US postal service

[mu03eng]

Interesting, but economics isn't science fiction.   Let's not get ahead of ourselves.  All jobs can be automated, outsourced, or reconfigured.

Accountants, actuaries, lawyers, doctors, teachers, architects, reale estate professionals, air trafic controllers, bankers, secretaries/administrative assistants, you name it, everything is subject to downsizing.  Why pick on the postal workers?  Why pick on the teachers?  Oh, unions, politics, got it.

My town has 1,644 people and hasc 7 banks???   No jobs, lots of banks, go figure.

We have reached end game for the small business, service based economy.   Forget pie in the sky dreams, its over.   The problem is not a lack of automation, it is millions of unemployed people with no future. 

Increases in productivity is not the solution.  That is old "supply side" vudo economics.  We need to revisit old concepts like the multiplier effect, value added tax, tax on wealth not income, inheritance taxation, infrastructure investment, etc.. 

"Believe me", the post office is the least of our problems.

I'm not picking on the post office, it happens to be the topic of the thread. If you want to start a thread on how actuarials should be automated I'll pop in there and agree with you.

Never said the post office was a problem, just that the post office is an example of a repetitive "human in the loop" job that was already going to face pressure to automate which has been accelerated because a previously hidden cost (pandemic) has surfaced which will raise the visible utilization cost driving it higher than the cost to automate.

Productivity is not the solution to what, concentration of wealth? We agree, but I also never made the argument that productivity was a solution for the concentration of wealth. And just because you can't see the future for the jobless doesn't mean there isn't one, you just can't see it.

And apparently you don't like competition, would you prefer there were 2 banks to 7? Consumer choice drives organizations to lower cost/price, produce new technology, invent new products, etc all of which generate jobs and generate a higher standard of living for all. Poverty now looks way different than poverty 50 years ago. Is poverty good, nope....should we do more, yes.....is productivity a part of the answer, you bet.

We are going through an industrial revolution 4.0...we can fight it or we can shape it....I'd prefer to be on the shaping it side.

[jesmu84]

I'm not picking on the post office, it happens to be the topic of the thread. If you want to start a thread on how actuarials should be automated I'll pop in there and agree with you.

Never said the post office was a problem, just that the post office is an example of a repetitive "human in the loop" job that was already going to face pressure to automate which has been accelerated because a previously hidden cost (pandemic) has surfaced which will raise the visible utilization cost driving it higher than the cost to automate.

Productivity is not the solution to what, concentration of wealth? We agree, but I also never made the argument that productivity was a solution for the concentration of wealth. And just because you can't see the future for the jobless doesn't mean there isn't one, you just can't see it.

And apparently you don't like competition, would you prefer there were 2 banks to 7? Consumer choice drives organizations to lower cost/price, produce new technology, invent new products, etc all of which generate jobs and generate a higher standard of living for all. Poverty now looks way different than poverty 50 years ago. Is poverty good, nope....should we do more, yes.....is productivity a part of the answer, you bet.

We are going through an industrial revolution 4.0...we can fight it or we can shape it....I'd prefer to be on the shaping it side.

Agreed.  But you and I aren't going to shape it. Extremely wealthy are going to shape it by how they run their corporations and how they influence the political sphere with their wealth.

[mu03eng]

Totally on board.  One ideal I hold is that with the advent of automation, there needs to be some sort of way to keep people around.  UBI and a hefty tax on automated systems alongside with reduced work schedules should be something we should all strive for as a society.

Not going to disagree with the general concept, though I wouldn't tax the automation system so to speak. Generally speaking, the automation system generates more than it destroys at a high level. It certainly can have an overall negative impact at the individual level and I think we should strive to minimize that outcome but not as an extract from the automation itself.

Personal opinion time, and it's totally decoupled from the automation discussion, you want to solve a lot of problems simultaneously? I would wave a wand and enact the following policies:
-Enact a UBI which would effectively include a "stipend" for healthcare (set the UBI to some level that allows for basic living and healthcare expenses)
-Eliminate Medicare and Social Security (leave medicaid and other disability programs in place as that is "solving a different problem")
-Eliminate all other welfare programs (block grants, food programs, etc)
-Make it illegal for employers (both private and public) to directly provide healthcare insurance
-Eliminate the restriction on insurance providers competing across state lines
-Come up with a federal healthcare program that competes on the healthcare market
-Provide a healthcare digital platform for shopping for health insurance
-Tax wealth and corporations differently  so as to reflect the change in the compensation model.

