Trump Says `Post Office Scam’ Must Stop – Trump Has it Wrong
If you don’t take the time to understand the problems facing USPS you wouldn’t understand where the real problems lie. Trump has taken on a lot of protectionist positions, some of them agree with mainly his foreign positions on trade. However this domestic dispute he’s starting could be a disater a quote you should pay close attention is this one
“‘Economic Benefits’
But the postal service’s losses have little to do with Amazon and more to do with its large health-care obligations and the dwindling use of first-class mail. The post office charges some of the world’s lowest stamp prices.”
The above quote can be found by going here:
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-03-31/trump-says-amazon-s-post-office-scam-must-stop-in-fresh-attack
Similar problems plague Canada Post, Canada Post has been profitable for years what’s not profitable about Canada Post are the entitlements of their retired employees. The difference in America is that their postal service hasn’t raised their prices here in Canada, a lot of business aren’t competitive on an international scale because the Canadian postal service continues to raise it’s prices to meet the demands of unionized employees.
The flaws in Domestic Protectionism
Also what’s happened in Canada regarding Amazon is Amazon created a private shipping option for Amazon Prime members which is actually undermining Canada Posts fees. This doesn’t mean that Amazon doesn’t use Canada Post, however Amazon Canada positioned itself not to be reliant on Canada Post. Also because of how Amazon is structured where it’s merchants in many respects wind up paying for custom charges Amazon is in effect become a live competitor of Canada post, meaning that larger it gets based on it’s current model the more Canada Post sets to lose if Canada Post to decides to raise it’s fees to high.
This is why I can see that Donald Trump doesn’t fully understand Amazon’s business model. The truth is if USPS is smart they may not want to raise their fees too high, however what they will want to do is lower employee costs. This is problem with Unions in the 21st century. This is the reason why protectionist hate the internet and want to limit what people can say or do on the internet. Being that Trump is a bit of a protectionist himself this is going to be something I can see Trump having a problem wrestling with. Because if you start promoting protectionist measures on a domestic level well… I think Americans are going to pay more unnecessarily.
It looks to me that USPS is already profitable, but it’s also liable in other areas! Should taxpayers be forced to pay union dues?
Again USPS is already profitable where its’ not profitable is taking care of its unionized employees. We have the same problem in Canada. American Postal Workers Union fought for things as a group and that’s fine, unfortunately protectionism has it’s flaws and it flaws reside in unexpected innovations. This is the problem with protectionism, protectionism assumes that things will never change.
Protection is prayer that everything remains the same for now and into eternity, protectionism is a form of marxism, instead of becoming the competitor protectionism hopes to protect people from the real world where competition is key to lowering prices and creating a vibrant competitive environment. The reality is custom officers are all that are necessary, the private sector can deal with all pricing issues. However if like Canada Post, USPS has a monopoly in the courier industry in America, truth be told that giving them more protectionism might be the wrong thing to do.