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Comment by thepasswordis | Hacker News Reader

The post office is unfortunately vulnerable to political pressure. Both from their unions, and from the federal government.

Imagine the nightmare of Pete Buttigieg sending down dictates to the post office as he tries to build political career. Look at what’s happening in CA right now: just park the ships far enough offshore that you can’t see them and then claim the problem is solved because there aren’t as many ships waiting, charge the people who are already losing money because they can’t get their containers out of the port fines, and punish them further, claiming this as a political win because it punishes the businesses.

Absolutely no thank you. This is an actual problem that needs real solutions, not politicians grubbing power.

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This comment is pretty disingenuous. Your argument implies that ANY public service is not worth improving, because any government agency is vulnerable to political pressure.

If you think your elected leaders are not competent and professional, then fire them and elect leaders that will improve the government. If you want a better post office, we need to FIX the post office, not destroy it.

This sort of argument is the one that leads to hypocritically de-funding the post office by playing politics, then since it's too political pointing to it and saying "See? The government can't do anything right", then completely dismantling it.

Other countries manage to have public services that actually work. I don't believe that the American people are somehow genetically predisposed to having a bad government.

> Other countries manage to have public services that actually work.

Which countries have something competing with Amazon?

> I don't believe that the American people are somehow genetically predisposed to having a bad government.

All governments are bad. The American people just happen to have alternatives that have revealed how bad some of the overlapping government orgs are so they make a lot of noise about how bad government departments are.

> If you think your elected leaders are not competent and professional, then fire them and elect leaders that will improve the government. If you want a better post office, we need to FIX the post office, not destroy it.

The whole thing is fucked from an incentives perspective. No government employee has motivation to try hard or innovate. There is no shared bonus structure to bring that on in any branch of the government.

When government is competing with an industry, it’s either going to need to run at a loss and live off of other tax revenue or it just won’t be competitive for whoever the customers are.

Any government employee care to weigh in on whether you’re motivated to try hard and innovate? I don’t think I’m being hopelessly optimistic, believing we’ve got a lot of good people in government service, doing their best.

I have a friend that likes the mission at the gov and likes the money at FAANG so he rotates between the two. 2 years at one, 2 years at the other and switch. He could make hundreds of thousands more just be sticking to FAANG.

I worked as a lifeguard many years ago, first for a private company and then for the local government. I tried hard at both jobs, but I was more motivated working for the gov and more importantly much better trained.

The private company worked to maximize revenue which meant minimize training costs, aka one training class every 3 years. In an emergency we would have been totally unprepared.

The local gov trained us every 2 weeks (2 hours on a Saturday) plus random spot testing (threw a dummy somewhere in the pool, you would have to notice it and respond as if it were an actual drowning person). We were extremely prepared.

I certainly have my gripes with the gov (dmv I am looking at you). But the idea that no profit motive equals no one tries hard is so annoying because of how simplistic is. And I constantly hear it from otherwise smart people.

You either hear from outliers then or there is systematic oppression of this innovation in you claim to hear of. If the government was filled with innovative smart people we would see innovative results.

> Which countries have something competing with Amazon?

Amazon have tried to enter the Swedish market and it has been a complete train wreck. The other businesses who were initially worried ended up just confused over how they could screw up as bad as they did.

Amazon has made a lot of mistakes in its history. They can keep trying at the Swedish market perpetually until they get it right.

Of course. With the extreme level of incompetence they have shown so far I do wonder if people in other markets have very low standards. Of course you can provide a crappy service if there are few competitors.

Look up Eni and Enrico Mattei: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enrico_Mattei

Mattei took over the relatively small national oil company in Italy, expanded it aggressively until it was able to compete with the Seven Sisters (Exxon, BP, etc, all not state owned). State owned companies can definitely compete.

Should I add that Mattei died under mysterious circumstances?

You should also add that said company enjoyed a government enforced monopoly on oil and gas extraction, which is basically a license to print money.

Italy barely has any oil and gas resources at a global level. His international deals are what grew Eni.

> Which countries have something competing with Amazon?

