hands off USPS, we need them for Amazon Prime orders!!!”
As SocialJimObjects mentioned above, the privatization of the Post Office will put a major strain on online shopping. Now that “Brick and Mortar” retail outlets are diminishing, mainly due to “competition” from online vending, the main alternative to being forced to pay extra for goods is going dark. Everyone pays more than “needed” so as to increase profits for the Oligarchs of America. More wealth is thus transferred upwards.
This is a literal example of the Robber Baron economic model at work. Heavy handed exploiters sit at critical nodes of the economic system and squeeze as much ‘value’ out of the economic flows as they can for themselves. The next step will be “enhanced competition” for control of those economic ‘nodes.’ As a system increasingly comes under the sway of “rugged individualist” power blocs, ‘competition’ increases between those power blocs. The time when Mack Reynolds’ “fanciful” “Joe Mauser” stories of a world where business interests literally, militarily fight it out for dominance comes true is close at hand. Power elites do not do “cooperation” very well for ever.
The second order effect economically here is to increase the pressures against small businesses on the Internet. Already, shipping is a major component of the costs of small items. “Mom and Pop” retail on the Internet will further shrink as the added costs of shipping disproportionately effect smaller concerns. Here is where the “economies of scale” exert a significant pernicious effect.
Past a certain point of cost relative to ‘value,’ people stop buying items. As the available wealth continues to be segregated towards the top of the income “ladder,” fewer people can afford items. Increase the costs of goods through the shipping costs and you “shrink” the volume of retail business. People simply cannot afford to purchase as much “stuff.”
The sum total here is the further diminishment of the general standard of living.
Previously, the diminishment of the standard of living primarily effected the “lower” classes. They were told to “shut up and suck it up.” Now, the degradation of the standard of living is beginning to seriously affect the bourgeoisie and petit bourgeoisie. Those classes are where “modern” revolutionary movements spring from. Here is a classic case of the Oligarchs cutting off their own noses to spite their faces.
When “The Revolution” comes this time, it will be an “own goal” by the Oligarch Class.
Stay safe.
There are a lot of ways that this could play out and I am thinking of one. Not that many years ago here in Oz, they made this guy head of Australia Post who promised he would radically transform it economically. Why yes, he was a banker. So he had this brilliant idea. He wanted to close thousands of small post offices, sell off all those buildings for profit and fire who knows how many people. So this would be what would replace it. Instead of getting mail delivered into your letter box outside your home, you would jump into your car and drive to the nearest regional post office. One there you would go up to your own post office box, type in your code and retrieve any mail within. Tough luck if you drove in just to collect junk mail. For bigger parcels you would have to go inside but I heard that if the parcel was going to be too big, you would have to drive to a bigger regional post office. It would make the post office more ‘efficient.’ So what is the problem with this idea? Let me count the ways-
-Hundreds of thousands of cars having to make additional trips just to collect their own mail.
-Wear and tear on the roads requiring more frequent maintenance work.
-Wear and tear on the cars making all those trips.
-Congestion of cars trying to find a parking space near that regional post office.
-Increased car pollution of people driving their 4-wheel cars to get their mail.
-More accidents on the road as millions of people nation-wide go to get their mail.
-More fuel burned in those cars which would require more imports and effect on the national deficit.
And those are just off the top of my head but if the US Post office was privatized, I could very easily see this type of ‘solution’ used in towns and cities. Needless to say, that banker’s brilliant idea died a silent death.
For people who can’t drive and don’t have access to public transit, this would be disastrous. One more way to kill off useless eaters (especially the disabled and elderly). The creativity of the monsters in power amazes me.
Normally I would say that most people would not care if this happened to other people but when Trump tells 335 million Americans that they can take down and thrown into the bin their letter boxes as they will never be used ever again, that is when there will be a reaction.
Revelation of the method; greater efficiency.
In this case a report from none other than
Wells Fargo !!!
Too perfect.
I’m one of the rural folks. Our post office is about 8 miles away and about 1,400′ lower in elevation. A common sight here in mountainous Vermont is a cluster of mailboxes at a crossing.
Lots of us do buy stuff on line but the seller frequently just hands it over to the post office to make that last mile. We usually have to drive down the mountain to fetch it. About an 18 mile round trip.
Recognizing that the evilness of Stephen Miller is without bounds I’m sure he’ll fine some way to use this to put an end to mailing early/absentee ballots.