Eliminates several problems:
-Healthcare is no longer tied to employment
-Introduces healthcare insurance providers into a true competitive market
-Creates government efficiency by eliminating all the complexity of the welfare system
-Creates a better and more efficient safety net for all individuals
-Eliminates the gap in social security
-Allows healthcare to find it's true price point (private insurance significantly subsidizes medicare in the current system)
-Government isn't controlling healthcare but it can provide a mechanism for those to acquire for those who need it

At the end of the day, I believe this type of system is both more efficient and more effective for society as a whole.

[mu03eng]

Agreed.  But you and I aren't going to shape it. Extremely wealthy are going to shape it by how they run their corporations and how they influence the political sphere with their wealth.

Eh, ultimately that coalition falls apart simply because wealthy people fight and eventually they will overplay their hands resulting in a transformative change that returns power to the masses. I'm playing the long game so to speak, mostly because to your point, there isn't anything I can do about it now.

[jesmu84]

Not going to disagree with the general concept, though I wouldn't tax the automation system so to speak. Generally speaking, the automation system generates more than it destroys at a high level. It certainly can have an overall negative impact at the individual level and I think we should strive to minimize that outcome but not as an extract from the automation itself.

Personal opinion time, and it's totally decoupled from the automation discussion, you want to solve a lot of problems simultaneously? I would wave a wand and enact the following policies:
-Enact a UBI which would effectively include a "stipend" for healthcare (set the UBI to some level that allows for basic living and healthcare expenses)
-Eliminate Medicare and Social Security (leave medicaid and other disability programs in place as that is "solving a different problem")
-Eliminate all other welfare programs (block grants, food programs, etc)
-Make it illegal for employers (both private and public) to directly provide healthcare insurance
-Eliminate the restriction on insurance providers competing across state lines
-Come up with a federal healthcare program that competes on the healthcare market
-Provide a healthcare digital platform for shopping for health insurance
-Tax wealth and corporations differently  so as to reflect the change in the compensation model.

Eliminates several problems:
-Healthcare is no longer tied to employment
-Introduces healthcare insurance providers into a true competitive market
-Creates government efficiency by eliminating all the complexity of the welfare system
-Creates a better and more efficient safety net for all individuals
-Eliminates the gap in social security
-Allows healthcare to find it's true price point (private insurance significantly subsidizes medicare in the current system)
-Government isn't controlling healthcare but it can provide a mechanism for those to acquire for those who need it

At the end of the day, I believe this type of system is both more efficient and more effective for society as a whole.

Care to increase and broaden the EITC as well?

[mu03eng]

Care to increase and broaden the EITC as well?

Naw, I'd probably kill it, depending on what the UBI is set to. I suppose I should have said that I view the UBI as nontaxable income

[Hards Alumni]

Not going to disagree with the general concept, though I wouldn't tax the automation system so to speak. Generally speaking, the automation system generates more than it destroys at a high level. It certainly can have an overall negative impact at the individual level and I think we should strive to minimize that outcome but not as an extract from the automation itself.

Personal opinion time, and it's totally decoupled from the automation discussion, you want to solve a lot of problems simultaneously? I would wave a wand and enact the following policies:
-Enact a UBI which would effectively include a "stipend" for healthcare (set the UBI to some level that allows for basic living and healthcare expenses)
-Eliminate Medicare and Social Security (leave medicaid and other disability programs in place as that is "solving a different problem")
-Eliminate all other welfare programs (block grants, food programs, etc)
-Make it illegal for employers (both private and public) to directly provide healthcare insurance
-Eliminate the restriction on insurance providers competing across state lines
-Come up with a federal healthcare program that competes on the healthcare market
-Provide a healthcare digital platform for shopping for health insurance
-Tax wealth and corporations differently  so as to reflect the change in the compensation model.

