April 18, 2007

Are upcoming U.S. postal rate hikes fair? The new rates, which go into effect on July 15, were developed with no public involvement or congressional oversight, and the increased costs could damage hundreds, even thousands, of smaller publications, forcing many to the brink of bankruptcy. This includes virtually every political journal in the nation. (Shockingly, the new plan was drafted by Time Warner, the largest magazine publisher in the nation. All evidence available, as Robert McChesney explains in an editorial on CommonDreams, suggests the bureaucrats responsible have never considered the implications of their draconian reforms for small and independent publishers.)
posted by HawthorneWingo 17 years ago
  • *runs to the post office and buy a Forever Stamp*
  • I'm having trouble typing today... buys a Forever Stamp!
  • Back on topic though, that's just plain wrong. While a publication like The Nation will be able to cover the additional yearly expense, smaller publications will surely fold or be forced to engage in postal hacking or publishing in electronic format only. *shakes fist at Time Warner*
  • ARRRRRGH!! NOT AGAIN! No it's not fair. But will they listen. Not hardly. So much for the mailing on the magazines I enjoy reading--and they're not published by Time-Warner.
  • Slightly off topic. It had occurred to me this morning that if everyone returned the 'postage paid be addressee' envelopes (empty of course) that are part of the junk mail we receive, it's similar to buying stamps, in that money flows to the post office. If enough people did that, would it have delayed or nullified these hikes? / off topic
  • Neither plan is telling me what, precisely, the changes are. Are the price hikes on a "per unit mailed" rate, or on a "per pound mailed" rate? I smell obfuscation to make a point. Would a "per unit"-biased rate hike be disproportionate to small and medium-sized outlets simply because they tend to have physically smaller and lighter issues? I'm not getting any details here, so permit me to withhold my outrage.
  • I noticed the same thing, chimaera. Wavering between your POV and the assumption that spelling it out fully would be all complex and shit.
  • I never get any of that high-toned prepaid junk mail. My junk mailers expect me to pay my own damn 39 cents.
  • I'd be more than happy to have an opinion on the matter, especially considering that my righteous outrage glands and muscles are in prime operating condition after the last few years of being worked out, but why aren't The Nation telling us how the new system is unfair? All they're saying is "This OTHER proposal by $evil_conglomerate which was was adopted under $shady_deal is unfairly hurting us poor, honorable Tellers of Truth." If that's the case, then why not tell us any details of the change? I love to get all riled up about injustices, but this sounds more like PR BS.
  • Lots of details. Complicated details.
  • I understand that the hike goes into effect May 14. And that the Forever Stamp will cost $.41, and will be available starting on May 14th.
  • From the National Review: 'The U.S. Postal Board of Governors recently decided to jack up mailing rates on periodicals, with a disproportionate share of the increase falling on smaller, independent publishers — such as National Review. Our estimated hike is a whopping 16 percent, which will cost well over $100,000. Other publishers face increases of 20 percent and up — this is sure to put some out of business. 'Postal-rate hikes make strange bedfellows: NR has joined an alliance of opinion magazines, including The American Spectator, The Nation, and Mother Jones, to battle these new rates. There's a congressional hearing coming up to investigate them, and that's good news, but what is truly needed to stave off disaster is for citizens to contact the USPS governors and let them know that this proposed increase will have — to use a favorite term of our friends on the left — a "chilling effect" on political debate in print.'
  • So if I'm getting this right, smaller periodicals used to get a break, and now they're not going to? A little different than a hike.
  • Used to pay one amount, now have to pay more -- sounds like a rate hike to me.
  • Yeah, but they used to pay a discounted amount. Now they pay what everyone else pays. I don't see that as unfair.
  • Apropos of nothing, I'm pissed that the TLS isn't offerring me a renewal at the same $58 they let me buy in at. Now they want $111. Now, it's a quality publication and all, but, umm, yeah.
  • Well, Lara, except that it threatens to lessen the number of small periodicals in the country, and the policy of discounts for small periodicals has been in effect for more than 200 years. The rich get richer in terms of decreased competition. You don't think it's a bigger issue than just "everyone should pay the same price for stamps"?