All of them? Mail-order catalogs preceded the Internet, even! If you're referring to which other countries have let capitalism run amok to the same degrees - none, we're the only ones that stupid.

Then why does Amazon do so well in other countries?

> that ANY public service is not worth improving

The argument is specific to logistics. Our government has a poor track record in that domain outside the military.

Instead of doubling down on a concentrated bet, increasing competition would seem to be the solution. For example, the federal government could grant porting rights on its property, thereby breaking the Ports of LA & Long Beach’s monopoly.

> The argument is specific to logistics. Our government has a poor track record in that domain outside the military.

US public services have a long track record of being actively sabotaged by governments. See the US Post Office being undermined by Trump's appointment of DeJoy.

> US public services have a long track record of being actively sabotaged by governments. See the US Post Office being undermined by Trump's appointment of DeJoy.

Why they have a poor track record is a separate discussion.

> Why they have a poor track record is a separate discussion.

The whole point is that if you're trying to dismiss an obvious option for it's track record, even though it is quite capable and able to do the legwork, then being aware of the root cause of that problem, and the fact that it's an artificial constraint with ideological roots, is very much central to the discussion.

> being aware of the root cause of that problem, and the fact that it's an artificial constraint with ideological roots, is very much central to the discussion

It's proximate, not central, to the question of whether centralising logistics will improve outcomes.

The central question is whether the USPS, as a centralized, federally-controlled logistics network, works better than its privately-owned, de-centralised freight counterparts. It doesn't. That it's being sabotaged is good to be aware of. But it's not super relevant to the core question, and frankly, an argument against centralization since it suggests moving from a domain where they're being neglected by one set of parties to one where it's being sabotaged by another.

The post office was a mess long before Trump.

The post office has for decades been able to send mail across the country in a few days, anywhere, for less than a buck.

It can work and be efficient just fine if it weren't purposefully hamstrung by people trying to ruin it so it can be privatized.

The post office is increasingly losing business to low cost shippers and high margin business to same-day delivery tech startups. Not only that, their trucks are older than some drivers and the contract to replace them was filled with government pork.

You're never going to get innovation from people who are just trying to work a job for a wage and pension. That's why Amazon is disrupting everyone with their logistics network.

> I don't believe that the American people are somehow genetically predisposed to having a bad government.

I sure do. Nothing is going to change until rejection of authority is no longer foundational to the culture. We literally convinced ourselves that dysfunction and gridlock are features of the system, not bugs.

That’s cultural, not genetic.

sure, that's more accurate. I kind of assumed that's what they meant. in any case changing either significantly is a long shot

In the USA, the best and most competent and professional people have better options than elected office.

The post office does things that private carriers are unable to do: deliver a high volume of units to any valid address. FedEx pushes a fraction of the volume of USPS and is buckling under the strain of the current labor shortage[1]

[1] https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-11-04/labor-sho...

FedEx is so bad now that I avoid buying from sellers that use FedEx for shipping. The last few times I had a FedEx delivery, the delivery status went to pending twice, and the deliveries were a week late. Looking at the Google Maps reviews of the distribution centers where the packages sat, I consider myself lucky to have received the packages at all.

The Post Office doesn't actually deliver to every address. There are hundreds of rural areas where residents get a free PO Box in the nearest town, without the option of home delivery.

So doesn't that mean effectively it does? Last mile shipping is difficult for everyone

Amazon doesn’t really seem to have a long-term solution… they had to ease drug testing requirements at one point recently because their turnover is so high that they were running out of people.

Their last mile drivers are contracted companies that treat their employees so poorly that it’s somewhat typical for them to leave their keys in the van and quit on the spot.

The US Post Office delivered the mail on time for generations until the prior administration got its hands on it.

It's so strange how easily people can be convinced "this never worked, it's not worth even trying". Certainly that's by design

Those people are in theory at least, elected by the American people. Meanwhile Amazon is beholden to whom, wealthy board members and stock holders? How is that better?

Look at reality. Do you want packages stuck at harbor?

My packages are stuck in a harbor regardless. Many major shippers, both public and private are having issues.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2020/09/18/trump-a...

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