Eliminates several problems:
-Healthcare is no longer tied to employment
-Introduces healthcare insurance providers into a true competitive market
-Creates government efficiency by eliminating all the complexity of the welfare system
-Creates a better and more efficient safety net for all individuals
-Eliminates the gap in social security
-Allows healthcare to find it's true price point (private insurance significantly subsidizes medicare in the current system)
-Government isn't controlling healthcare but it can provide a mechanism for those to acquire for those who need it

At the end of the day, I believe this type of system is both more efficient and more effective for society as a whole.

I wouldn't raise a stink about this.  When you running?

[MU Fan in Connecticut]

03eng, as always a well reasoned and rational approach.

[vogue65]

Why so many banks in my town?  Because there is so much wealth.

Do executives at 3M, GE, DOW, APD make too much money for adding to GDP and national wealth?
No, it's the 400 familes in the hedge fund racket.  They add nothing while taking all the money.

As a kid I played MONOPLY, when someone accumulated all the wealth the game ended.  Sound familiar?

Last week, "Country Club Republicans", in the New Yorker, is an excellent explanation of what has been going on.

Joseph Schumpeter saw how automation and entrepreneurship leads to socialism.  It has taken 80 years, but it has arrived, with or without the politician's.  Repent, the end is near, ha.

Private equity, hedge funds, derivatives, off shore tax havens, are all toast because the long term underlying power of econimic forces leads to socialism.

We can wish it weren't so, we can vote, politic, pontificate, and bloviate, but the reality is that all roads lead to socialism.

BTW, I'm all in with capitalism, it has been good to me and my wife.  Nevertheless, the handwriting is on the wall and Schumpeter wrote it.

[warriorchick]

Interesting interview of a journalist for Bloomberg who wrote a history of the USPS and his insight on the current crisis.

https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2020/05/coronavirus-postal-service-office-congress-money-trouble.html

[WarriorDad]

Except your tax dollars aren't subsidizing anything, USPS is a self-funding organization. If they did not have to fund pensions 75 years in advance, which no other organization public or private is required to do and costs them $5.5B/year, they would be turning a profit. So really, the business model isn't broken given that they can turn a profit, but has been pointed out, the are a service organization, no a for-profit business, even though they can in fact turn a profit.

That isn't to say the USPS shouldn't continue to look for improvements and efficiencies. There have been proposals to allow the post office to provide more services, which would beneficial to underserved rural communities, but business has opposed these ideas.

This has been repeated a number of times, but are you sure it is true?

2012 Government Accountability Office report, which finds, “PAEA did not require USPS to prefund 75 years of retiree health benefits over a 10-year period.”

https://www.everycrsreport.com/reports/R43349.html

As for not taxfunded, there are reasoned arguments for and against that stance.  USPS doesn't pay tolls, corporate tax, real estate taxes, vehicle registration fees, and other costs.  Those foregone revenues are made up by taxpayers.  The $10 billion debt currently owed by the USPS to the US Treasury (which will increase significantly) which means it is held by taxpayers.  Remember when USPS defaulted almost 10 years ago and Congress was not going to make them do anything?  That loan effectively becomes a gift, or a grant if there is no intention to pay it back.

Before someone attacks the messenger, I'm 100% supportive of the USPS and believe it is vital to this country.  It comes at a cost, a high cost, which I'm willing to accept.  Let's not paint the service as self sustaining or having a requirement it doesn't really have per the GAO.

[vogue65]

The "current crisis" is a made up issue.  It changes the subject from drugs, police brutality, civil rights, income inequality, loss of the industrial base, the gig economy, corporate welfare, gun violence, health care/insurance, and serious economic issues like the World Bank, and the IMF.

The emporer has no clothes folks.  So lets talk about the post office and teachers pensions. 

Sometimes I regret ever going to Marquette.   Sen. Joseph McCarthy still lives in the heart and soul of Wisconsin and many Marquette alumni.  Sad to say that in my day Wisconsin even went for Gov. Wallace.

The so-called business models are all out the window.  Travel and entertainment, sports, for profit hospitals, leveraged living, credit scores, disposable income, are gone, gone, gone.