  • I don't, actually. Although I'm a very liberal person, I don't believe small business should get that kind of special break. I'm a citizen who is poorer than many. Should I pay less for stamps than my wealthy neighbor? Maybe I should, but I don't. Don't think the stamp analogy is good, because I don't need stamps for my livelihood? What about electricitu. Should I pay less per killowatt for power? Do small businesses pay less for the paper they print their periodicals on? If you're liberal enough to believe small businesses should get a break, are you then liberal enough to think that the loss of revenue from stamps could be going to fund more social programs? If anyone believes that these small periodicals should stay in business, and that the quality is there, they'll be willing to pay an extra 50 cents a month for their subscription.
  • And I guess what I'm really annoyed at is the terminology. It may just be a matter of semantics (and I may be am pedantic), but taking away a discount is not the same thing as raising a rate. They may amount to the same ending, but they're not the same thing.
  • electricitu is what you use to power your gnu, btw
  • Lara, that's an interesting point. (Your main argument, not that electricitu powers gnus, although that's pretty darn interesting in and of itself). Here in CA, when the Governor did away with the Vehicle License Fee discount, a LOT of people complained that he was "tripling the registration cost". In fact, written into the law/provision/whatever was language that stated there was a break on the VLF since times were good, but when they got bad, it could and should be revoked. I really didn't like the idea of paying a lot more to register my car, but I didn't see it as an increase/hike.
  • I never really get upset at postage hikes. To get a postcard from New York to Maui, for twenty-four cents -- that's pretty incredible. A physical object, transported those thousands of miles, for twenty-four cents. I mean, really. And as a Canadian, I'd pay about twice that to get something from my house to Iqaluit.
  • *mails unnecessary postcard to Maui, puts it on Louie's tab*
  • Are you for a flat income tax, Lara? Do you think welfare is unfair to people who can afford health care? Etc. There are lots of ways we ask people/groups with different means to shoulder different amounts of the financial burden, with the goal of a better society for all. IMHO this fits in this category, though I respect the fact that you don't agree.
  • I guess I feel that this is an arbitrary benefit. So small businesses get tax breaks and cheaper postage. Why isn't the paper these magazines are printed on subsidized? Why don't they get cheaper electriciy? Why can't they pay their workers less of a minimum wage? Should small businesses get everything cheaper than big businesses, because they're small? Should poorer people pay less for a gallon of milk than rich people. You may say yes, but that's not the way a capitalist society works. Welfare is a different story, because it's about survival at its most basic level, not prosperity. And when our society truly asks people/groups with different means to shoulder different amounts, and we don't cut Medicare with one hand and decrease taxes for the wealthiest 10% of the population with the other, then I might think differently. But right now it's an arbitrary benefit (not one that was ever guaranteed to last forever, if I understand correctly), and one I don't see as doing in an industry. Maybe I'm underestimating the scope, but postage is so cheap as it is, that I can't imagine a change making or breaking most small publishers.
  • After wading through as much of the detail as I could follow, my take on this is pretty much the same as Lara's. The Nation and the small presses are screaming about a rate hike when, in reality, it is the loss of a discount. I don't accept the logic that the discontinuation of a discount is the same as a targeted rate hike, just as I didn't accept the California Teachers' Association claim that a less-than-asked-for budget increase (even though the increase was greater than inflation) was a budget cut. Am I sympathetic? Not as much as if they'd come clean on it from the start. Hardly at all, in fact. And if they're willing to play a bullshit PR "woe is me, the big bully is hiking our rates to put us out of business" card when the reality is "the big bully is taking away our discounts even though we need them to survive," well, I would've been more sympathetic to the second. But that's not what they said. As far as I'm concerned, The Nation can choke on that $500k cost for lying to me about it.
