Does the US subsidize mail from China?

[agent00f]

The assumption here is that lowering prices for American shippers wouldn't increase demand to fill the bandwidth at a higher revenue point than the current high price for American customers and low price for Chinese customers strategy. Jacked up shipping costs have made ebay selling no longer worth it to me. If I could get lower shipping costs, I would likely be back in the game.

This rate policy highlights the failure of the U.S. policy of trying to run the USPS as a business instead of as a government provided service. That's for another thread, I suppose.

The fact they've had to increase prices over the years to cover costs suggests your proposal is untenable.

Opex and capex - I suggest you learn them.

Evidently learning them does little to help grasp the situation.

Makes sense until you read what the language describes. I cannot find out what infrastructure means based off the document. Infrastructure cost do not change, so it's either a cleverly worded statement that hides the true cost like gas, maintenance on cars etc... to make you believe it's making money.

Operating cost, which is stated in the statement means it's making opex profit. So, it's making revenue from the door to door delivery man/woman. However, it does not state the extra cost of gas, delays in delivery, insurance etc...

If I would take a guess, it's losing money on that, but gaining on opex, which looks better from a business budget standpoint as high opex is a negative tone.

I'm not advocating any direction, but a direction that helps the American (US citizens). I'm a little tired of globalism!

Seems at this point you'll have trouble backpedaling any further without abandoning that ideological enthusiasm.

 

[IronWing]

The fact they've had to increase prices over the years to cover costs suggests your proposal is untenable.

They've increased prices for some users while providing steep discounts for others. The USPS seems to be treating demand for shipping services as inelastic which is simply not the case.

 

[agent00f]

They've increased prices for some users while providing steep discounts for others. The USPS seems to be treating demand for shipping services as inelastic which is simply not the case.

First you continue conflating two as if you truly believe increasing the price for excess bandwidth will lower your comcast bill or something.

Second, it seems pretty clear the previous trend to keep increasing (or the very recent one to decrease) domestic price implies they're aware of about how elastic those demands are.

 

[Zstream]

snip

There is no need for name calling. I do not have any gain or loss outside of taxpayer money. So, you're free to call me an ideological nitwit but I don't know what that will get you.

The deal is bad, plain and simple. If there is enough bandwidth to go around on each driver, that means that they need possibly look at expanding the drivers zone? There are too many unknowns to have a solid debate, but if it's anything like the government has done before, it's probably too inefficient anyways.

 

[agent00f]

There is no need for name calling. I do not have any gain or loss outside of taxpayer money. So, you're free to call me an ideological nitwit but I don't know what that will get you.

The deal is bad, plain and simple. If there is enough bandwidth to go around on each driver, that means that they need possibly look at expanding the drivers zone? There are too many unknowns to have a solid debate, but if it's anything like the government has done before, it's probably too inefficient anyways.

If I called you some name then surely there wouldn't be any need to snip it out to protect me. Instead I've only accurately pointed out that you lack the facts & background to support a clearly ideologically driven conclusion, which you pretty much admit yourself.

These epackets and such are usually light and relatively unobtrusive to include with everyday mail, and because they come through only a few incoming locations take advantage of economy of scale in sorting. Of course it's not totally free, which is why the postal service still charges money for delivery.

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The previous gist of this thread was that the USPS are a bunch of gubmint dummies who can't come up with a plan that these forum geniuses without much of any bidness know-how could.

Now that they kind of get what's going on here with the prices, the discussion has turned to how government agencies should be used as tools towards some socio-economic end. Which is fair enough, except these are the same people usually taken to whining about any efforts they happen to discover to do any such thing.

 

[IronWing]

^^ Drivel, pompous drivel at that. The issue, that you choose to ignore, is that the USPS chooses to screw it's American customers to the advantage of its foreign customers.

 

[Perknose]

So, IronWing, I guess you really don't like this epacket deal under which the volume of small packets from China mushroomed, but please keep this fact from the OIG investigation in mind:

China Post ePacket volume increased by 182 percent from FYs 2011 to 2012, and revenue increased 316 percent (see Table 1). However, the Postal Service still lost $29.4 million on ePackets in FY 2012. In comparison, the Postal Service would have lost more than $30.8 million in FY 2012 if ePackets remained at UPU [Universal Postal Union] rates.4

Therefore, the Postal Service benefited from the bilateral agreement with China Post in that it decreased the Postal Service's net loss.

4 One requirement of bilateral agreements is that rates are more than UPU rates. Had this volume been processed and delivered using the UPU rate, the revenue for ePackets from China Post would have been $23,946,076, instead of $25,323,595.

The existing rates? The USPS didn't choose to set them. The Universal Postal Union is an international regulalatory body needed so the postal services of different countries could cooperate with each other.