Now back to the "debate" about the post office.   Ha, meaningless, irrevelant, a side show at best.

[WarriorDad]

The "current crisis" is a made up issue.  It changes the subject from drugs, police brutality, civil rights, income inequality, loss of the industrial base, the gig economy, corporate welfare, gun violence, health care/insurance, and serious economic issues like the World Bank, and the IMF.

The emporer has no clothes folks.  So lets talk about the post office and teachers pensions. 

Sometimes I regret ever going to Marquette.   Sen. Joseph McCarthy still lives in the heart and soul of Wisconsin and many Marquette alumni.  Sad to say that in my day Wisconsin even went for Gov. Wallace.

The so-called business models are all out the window.  Travel and entertainment, sports, for profit hospitals, leveraged living, credit scores, disposable income, are gone, gone, gone.

Now back to the "debate" about the post office.   Ha, meaningless, irrevelant, a side show at best.

WI went for Wallace? 

[ZiggysFryBoy]

WI went for Wallace?

34% of WI dems voted for Wallace in 1964.

https://shepherdexpress.com/news/milwaukee-history/dixie-north-george-wallace-1964-wisconsin-presidential-primary/#/questions

[vogue65]

34% of WI dems voted for Wallace in 1964.

https://shepherdexpress.com/news/milwaukee-history/dixie-north-george-wallace-1964-wisconsin-presidential-primary/#/questions

Thanks, Goldwater and Wallace were very popular.  That set the groundwork for Regan, the Bushies and now Trump. 
The McCarthy, Wallace, Goldwater crowd are relentless, hey are Svengalies.  Sad to say,  Wisconsin is not normal. 

[ZiggysFryBoy]

Thanks, Goldwater and Wallace were very popular.  That set the groundwork for Regan, the Bushies and now Trump. 
The McCarthy, Wallace, Goldwater crowd are relentless, hey are Svengalies.  Sad to say,  Wisconsin is not normal.

You realize that McCarthy has been dead since 1957.  I dont think there is any "McCarthy crowd" left.

[vogue65]

You realize that McCarthy has been dead since 1957.  I dont think there is any "McCarthy crowd" left.

You realize that FDR has been dead since 1945 and there are still people around with FDR loyalties?   Political ideas take a very long time to die.  Trickel-down economics (around since 1896 +/-) , supply side economics, Chicago school, never go away, you can't kill them, they are zombies.

American's, especially Wisconsinites, love boogymen.   Communists, Catholics, Mexicans, Mormons, African Americans, Irish, all have had their day.  Some still do.  McCarthy is an example of a mind set that will not die, even if he did in 1957.

[The Hippie Satan of Hyperbole]

You realize that FDR has been dead since 1945 and there are still people around with FDR loyalties?   

No one under the age of 85.

[vogue65]

No one under the age of 85.

We shall see what we shall see.

[WarriorDad]

34% of WI dems voted for Wallace in 1964.

https://shepherdexpress.com/news/milwaukee-history/dixie-north-george-wallace-1964-wisconsin-presidential-primary/#/questions

Thank you for the link.  Still do not understand the claim WI going for Wallace when Reynolds won 47.5% of the vote and Wallace received 34% in the Democratic primary in 1964.  Shocking as it might have been at the amount of votes Wallace received the state went for Reynolds (LBJ delegate) and Byrnes (Republican).

https://www.jsonline.com/story/life/green-sheet/2016/07/12/our-back-pages-at-1964-political-conventions-wisconsin-candidates-played-a-role/87021220/

https://www.nytimes.com/1964/04/09/archives/midwest-jolted-by-wallace-vote-indianan-views-governor-as.html

[MU82]

John Oliver's main subject this past Sunday was the USPS. Very well done, as usual.

[dgies9156]

People have predicted the permanent loss of jobs from technology since the invention of the wheel.  Somehow, the world always manages to produce new ones.

How many people have jobs now that didn't even exist a generation ago? 

How many social media directors were there in 1985?  How many web designers? How many network administrators?  How many electric car battery technicians?  How many solar panel installers?  How many "smart home" consultants?

