this post was submitted on 23 Mar 2025
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Are there any other nations that have privatized their postal services? Really curious to see who that's worked out for so far.
The Belgian Post was half privatized (50% minus 1 share) about 20 years ago, so that it could modernize without direct political meddling and so that there would be external (non politicized + professionel) oversight. That modernization was really needed and it worked out well enough. The company hasn't been without controversies, but it's not a disaster either.
Since that time, they were still given lucrative government subsidies/contracts to provide certain services that were deemed impossible to be made profitable (according to them), but on which they secretly made billions of euros of profit. Hidden subsidies basically, but still far less than what they used to cost the Belgian state before the modernization.
This isn't that far off from the USPS model, but USPS isn't protected from republicans out to destroy it.
Yeah, the political background is completely different, I would not trust the present day usa republicans at all either.
One other very large difference is that, as I understand it, Usps does not get any outside government funding at all, even for their uneconomical activities. On the other hand, the Belgian post did get direct government funding before the partial privatisation (probably lots), and afterwards they've still been receiving subsidies (relatively less) to continue doing uneconomical things. Which means that even if the privatisation of Usps is done in an orderly and conscientious manner, afterwards they will no longer self subsidize those uneconomical activities, leaving the bill to be picked up by the tax payer, or those activities to be cancelled. Either way, the usa public will be worse off than they are now.
So, far, far more corruption and inefficiency than before.
No.
You just said yes but okay bro
I said "That modernization was really needed and it worked out well enough. The company hasn't been without controversies, but it's not a disaster either."
That you conclude from that, that the company is now less efficient + more corrupt than before, has 2 possible explanations:
Idk if anyone told you this but gullible is written on the ceiling
?
Edit to add: the insult makes no sense in the context of the discussion, so what the hell?
Oh, you're a bot, my bad.
Don't know any nation that does, but also US already has FedEx, UPS, DHL and others. They could deliver letters if they wanted, but they don't think that's profitable.
The privatization looks like it's essentially stealing all assets USPS has.
BTW there are protests about it https://nalc.org/march23 I recommend to attend them.
So there is a little bit of nuance. They could deliver letters, but they wouldn't have legal access to mailboxes... Which is a pretty big hinderance.
Not saying I disagree, just that it's one edge USPS has verse their massive mandate.
Congress could easily pass a law giving them access instead privatizing.
Actually it looks like the private delivery companies is they could they would prefer USPS do the last mile delivery and in fact they do that for the cheaper offerings.
Congress has a hard time passing legislation. Doing so would effectively kill USPS anyway. There is no way they could compete with their mandates.
No they don't, they passed several they just chose not to interfere with whatever trump is doing.
Royal Mail in the UK was privatized.
https://www.fool.co.uk/2023/05/18/royal-mails-privatisation-10-years-on/
Yeah that went great.
One crazy outcome was that the Royal Mail's enforcement division (mall cops) were still legally real police even though their job was now to protect the company's revenue. This ended up enabling them to convict thousands of employees of theft and then railroading them through the court system after botching accounting software screwed up their books:
https://www.bbc.com/news/business-56718036
Yikes, that seems bad.
Australia Post runs as a commercial business and is self funded... But it's wholly owned by the government. So it runs as a business without government assistance.
From what I understand that's how USPS operates too. It generates enough revenue to be self sufficient and is not receiving any funding from the government.
It receives negative funding from the government. That is, Congress mandates things that would be unachievable for any corporation in an attempt to destroy it.