What?  Giving you specific combinations of zip codes doesn't cut it?

Ok, internet for dummies, er utter fucking retards, I be insulting dummies.

Go to www.usps.com.

Click calculate postage.

With the left mouse button.

Click go under calculate domestic postage.

Pick your package and weight of choice, and for zip codes, pick anything you want to and 74743, you know, besides another zip code right next to it.  Portland, Miami, LA, take your pick.

Change the time to 10am so we don't blame the extra day on dropoff times, and click continue.

I've even used a Dallas zip code and it's still two fucking days to get here.  DFW is the closest main hub, just a three hour truck ride.  You can use any Alaskan zip code and achieve the same results short of picking Seattle and Anchorage.  Their info says Express Mail is 1-2 days depending on location, their estimated arrival backs it up.  It's no different than UPS Second Day Air, which routinely arrives the next day between hubs or close locations.  It's a two day air delivery service that gets there early when it's an easy matter.

As for the rest of your idiocy, no, the government does not do something better by providing a cheap service that is payed for by a ridiculously expensive service.  This is why I sent you to their financials, which clearly show, as they break even or close to it on the whole, that they are losing massive amounts of money on those competitive package shipping methods.  They make it up in their monopolized first class and mass mail where they charge two to three times the direct cost instead of just barely above cost as they do on packages.

You do not do something better by losing money at prices other companies make a profit at, and charging your customers indirectly through other services to break even.  You are a hypocrit.

See - actually providing details is important since, for instance, evidently I *can* get a guarantee from Indianapolis *to* Hugo Oklahoma, but not the other way around - it's these little details that give us what is commonly known as "Reproducability" - the ability to "reproduce" results, showing that the results of a specific experiment were no0 generated due to a known flaw in the experiments and so on.

And hey - you are quite right - USPS can only guarantee 2-days for $20 service from the great city of Hugo OK (Pop 5,536)  to Indianapolis, when, for a mere two to four time the price, I can get guaranteed one day service from UPS. This would mean that, under certain well picked circumstances, it is possible for UPS to outperform the United States Post Office - for a mere four times the price.

Of course, that was never what your original statement was. Your original statement was

This means that there is *no* zip code combination and date guarantee in which the public USPS provides service cheaper than the private for profit UPS. I have still provided a half dozen examples where it turns out USPS is better, and your statement that it is categorically true is still, y'know, false.

And no, with apologies, I'm not going to call it a draw. I won this because he made a stupid, idealogically driven statement that left no room for facts that contradicted his worldview. If he had said 'most often', 'under many circumstances' or any of the other things that mean "I have this philosophy, but there may be circumstances where it doesn't apply", he would be an adult that considers the possiblilty that he might be wrong about something.

But he didn't - he went to extra effort to say his philosophy was always right, and anyone that thought otherwise was a fool or a liar. I have no patience for that kind of idiot, I have no sympathy for that kind of idiot, and I will not cede the field to that kind of idiot.

He has three options:

A.) He can prove his thesis, that categorically no public enterprise ever does a better job thatn any private enterprise - regardless of any specific facts. A Categorical argument being disproved by a single counterexample, and those counterexamples having been provided, this option is no longer open to him.

B.) He can grow up and concede that there might be circumstances in which his philosohy has limits, or

C.) He can not grow up, not prove his thesis, and keep it up until either one or both of us banned, or I finally get bored of playing with him.

Sadly for those of you bored at watching this thread, I happen to be both philosophically disinclined to rewarding idiotic categorical statements, and easily amused (I heartily concede this to be a character flaw on my part - I like arguments, both for the sake of my learning something new if I lose, and for the amusement value.), and in his turn he shows no signs of growing up and considering the possibility he shouldn't make idiotic categorical statements.

With apologies, Jonnan

Golly Gee willickers, so, your current theory is that the USPS doing the same service for less money than UPS is *not* relevant to a discussion of whether or not a public service can be performed for less money than a private company?

Oh, well why didn't you just say so Psychoak, gee, if I'd known we were going to debate the question of whether a public service could ever under any circumstance perform better than a private company without comparing things like services or prices, I would have simply called you a psychotic loser with delusions of adequacy at the time - ROFLMAO.

Jonnan

If we kicked the crap out of each other in our arguments more often, we'd be better off.  Congress would never have passed those bloated budgets if there was a good chance one of their constituents was going to kill them for it.  Our selfish need to feel good and avoid hurting each others feelings is what got us into this crapfest.

I'm sitting here arguing with a bald faced liar that claims the postal service is efficient because it loses billions to offer competitive prices.  I've already proven my case a dozen times and he simply insults me and spouts nonsense.  Civility is earned.

Jonnan, find the nearest elementary school, and sit in on some math lessons.

Cost and Revenue Analysis

Fact, USPS has competitive rates with UPS and FedEx on Packages.

