The USPS is self supporting from postage. Your taxes aren't funding a "broken" business model. But they are funding a bunch of people trying to interfere with, and force the USPS out of business.

USPS is self supporting? It doesn't seem like it.

According to this report by they feds they've been operating at a loss for most years since 2008. $2.1B loss in 2018.

https://www.prc.gov/sites/default/files/reports/FY%202018%20...

The Postal Accountability and Enhancement Act of 2006 requires the USPS to pay over $5B annually to pre-fund future retirement benefits (an amount greater than their usual yearly profits prior to this).

No private courier would ever be saddled with a requirement like that. It's clear that this requirement was put into place by people who want to make the USPS look bad so it's an easier argument to kill it.

How much tax does the USPS pay? None. No income tax, no property tax, they don't even pay parking tickets. But for some reason, they've been losing money for decades. (yes, even before the whole pension debacle)

UPS on the other hand pays income tax, pays property tax, pays higher wages, fully funds their pension plan, and does not have access to the same zero or low interest treasury loans that the USPS does and still makes a profit AND delivers more parcels every year than the USPS.

> But for some reason, they've been losing money for decades. (yes, even before the whole pension debacle)

Citation needed? A quick search suggests that post-pension-debacle, the USPS has lost money every year, to the tune of several billion dollars. Pre-pension-debacle, things were mixed; most years they made a decent profit, some years they lost some money, though much less than they do post-pension-debacle.

It is the wrong perspective to only view public services as businesses.

I get a say every time I vote.

Do you think anyone is listening to what you have to say?

This comes back to voice vs. exit, which was being discussed on HN yesterday.[1]

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exit,_Voice,_and_Loyalty

Not much, but that's why I support proportional representation, not turning the world into a Libertarian hellhole.

The same could be said for the never ending and needless military campaigns we're in.

More likely, it's because billionaires see $$$ to be made in divesting the government of a cheap public service. It's the same idea behind the privatization of everything the government does. Cheap, clean water? Why is the government giving this out for pennies when we could be making a killing?

It's greed, simple as that. These people are corporatists that believe if there's money to be made, they should be allowed to regardless of the ethical consequences.

Exactly, capitalists think in terms of opening new markets so why let people have for free something from which they can make a fortune? This way of thinking is like a cancer that grows on society.

there is no such thing as a free lunch

Just because something is not free doesn't mean that a private organization should be entitled to sell it. In many cases this just becomes an additional friction to everyone. For example, health care is something that everybody needs and is not free. But this doesn't mean that paying a private company is the best option. Companies need to profit from health care to exist, which in turn drives up costs for everyone and makes the economy less competitive. This is clearly happening in the US.

You are under the impression that a profit motive drives up prices? Would we be in a better situation if the government was in charge of growing and distributing all food?

The analogy isn't appropriate, in my opinion. It's viable to start a new grocery business and consumers can exercise choices in which ones they frequent. These options are not nearly as viable for healthcare (particularly in emergencies or when seeing specialists) or postal services (when serving an area as broad as the US).

True, but the question is always: what level of profit is reasonable? A corporation, absent regulation, will charge as much as the market will bear. If they can charge twice as much but only lose a quarter of their customers, they'll do it. Such a situation with something like water would be a disaster. People would die.

They will not charge as much as the market can bear. They will charge as much as they can without competition eating their market share.

There is no regulation for instance on the cost of soda, but it is not priced as high as the market can bear. Soda is incredibly cheap and requires no government interference to be cheap.

We already have this situation going on in the health care industry. Companies will raise prices as long as profits can be increased. A large amount of the US population can't afford to have access to health care anymore.

Profits are capped, and economists agree that such caps are not helpful.

https://www.aeaweb.org/research/regulating-health-insurers-a...