While I implicitly agree with you, the problems are that the new jobs do not pay nearly as well as the old ones and the change leaves spots of the country that are in near desperate economic condition.

My first job, way-back-when, after leaving Marquette was in the Quad Cities region of Illinois and Iowa. At the time I was there, it was the blue collar dream. Tractor plants were humming, suppliers couldn't keep up and everyone who could work did work at UAW-scale wages. I recall like it was yesterday asking the head of the local development authority, "what happens locally if heavy machinery goes into a slump and starts closing plants." His comment was, "it could never happen."

Just four short years later it did. As I recall, the Quads lost more than 25,000 union jobs between 1980 and 1985. It still hasn't recovered. Many of the descendants of the old IH or Deere workers are probably making half in real terms of what their forebears once did. The same holds true for Flint, MI, the NW side of Milwaukee, Toledo Ohio and a host of other manufacturing centers.

The biggest factor in closing the Quad Cities industrial capacity was automation. Nearly 60 percent of industrial job loss nationally has been because of efficiency brought about by automating processes.

It's going to happen with the Postal Service as well. People already have figured out how to get a message to another person quicker, cheaper and better than paper, a stamp and lots of human handling. Reform or die and in the process, the challenge will be what to do with the letter carriers.

[MU82]

It's going to happen with the Postal Service as well. People already have figured out how to get a message to another person quicker, cheaper and better than paper, a stamp and lots of human handling. Reform or die and in the process, the challenge will be what to do with the letter carriers.

Automation and other factors already have had a huge impact on USPS. They have laid off a shyte-load of employees over the last decade.

However ...

Tens of millions of Americans, especially those in rural areas, do not have the interwebs. The mail is still their main way of communication, and it figures to be for many, many more years.

Also, there are some things that one can't get virtually. Today, millions of people receive their medications by mail. Again, that is especially true of those in rural areas.

Now, maybe there will be privatization of all of the above, including medication delivery. But the service will still be necessary.

It's a difficult problem. As is the case with most, there is a lot of nuance, a lot of gray.

[vogue65]

Agreed.  But you and I aren't going to shape it. Extremely wealthy are going to shape it by how they run their corporations and how they influence the political sphere with their wealth.

Assumption being that the extremely wealthy can shape the march of history, the science of economics, the millions of unemployed.  With large industrial corporations, large industrial unions it was possible.  Now with the so-called service gig economy it is no longer possible.  The small business myth has been exposed as a fraud.

[vogue65]

Not going to disagree with the general concept, though I wouldn't tax the automation system so to speak. Generally speaking, the automation system generates more than it destroys at a high level. It certainly can have an overall negative impact at the individual level and I think we should strive to minimize that outcome but not as an extract from the automation itself.

Personal opinion time, and it's totally decoupled from the automation discussion, you want to solve a lot of problems simultaneously? I would wave a wand and enact the following policies:
-Enact a UBI which would effectively include a "stipend" for healthcare (set the UBI to some level that allows for basic living and healthcare expenses)
-Eliminate Medicare and Social Security (leave medicaid and other disability programs in place as that is "solving a different problem")
-Eliminate all other welfare programs (block grants, food programs, etc)
-Make it illegal for employers (both private and public) to directly provide healthcare insurance
-Eliminate the restriction on insurance providers competing across state lines
-Come up with a federal healthcare program that competes on the healthcare market
-Provide a healthcare digital platform for shopping for health insurance
-Tax wealth and corporations differently  so as to reflect the change in the compensation model.

Eliminates several problems:
-Healthcare is no longer tied to employment
-Introduces healthcare insurance providers into a true competitive market
-Creates government efficiency by eliminating all the complexity of the welfare system
-Creates a better and more efficient safety net for all individuals
-Eliminates the gap in social security
-Allows healthcare to find it's true price point (private insurance significantly subsidizes medicare in the current system)
-Government isn't controlling healthcare but it can provide a mechanism for those to acquire for those who need it

At the end of the day, I believe this type of system is both more efficient and more effective for society as a whole.

Sounds like an engineering approach to a social, political, economic problem.  Were that the world be so neat.