Fact, USPS only competes with UPS and FedEx on packages

Fact, USPS has no competitors in their other business operations

Fact, packages account for a small fraction of USPS total revenue, less than one tenth.

Fact, package shipments have the second highest cost margins behind periodicals, which are also less than one tenth of the revenue.

Fact, presorted first class mail accounts for more revenue than parcel post, priority mail and periodicals combined.

Fact, presorted first class mail has a cost coverage in excess of 250%, while parcel post comes in at 104%, periodicals at 83%, and priority mail at 128%.

Fact, the USPS comes close to breaking even on the whole and usually loses money.

From this, there is only one conclusion.

Fact, the USPS loses massive amounts of money on package shipping in order to pretend to give you a good deal, while charging exhorbitantly on their other services to cover the losses and avoid being seen by the blissfully ignorant general population as the hulking piece of shit they are.

No Civility is demanded, Respect is earned. 

I do agree that the discussion of ideas is good for all parts involved but it be done as I said in civilized manner.  

@ thread name change. Should have been done about 6 pages ago.

No - they actually have *better* rates than UPS and Fedex.

Actually, from those premises, you can't have any conclusions, because you've stated they compete only in cetain areas, asserted that the USPS is less efficient in areas in which they don't compete and then generaliized from that assertion to saying that obviously the USPS must be less efficient than the private sector in those areas in which they do compete.

The name of this logical fallacy is "Begging the Question" - the conclusion you're trying to reach is actually hidden in the premise you're using to reach it.

Fortunately, I can bypass all that by simply comparing the areas they *do* compete it, by, you know, looking the UPS financial statement for 2007.

Assuming, despite your circular logic that you are actually right, and UPS is more efficinet at delivering packages than the USPS, then one can reasonable conclude the UPS has a better profit margin than the USPS on domestic shippings.

So, per your PDF of Fiscal year 2007, the USPS moves 348,613,000 packages, averaging ~4.5 lbs each, with revenues of $3.461 Billion, expense of $3.353 Billion, and a profit of $108 Million, or ~ 3% profit.

For nearly equivalent services, UPS charges 2-4 times the price, with ten times the volume (3,491,964,000 packages), so, given even the same efficiency, you would expect revenues of (3.461*10* I'll call it 2.5 on the 2-4 scale) ) ~86.5 Billion, expenses of (3.353*10) 33.5 Billion, and a profit on the order of 53 Billion. 

So - let us look it up!

Ah - no - Not according to the filing they made with the SEC. They took a loss Pschoak ~$1.5 Billion in U.S. Domestic, even after raising their rates from 2006.

And there's your fundamental problem in a nutshell Psychoak - assuming you're right about the obvious doesn't mean the universe actually will agree with you, no matter how obvious it would seem that it just *has* to. So you have to check the actual facts - on the area where they actually directly compete, I don't *have* to accept some logical theory based in who is theoretically more efficient according to Milton Friedman, I can actually look it up, and the Post Office made a profit in 2007 on Domestic Parcels, while UPS took a loss.

Not really the fault of UPS - if you look to 2006 for both companies, they *both* did better in 2006 - UPS did a *lot* better (about $4.5 Billion in profits), and the Post Office did about twice as well; but UPS provides  a premium service, and the Post Office provide a no frills minimum service, and so, and so, of course it was more affected by a slowdown in the economy. People decided to go with a more efficient and cheaper basic service.

And the government is good at efficiently providing a minimum basic service. So the UPS went from enormously profitable at it's premium service for those that could afford it to taking a massive loss, while the government chugged along efficiently providing a minimal basic, but cheap and consistent service that anyone could afford, and which we can't afford to have keel over because of one bad year.

And in turn, because even the Post Office did worse on their no frills cheap service, I paid an extra $14 in taxes in 2007 because the USPS basic service covers some things that aren't going to ever make a direct profit - like the fact the the USPS doesn't charge extra for delivering to servicepeople.

Yeah - that's one of those unprofitable "Free Services" that the $14 underwrites.

Also services for the blind and disabled, shipping books for interlibrary loan, making sure newspapers and periodicals can be delivered relatively inexpensively keeping people informed about news, and other stuff that needs done, but can't get done if you have to worry about a falling stock price attracting a corporate raider that's going to buy your company up and sell off the pieces.

Is it perfect  - obviously not, but I never tried to claim it was.

But it does provide, cheaply and efficiently, a minimum baseline service that doesn't have to worry about keeping investors happy, while leaving a perfectly good market open for a premium service that may fulfill specific needs.

But trying to pretend that the UPS could magically fill the need for the services the USPS provides, when obviously they can't compete with it even in terms of those basic services in which they do compete head to head during shifting economic climes, is engaging in "magical fairy land" thinking.

Jonnan