U.S. Postal Service: salvageable or doomed?

well right, geography doesn't disappear, which is why i brought up the fictive/abstract nature of rights among persons and sovereignty over space.

if you break your leg in a national park it takes a little longer for EMS to get there too. there are arguments ongoing about the cost of those services (witness the jokers who do some dumb stunt and the laws allow the county to stick them with the bill if they get hurt) but we're not saying "leave them there"

we're kind of getting into "if a man gets shot in the forest, is it even a murder" territory

Purely hypothetical in my case, of course

good piece about what happened in the netherlands after the postal service was privatized

http://www.lrb.co.uk/v33/n09/james-meek/in-the-sorting-office

how hard would mail in the netherlands be? anyplace you can't throw a paper airplane to you can bike to in 25 mins

you posted that the last time we argued about this

I've never said it should be privatized tho, just that it is quickly losing its core purpose and that sending parcels anywhere shouldn't be artificially cheap

I think that part of the problem in the US is that ppl will put up w/socialism if it's cheap but if you make them pay a competitive price, they're up in arms.

yup

I don't know if this is why morbs had this in mind but yesterday I was talking w/ him about this subject and said it's a shame the post office wasn't allowed to offer banking services, I would be cool w/ a national bank

I wonder what other topics iatee & I discussed during the OWS march would make for controversial threads?

could bring up the 'isn't it funny that there are no 30-50 year olds here' in the generation thread

Yes, the only thing other thing that would make the lobby of a post office just that much better would be the presence of a bank teller.

I would also suggest having a portrait studio.

as mw mentioned upthread it's not actually that strange of a pratice and already exists in many countries

whereas sending millions of tons of trash to people every day is actually a weird practice

lots of strange practices in many countries, imo.

- "The post office is this weird quasi-public bureaucracy that's forbidden to make money and sends everyone crap."

- " I sure wish they could loan me some money to buy a bass boat."

you realize that destroying the postal service will mean opening up bulk mail to the private carriers and other services, not getting rid of it

private carriers are expensive

I wonder what other topics iatee & I discussed during the OWS march would make for controversial threads?

your admiration for Kurosawa samurai films?

if private carriers can figure out a business model to make money off of bulk mail, you can be sure they will do it

the business model doesn't even have to work all that well, it just has to be profitable

private carriers are expensive

― iatee, Wednesday, May 2, 2012 2:42 PM Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

private carriers have no legal access to your mail box. if they did, what would be your basis for claiming that they couldn't establish a cheap bulk mail network?

that outside of extremely dense places or places w/ a centralized mail box it's unfeasible for the ups guy to hit every house in the neighborhood every day for something that makes pennies

To think I thought my son would grow up too late to be a paper boy. Now I know what he can do!

same is true for usps, no?

ok, so people in relatively dense areas (i.e. most people) would continue to get bulk mail, and a few rural people wouldn't get any mail. What would be the benefit of that again?

yeah I didn't mean 'relatively dense' I mean apt buildings, which is not anywhere close to 'most people'

we already have a privatized cheap bulk mail network, it's called the people who leave flyers in the windshield wipers of my car while I'm grocery shopping

but I'm for making it more expensive for ups to transport shit too, so

lets just say 'if there is a business model that depends on people forcing trash on strangers, I am for finding ways to make that business model less feasible'

still don't understand why you're claiming post offices business model doesn't work

because...it depends on people forcing trash on strangers

i can't think of any mass commercial enterprise that isn't in some way forcing trash on strangers.

forcing trash on strangers is the cornerstone of our society iirc

I know right

I'm for making more of that trash digital

I have started w/ ilx

if ILX is a mass commercial enterprise, where can I buy stock?

try the post office in 2020.

as long as I can buy Chik-Fi-A and have my portrait painted

"Have you ever bought stock in a message board...from your post office?

YOU WILL"

but I'm for making it more expensive for ups to transport shit too, so

― iatee, Wednesday, May 2, 2012 2:49 PM Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

ok fine, but what is going on here is not some kind of market-assisted environmentalism, its private businesses wanting to take over the profitable and potentially profitable parts of the USPS model while leaving the rest to die. There may come a day when virtually every person in the US is capable of doing virtually every piece of their business electronically, but we are probably decades away from that point both in terms of tech and individual internet savvy and access.

not really no

Halliburton Postal Service

can't believe that we are going to hit 200 posts about a shitty indie band that hasn't even released an album since 2003.

private carriers are expensive

― iatee, Wednesday, May 2, 2012 11:42 AM (21 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

if they're forced and enabled to do the work of the USPS, they won't be. they'll find a way to deliver millions of tons of throwaway crap for private business because where there's a dollar to be made, someone will make it. killing the postal service will do nothing but subject a reliable basic services to mr. toad's wild ride courtesy of the "inherently benevolent" free market.

These would make dope mailbags though for real:

http://www.jamesbondlifestyle.com/images/products/ac026.jpg

re: Halliburton Postal Service

like what's gonna go away if the mail is privatized is not reams of shitty bulk mail delivered to your urban apt building or suburban home. it's the network that allows the delivery of private mail at reasonable prices to anyplace in the US.

again, I am against 'the free market' sending people millions of tons of trash too, and I believe we can find ways to fight this

what if it were really expensive to send people trash and also sending shit far away was even more expensive

what do you propose, a bulk mail tax?