Minor things that bother you

[Scott5114]

Quoting from a prior thread since many people here haven't seen it regarding different inflation calculations:

A few notes:

[snip]

A few years back, I stumbled across an interesting piece where someone was trying to calculate the value of a Dungeons & Dragons gold piece in USD. The article walks you through the math, but the most successful conversion involved the price of a pound of wheat, which can be tracked all the way back to the 1200s in England and which also has a price in D&D. The article author came up with 1 gp = $35.66 in 2017 dollars.

I recently ran the same calculations using 2025 dollars and got 1 gp = $46.88.

[Plutonic Panda]

Yes, privatize governmental postal services so they can charge even more than they already do.

Canada Post sucks too, but it's good to have an alternative that's not owned by a trillion dollar corporation.

THANK YOU! Yes, the post office may not be as efficient as it should same thing with Amtrak, but not every single aspect of our lives should be made possible by those who want to make a profit off of it. I know this is probably a scary thing a lot of people, especially in this day and age, but some socialism is a good thing. In fact, even a lot of people who think that word would only be uttered by the devil himself probably benefit from socialism like using subsidize roads or power or water, etc..

[Walnut2]

The post office has been a part of the U.S. federal government in one form or another since the beginning. If the hardcore small-government/free-market enthusiasts were right that it would be inherently better for it to belong to the private sector, you'd think the idea would have gained traction a long time ago.

[Scott5114]

Yes, privatize governmental postal services so they can charge even more than they already do.

Canada Post sucks too, but it's good to have an alternative that's not owned by a trillion dollar corporation.

THANK YOU! Yes, the post office may not be as efficient as it should same thing with Amtrak, but not every single aspect of our lives should be made possible by those who want to make a profit off of it. I know this is probably a scary thing a lot of people, especially in this day and age, but some socialism is a good thing. In fact, even a lot of people who think that word would only be uttered by the devil himself probably benefit from socialism like using subsidize roads or power or water, etc..

And everyone should keep in mind that there are already a hell of a lot of people making a profit off of USPS already, they're just not the USPS. There's plenty of businesses out there offering free shipping because they can afford to pay USPS rates to ship their goods. If they had to pay UPS rates they would have to charge the customers a shipping and handling fee.

Amazon doesn't have its delivery network set up in many rural areas, so what it does is get the packages as far as they can on its delivery network and then mail it the rest of the way. There are enough Amazon packages in the USPS system in these areas that it already gets backed up because they don't have the manpower to deliver them fast enough, and that's with six-day delivery, never mind this alternating-day horseshit or whatever other bizarre solution-in-search-of-a-problem behavior is being advocated for in this thread.

[gonealookin]

I haven't advocated for punting all mail delivery to UPS and FedEx.  As Scott noted regarding the cost of getting drugs delivered from the tribal pharmacy in Oklahoma, USPS provides an affordable option.  Given the lower cost, though, the recipient probably shouldn't expect the same level of service UPS and FedEx provide.

And with the 50% decline in first-class mail volume over the last 20 years, yes, it's time to cut costs.  Scott casts me as a Douglas County right-winger with the Joey Gilbert reference (long story there), but I thought he knew that isn't true.  Douglas went about 2 to 1 on Trump vs. Harris, and I'm on the left half of that blue side.  I think of myself as a practical liberal, though, and don't like seeing government or quasi-government agencies such as USPS throwing money away wastefully, such as by not cutting home delivery service when mail volume has been reduced so drastically, and especially with time-essential money-related things like bill payments and government benefits being delivered electronically.

I mentioned above, I have had ZERO USPS delivery to my residence since I moved to this area 16 years ago, so that's definitely coloring my perspective here.  It did take some getting used to, but on a scale of 0 to 100, the negative effect on my life of having to go the Post Office in the shopping center a mile away to pick up mail is a 0.  Scott and his wife, who sounds like she has some mobility issues, need prescriptions delivered to their doorstep 12 times a year, but it's wasteful to think a USPS delivery person should be required to drive a route that stops there 300 days a year in order to make those 12 deliveries.  150 days a year should be fine, and if they really really want the 300-day service, well they can pay for that, but I don't care to subsidize it.

[TheCatalyst31]

Yes, privatize governmental postal services so they can charge even more than they already do.

Canada Post sucks too, but it's good to have an alternative that's not owned by a trillion dollar corporation.

THANK YOU! Yes, the post office may not be as efficient as it should same thing with Amtrak, but not every single aspect of our lives should be made possible by those who want to make a profit off of it. I know this is probably a scary thing a lot of people, especially in this day and age, but some socialism is a good thing. In fact, even a lot of people who think that word would only be uttered by the devil himself probably benefit from socialism like using subsidize roads or power or water, etc..

And everyone should keep in mind that there are already a hell of a lot of people making a profit off of USPS already, they're just not the USPS. There's plenty of businesses out there offering free shipping because they can afford to pay USPS rates to ship their goods. If they had to pay UPS rates they would have to charge the customers a shipping and handling fee.

Amazon doesn't have its delivery network set up in many rural areas, so what it does is get the packages as far as they can on its delivery network and then mail it the rest of the way. There are enough Amazon packages in the USPS system in these areas that it already gets backed up because they don't have the manpower to deliver them fast enough, and that's with six-day delivery, never mind this alternating-day horseshit or whatever other bizarre solution-in-search-of-a-problem behavior is being advocated for in this thread.