One such agreement is between the Postal Service and the China Post Group (China Post). This bilateral agreement governs the exchange of international products and services between the Postal Service and China Post and supersedes postage rates established by the Universal Postal Union (UPU). 2

2 The UPU sets the rules for international mail exchanges and makes recommendations to stimulate growth in mail, parcel, and financial services volumes and improve the quality of service for customers. The purpose of the UPUterminal dues system is to compensate the destination country for the cost incurred for the handling, transport, and delivery of letter-post items from abroad.

https://www.uspsoig.gov/sites/default/files/document-library-files/2015/ms-ar-14-002.pdf

 

[IronWing]

The rate structure only provides a benefit if one chooses to assign the infrastructure costs and and a large portion of the operating costs of the postal system to domestic customers instead of spreading it to all customers. If you assign all your costs to one customer, you can give a heck of a deal to another customer and show a profit on the transaction.

 

[agent00f]

^^ Drivel, pompous drivel at that. The issue, that you choose to ignore, is that the USPS chooses to screw it's American customers to the advantage of its foreign customers.

Everyone can of course choose to believe whatever they want in their head. This is a forum to discuss the reality of matters, which is often different than these beliefs.

The rate structure only provides a benefit if one chooses to assign the infrastructure costs and and a large portion of the operating costs of the postal system to domestic customers instead of spreading it to all customers. If you assign all your costs to one customer, you can give a heck of a deal to another customer and show a profit on the transaction.

Sure, but that's the case in reality with many businesses, even if some choose to continue with willful ignorance of it.

 

[IronWing]

Everyone can of course choose to believe whatever they want in their head. This is a forum to discuss the reality of matters, which is often different than these beliefs.



Sure, but that's the case in reality with many businesses, even if some choose to continue with willful ignorance of it.

The postal service isn't a business so we can change its behavior. Directing the USPS to stop cooking the books to screw Americans would be a good step.

 

[agent00f]

The postal service isn't a business so we can change its behavior. Directing the USPS to stop cooking the books to screw Americans would be a good step.

Again, since that longer post is probably too complex, let's be very clear.

The USPS getting some marginal business is not unlike any number of private capitalist industry which your crowd keep proclaiming they should be more like.

Instead the insistence here that they act for some greater social(ist) good is exactly what that same crowd always criticize the gubmint for.

 

[IronWing]

Again, since that longer post is probably too complex, let's be very clear.

The USPS getting some marginal business is not unlike any number of private capitalist industry which your crowd keep proclaiming they should be more like.

Instead the insistence here that they act for some greater social(ist) good is exactly what that same crowd always criticize the gubmint for.

Your post makes no sense; you simply regurgitate your invalid points while weaving in your own narrative concerning what I might think. In a single post you declare that I must want 1) that the postal service should operate like "private capitalist industry", 2) that the postal service should be more socialist, and 3) that I criticize the government for being socialist. One of those claims is correct. The other two only exist in the house of straw you've constructed for yourself.

 

[agent00f]

It would be best for everyone if you clarified what you may or may not think about those statements rather than whatever it is you're doing now. For example if you agree with them except you're not actually part of that crowd many here belong to, then it saves both of us some time to let me/us know.

 

[Zstream]

It would be best for everyone if you clarified what you may or may not think about those statements rather than whatever it is you're doing now. For example if you agree with them except you're not actually part of that crowd many here belong to, then it saves both of us some time to let me/us know.

No, you're an asshat that assumes. There is nothing in my post or his that would make you come up with those assumptions. You have little to base off but some random analogy about bandwidth that is a cap ex vs op ex debate. You don't understand that type of discussion so it's useless debating with you.

At least perk mentioned some statistics that can't be debated directly, but the wording they choose leaves open to interpretation. I still can't find documentation on what USPS considers infrastructure.

Infrastructure = capex
Operations = opex (people to run the infrastructure)

Just because they break even on operations means NOTHING to the profitability of the company, even a margin surplus.

 

[Genx87]

My understanding is the Chinese govt subsidizes these packages. So the post office is paid on the back end from the chinese govt.

 

[agent00f]

No, you're an asshat that assumes. There is nothing in my post or his that would make you come up with those assumptions. You have little to base off but some random analogy about bandwidth that is a cap ex vs op ex debate. You don't understand that type of discussion so it's useless debating with you.

At least perk mentioned some statistics that can't be debated directly, but the wording they choose leaves open to interpretation. I still can't find documentation on what USPS considers infrastructure.

Infrastructure = capex
Operations = opex (people to run the infrastructure)

Just because they break even on operations means NOTHING to the profitability of the company, even a margin surplus.

If you want to be pedantic, backbone operators/isps also have associated operating costs like maintenance and there's no guarantee that usage of "excess" bandwidth has zero effect on other users. You proclaim to do this for a living and still can't understand it; it's hilarious.

My understanding is the Chinese govt subsidizes these packages. So the post office is paid on the back end from the chinese govt.

Business in china is done with the consent of the government, and the one usually paying isn't the government.

 

[IronWing]

buckshot?