Steve_

I don't think that's how most people would look at it - the way I meant it was that if junk mail wasn't around then USPS would be even more unprofitable and so it would be more likely to be shut down or reformed in some way. The revenue from junk mail is not sufficient enough to keep USPS going, it just makes it appear less awful. So you are as a taxpayer subsidizing USPS because otherwise it would go out of business and you would no longer receive the junk mail if it did. Therefore subsidy = junk mail.

RoadWarriorFromLP

That's exactly how those who understand finance and economics would look at it. Not everyone understands those things, unfortunately.

paddingtongreen

The airlines sell all the full fare tickets they can, and then fill up with less profitable tickets to fill the plane. Why should the USPS not do the same? The plane is going to fly anyway and the mail person is going to deliver mail anyway.

Pulaski

That makes sense when most passengers/ mail senders are paying "full freight", but when 90% of what I receive is pure junk ( marketing cr@p), and since this thread started, I have realised that almost everything else I receive (credit card and bank mailings) was also mailed at bulk rates too, at what point do we say, that the whole system is primarily a junk delivery system?

RoadWarriorFromLP

If you paid the equivalent of 50p to send a letter, then there probably wouldn't be a need for so much of it.

But instead, you pay about 30p. It's similar to watching NBC/CBS/ABC gratis without paying a license fee.

Steve_

Well, seeing as I have degrees in those subjects, I disagree with your analysis.

You are subsidizing the delivery of junk mail, because by definition the USPS cannot operate without the subsidy, so if there were no subsidy, there would be no junk mail. People who understand finance and economics understand that you cannot simply pull out one operating cost and view it in isolation when you are looking at an organization as a whole. Logistics don't work that way, they don't deliver the junk mail using an entirely separate infrastructure. Are all the USPS trucks, all the staff, etc. completely paid for by the bulk rate? No? Does some of that money come from the taxpayer? Then you are subsidizing it.

I don't know for sure, maybe it's in one of the IG reports but is the bulk-rate rate even a full cost recovery rate? If it's not, then you are by definition directly subsidizing the delivery of junk mail, not just indirectly.

Mitigating the subsidy doesn't mean there isn't a subsidy.

Steve_

Because it costs $5 billion in losses every year that have to be covered by the taxpayer?

Steve_

If Canada Post can do it profitably, I don't see why USPS can't, the principle is the same. Canada Post it has to be said is struggling because unlike in the US you can get them to stop delivering junk mail, plus mail volumes are going down, but they have a problem - USPS had more losses last year than the entire budget of Kenya.

Pulaski

You continue to presume that I value six days a week mail deliveries, and that I want to preserve the service at that level. Once a week is more than adequate for me. .

And per my observation above, I now think that literally 99% of what I receive is charged at bulk mailing rates, so the increase in the headline "first class rate" may pull in significantly less than you anticipate.

RoadWarriorFromLP

I'm not presuming anything, other than the likelihood that most people would prefer to pay a lower price and get junk mail, rather than pay a higher price as a tradeoff for not getting junk mail.

People like to complain. But most people don't like to consider the consequences that would arise if their complaints were addressed. The failure to connect the dots is a logical error.

RoadWarriorFromLP

I guess that degrees don't always help. The subject of capacity utilization must have never come up during your studies.

What I'm saying is fairly basic stuff. The airline analogy is on point. There is a basic fixed cost to servicing a particular mail route, and the revenue produced by that route can be increased at minimal cost by running more throughput (read: junk mail) through it. This isn't even debatable, it's how stuff like this works.

civilservant

How is this argument about the Postal Service at all relevant to the NSA?

MMcD

It isn't!
And thank you for pointing that out.
Unfortunately it's more entertaining to be engaged by distraction than to be distracted from our entertainment by engagement with what matters.

But for those who might be interested in addressing the subject of this thread... here's a compelling OP Ed in today's NY Times:
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/18/op...it_th_20130618

and a terrific video round table conducted this weekend by USA Today with 3 whistleblowers - who lived to tell about it. I really commend you to watch (don't worry - it's not long):
http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/p...table/2428809/

MMcD

and....regarding the NSA, rather than the USPS (see my post and links above):
In the '50's Eisenhower was prescient when he sounded the alarm re: the danger of co-option by the "Military Industrial Complex".
Replace "Military...." with "I T...." (which is what we have now) - and it's apparent:
.... the more things change the more they remain the same -
Unless ..........

Any thoughts (or have I just opened the floodgate to a barrage of ad hominum abuse )?

Steve_

It's not a valid analogy as pointed out, the airline isn't subsidized. If it were unprofitable, it would cease to fly. If it were subsidized by the taxpayer, then it would be a fair analogy and then if the subsidy ceased, there would be no airline and therefore no transport of anything via that airline. He said "the plane is going to fly anyway" - but in an analogy with USPS, it wouldn't if there were no subsidy.

Like I said, mitigating a subsidy (if in fact it is mitigated, I've seen no evidence that bulk rate mail is actually profitable) doesn't alter the existence of the subsidy. Without the subsidy, no junk mail. You are subsidizing the logistics whereby the bulk rate mail can be delivered, so in other words - you are subsidizing it.

Or to put it in economic terms, the marginal utility for a service is increased by the cost being subsidized.