I collect license plates, which is a hobby that involves shipping a lot of small packages if you buy/sell/trade online, and there's a reason nearly every US-based collector I know ships through USPS. It's way more affordable (as long as you're not shipping internationally), and the service is pretty good, occasional gripes aside.

Anyway, back on topic... people who ship license plates, through any shipping service, and don't put any cardboard or something like it in to keep the package from getting bent. You can write "Do Not Bend" all you want, but that won't help with sorting machines and heavy packages. In my experience DMVs are the worst offenders in that regard, too, which sucks because nobody wants to fix a bend in their brand new license plate before putting it on their car.

[jeffandnicole]

The current level of ineptitude with USPS delivery is begging for it to be privatized. When has the government ever been truly responsive to consumer complaints?

Local mail (from one PO box to another) now goes to Louisville to be sorted before it's delivered. In the past, a piece of local mail was sorted in-house and ever left the county. Then, it started going to the regional post office (Campton, KY 41301), then to Lexington, now to Louisville. That's ridiculous and inefficient.

Last week, I got a newspaper from the first week of July. If a private business ran so poorly,it would go out of business.But since the post office is a government operation, it just chugs along and there's nothing anybody can do.

And don't get me started on the redundancy and inefficiency of there being a post office every five miles in some rural areas of Kentucky and West Virginia, that aren't open but a couple of hours each day with the federal government renting space in a country store somewhere.

The equivalent local devices are UPS and FedEx, and you can expect to pay $25-$30 for equivalent delivery.

[kkt]

The current level of ineptitude with USPS delivery is begging for it to be privatized. When has the government ever been truly responsive to consumer complaints?

Local mail (from one PO box to another) now goes to Louisville to be sorted before it's delivered. In the past, a piece of local mail was sorted in-house and ever left the county. Then, it started going to the regional post office (Campton, KY 41301), then to Lexington, now to Louisville. That's ridiculous and inefficient.

Last week, I got a newspaper from the first week of July. If a private business ran so poorly,it would go out of business.But since the post office is a government operation, it just chugs along and there's nothing anybody can do.

And don't get me started on the redundancy and inefficiency of there being a post office every five miles in some rural areas of Kentucky and West Virginia, that aren't open but a couple of hours each day with the federal government renting space in a country store somewhere.

I seem to have missed the part where UPS or Fedex never misdeliver, lose, or damage their packages.

[oscar]

Amazon doesn't have its delivery network set up in many rural areas, so what it does is get the packages as far as they can on its delivery network and then mail it the rest of the way.

Amazon does that in my very urban area, at least for apartment complexes like mine. Paying USPS for "last mile" package delivery is a real convenience for me, since USPS can drop off my package inside a locked entryway door next to my mailbox, where "porch pirates" can't steal it. FedEx and UPS don't do that. That gives Amazon a competitive edge. I especially despise UPS for its customer service, and will try not to do business with shippers that insist on using UPS.

[jeffandnicole]

Amazon doesn't have its delivery network set up in many rural areas, so what it does is get the packages as far as they can on its delivery network and then mail it the rest of the way.

Amazon does that in my very urban area, at least for apartment complexes like mine. Paying USPS for "last mile" package delivery is a real convenience for me, since USPS can drop off my package inside a locked entryway door next to my mailbox, where "porch pirates" can't steal it. FedEx and UPS don't do that. That gives Amazon a competitive edge. I especially despise UPS for its customer service, and will try not to do business with shippers that insist on using UPS.

We are the opposite - UPS much better around here. Once FedEx misdelivered a package and didn't accept our claim it was misdelivered. The kicker...it was a security camera system which should've proved it wasn't delivered had we had one installed.

[Scott5114]

Scott casts me as a Douglas County right-winger with the Joey Gilbert reference (long story there), but I thought he knew that isn't true.  ... I'm on the left half of that blue side.  I think of myself as a practical liberal, though ...

If that's the case, then your insistence on this issue is even more puzzling, because it doesn't square with that statement of beliefs. The problem here is that just about any subsidy is going to be going to something that some portion of the populace can make no use of. But the idea is that will be canceled out by subsidies to things you do use that other people don't. And on balance everyone will benefit more or less equally.

Put another way, it's dangerous to adopt the mantra of "I don't want to subsidize this because I don't use it" when there are thousands of folks in Clark County who would have that exact belief about, say, maintaining US-50, or NV-28, or the upkeep of government buildings in Carson City, or really funding just about anything in Northern Nevada. (I think that's total baloney, mind you—Northern Nevada of course deserves to be as well-funded as Southern Nevada—but I know that it's a belief that more people have down here than they should, and they got to it with that exact "well I don't use anything in Northern Nevada so I don't want to pay for it" line of logic.)

I think we can both agree that there are a lot of things government does that is wasteful that should be cut. USPS, though, has real, tangible benefits to a lot of people, so if the goal is to make government more efficient, it would be much more practical to focus on things that cost a lot more and benefit people a lot less than USPS does.

And, if it were up to me, I'd happily throw in a quarter or whatever on the price of each package I send or receive to get you the option to have six-day home delivery if you want it, same as I have.