Meatball wrote on 2023-04-17, 19:34:

The US is mostly socialist as it is.

While this probably comes down to specific definitions of socialism, generally most Commonwealth countries and European countries would be considered more socialist than the U.S.

Insofar as the U.S. goes, there was a study awhile back that demonstrated that the biggest driver in U.S. politics was lobbying, not votes: Testing Theories of American Politics: Elites, Interest Groups, and Average Citizens

Multivariate analysis indicates that economic elites and organized groups representing business interests have substantial independent impacts on U.S. government policy, while average citizens and mass-based interest groups have little or no independent influence.

This probably explains why the U.S. still lacks universal health care, and struggles to tackle ongoing issues like gun violence.

I have a feeling the USA government is going to make the US Postal service a privately owned company soon.
They have always been talking about it and with all the changes happening in commerce in America I think it might happen soon. It actually makes allot of sense since allot of stores are closing the brick and mortar stores and going with online sales only.

Intel486dx33 wrote on 2023-04-17, 21:39:

I have a feeling the USA government is going to make the US Postal service a privately owned company soon.
They have always been talking about it and with all the changes happening in commerce in America I think it might happen soon. It actually makes allot of sense since allot of stores are closing the brick and mortar stores and going with online sales only.

I hope that the government is at least wise enough to hold some shares on the postal service then.
That way, things don't go out of control soon, at least.
That's what our government did with the Deutsche Bahn AG (DB, German train service).
It's a joint-stock company, but the government holds shares.

Edit: Of course, it's not a simple task to compare those two countries.
Many things are different, while some are astonishing similar between those two.
I just hope things will go well. The postal service is much more than just letters/mails and parcels.
A postal office has/had some kind of authority, it's a the foundation of bureaucracy/democracy.
In my place, postal office staff could have documents notarized, confim identity of people etc.

Intel486dx33 wrote on 2023-04-17, 21:39:

I have a feeling the USA government is going to make the US Postal service a privately owned company soon.

That would be a bit of a loose-loose situation. If it's failing to be solvent now...

a) No company is going to take it on if it's perpetually loosing money.
b) If a company does take it on, it will have to substantially raise prices in order to be profitable.
c) If a company takes it on which is subsidised by the government to keep it running with serivces it currently does, a margin needs to be created (to pay shareholders) so either prices go up substantially to cover the dividends or quality/quantity of service goes down (since funding will be split between providing the service and paying dividends, which previously didn't need to be paid)... or both. IF both, the US tax payer will get less service after paying more money (taxes) for it, so that is probably the worst scenario that could happen 🙁. Maybe robots could make it profitable.

This is ofcourse the fundmanetal nature of state owned vs private owned. State owned isn't about making profit, it's about providing the service (as long as it is budgeted by taxes correctly). Private owned is primarily about making profit (service is sold to make money, and only money put back in to sell more service if it is profitable in the short term, or belived to be made profitable in the long term).

Intel486dx33 wrote on 2023-04-17, 21:39:

They have always been talking about it and with all the changes happening in commerce in America I think it might happen soon. It actually makes allot of sense since allot of stores are closing the brick and mortar stores and going with online sales only.

Is that going to change much in the future though? I would have thought most businesses which can survive already have made the transition, b&m's have been on the death march ofr a few years now, the ones left are probably only there as they are the top of the food/retail chain.

tbh it sounds like the prices us Europeans have had to pay for the last 4/5 years due to ebay global shipping program/Fedex/USPS deciding to overnight pretty much triple shipping costs. I gave up buying stuff from the US/Canada as they raised shipping prices beyond all comprehension. Cheaper to get it from Australia or fly over personally on a plane (at least I would be able to have jolly as well as buying something).

Yeah, just like NASA is spinning off workloads to SpaceX, Blue origin, and Virgin Galactic.
I see the government doing the same with the postal service.

wbahnassi wrote on 2023-04-17, 05:47:

Turned out they were using the new stupid eBay International Shipping Program, which replaced the previous less-stupid-but-still […]
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Turned out they were using the new stupid eBay International Shipping Program, which replaced the previous less-stupid-but-still-stupid Global Shipping Program, and tripled the price along the way despite eBay claiming it's cheaper for everybody.
The seller then changed the listing to offer also shipping using standard international shipping, which goes via USPS snail mail route, but the cost goes back to 13$‐15$ for a big box game. I think this clears USPS from being all at fault here.

My guess is that the new International Shipping Program is simply making customers always pay for a possible return label, as the program guarantees to the seller cost-free returns should any return ticket occur from the customer.
The Global Shipping Program was more reasonable (~25$) but didn't offer this feature AFAIK.. so there you go.

Great observation, I didn't think of that! I would venture so far as to say eBay simply found a way to skim much more off the top of their already 15% profit on each sale by jacking up the cost for them to ship internationally at the convenience of the seller, and just bend the buyer over the table. They've already shown their propensity for greed by bumping up the average cost of selling on eBay from about 3% back in the day to about 15% now. EBay really needs a competitor to take them down a peg or two.

In the mean time, I'll have to make sure my listed items aren't set to use the International shipping program so buyers don't get scammed.

Here in spain ebay become too expensive, and import from USA is imposible now

Before i buy alot from usa, a shame

Jo22 wrote on 2023-04-17, 19:28:

^That sounds like a horror scenario indeed. Here in Germany, privatization wasn't exactly rainbows and sunshine. We had a federa […]
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^That sounds like a horror scenario indeed.
Here in Germany, privatization wasn't exactly rainbows and sunshine.
We had a federal postal service (Deutsche Bundespost) that did split up in Telekom AG and Deutsche Post AG and Postbank (?) in the early 90s.

Later, Telekom also had its subsidiaries T-Mobile and T-Online. DHL parcel service also emerged.
At first, it looked very promising. The dusty old postal service/telephone service was being tansformed into a hip and modern company. Or so it seemed.

By the late 90s/early 00s, things had changed. At least in my opinion. Euphoria was gone, visions were gone.
The national online service (BTX/Datex-J) was retired, ISDN had been given up on, no more video telephony. Fibre glass now was their enemy. *sigh*

While the old postal service was very bureaucratic, slow and old-fashioned, it did at least do it's job dutiful and was dependable.
The equipment they had was rock solid and the telephone sockets they installed were of high quality and correct impedance etc. Their technicians were a bit outdated, but otherwise knew what they were doing in their job.

Nowadays, it's all cheap plastic, only a few true technicians remained. Or so it seems. Overall, it seems as if the company feels totally unresponsible towards citizens.
Anyway, that's merely little Germany.

The US is much bigger. I really wish them good luck, hopefully they won't lose their federal post-office soon. Capitalism is exploitation, after all. A private company wouldn't do much good, I'm afraid.

I'm very grateful our drinking water is still under supervision by the state/city/government and not in the hands of private companies.
Once that's the case, quality would drop soon, I'm afraid. The equipment wouldn't be serviced anymore, bacteria would infect people etc.
Because, even now, there's a money shortage. There water is a bit too calcareous in my city, but there's no extra money available to install additional filters at the water works.

Here in spain, thank god almost all shipping options are private company now, because postal service is terrible

Now postal service is half goverment/half private and work a little better,hope they make 100% private soon

All service the goverment touch, service not work anymore

theelf wrote on 2023-04-17, 23:49:

All service the goverment touch, service not work anymore

That, my friend, is a quote for the ages! I laughed out loud when I read that because it's 100% true here in the US as well. Literally everything our government gets involved in turns to shit.