  • I don't know, Lara. Your framing of the issue is that small publishers have enjoyed a discount. You could just as easily frame it as a rate structure issue. E.g. do students going to a museum get "the student discount," or do they pay "the student rate"? In this case, there's also the issue that the rate structure has been existence for a long, long time. Small publishers have launched periodicals because the postal rate structure made it viable to do so. In one fell swoop, they're being forced to pay significantly more -- after Time Warner, a competitor with deep pockets, spent the kind of money the small publishers don't have to pressure the postal service to change its original rate-increase plan and adopt one that caused a much greater rate increase for small publishers. The nation's readers are quite possibly going to lose some of the traditional diversity of publications available; a sudden increase in costs along the lines of $100K or $500K can absolutely be sufficient to force a small publisher to close its doors. These are often not rolling-in-dough, "we're gonna get rich!" businesses, but more businesses with a focus on public benefit, where journalism is a crusade; many are already on a very tight budget. Time Warner's gonna have less competition if any of 'em go, and it's at least a little fishy that they're gonna go b/c Time Warner used its clout and its pocketbook to pressure the USPS to change its rate-increase plans.
  • As far as I'm concerned, The Nation can choke on that $500k cost for lying to me about it. Wow. Good thing you found something to be outraged about, huh.
  • Eh, I'm over it now. I still don't have any sympathy for people who scream about an injustice with half-truths. I'd say my initial suspicions were correct: they were intentionally hiding the facts to get people on their side. It does piss me off when people resort to lies and half-truths to get me to support something I may have supported if they'd just come out with the truth to start with, it makes me feel like they were trying to use me.
  • You're right chimaera. The Nation and other small publishers saw a threat to their own bottom line, and spun it as a threat to democracy itself. I'd have more sympathy for them if they were honest about their motives.
  • MonkeyFilter: I'd have more sympathy for them if they were honest about their motives. so true!
  • *stands, nods politely
  • I don't know. I still think that if you've been in one rate class for generations, then suddenly you're put in a more expensive rate class, that counts as a rate hike.
  • The Nation and other small publishers saw a threat to their own bottom line, and spun it as a threat to democracy itself. Is it necessarily either-or?
  • On a related note, why can't the flippin' post office keep the rate increases for first-class mail to rounder numbers? $0.39? Now $0.41? I miss the simple elegance of the $0.25 stamp. I'd have been willing to pay $0.40 all this time it's been &0.39 just for the convenience. Now, you kids get off my lawn!
  • From MiserFilter: When I started this job three years ago, I found a box of prestamped envelopes, some at $0.25, some at $0.29, that someone had stuck in a drawer in 1988 and forgotten. I refuse to chuck them; I've been applying additional postage and using them up for mailings to employees and other people we don't need to impress.
  • Bluethread Ho! y'know for, like, other opinions and stuff.
  • I really never do this, but: MonkeyFilter: people we don't need to impress.
  • To follow in TUM's first class postage rate woes... Back when the rate was 29¢, the stamp vending machines weren't "high-tech" enough at that time to return pennies for change. Instead, it would spit out 1¢ stamps (e.g., if you dropped in a quarter and a nickel for a single stamp, the machine would give you a 29¢ stamp and a 1¢ stamp as change). At first, I would throw these seemingly useless stamps away - as did numerous other people from the looks of the trashcan. One day I decided to start saving them. Soon enough, the day came when I had 29 of these 1¢ stamps. I had a letter in need of postage, so out came the glue stick and on went the 29 individual 1¢ stamps! I dropped the letter off with a smile on my face. The following week, I received a call from the friend who I had sent the letter. She said that the mail carrier was going on and on about how "people shouldn't put so many stamps on envelopes!" (it was nearly covered front and back). Not only that, but it was beaten to death in their attempt to hand cancel each and every stamp. They missed a few...
  • Americans, if you're standing, sit down. Come to think of it, if you are surfing while standing, you have it coming. When one goes to a fine and upstanding Canada Post office, one sees what one would expect: an orderly if somewhat sterile place of business, where people are busy doing postal things in an orderly, postal way. On a given day, one might approach the helpful postal clerk, and one might ask to buy stamps. They are readily available. Let's say the stamps in question, for easy math, cost 50 cents apiece, and you want 10 of them. You brandish your five dollar bill, and expect to leave the postal emporium without further ado. There is further ado. To your unspeakable horror, the policies of Canada Post require that you pay TAX upon your purchase of postage, which is, of course, a tax in a manner of speaking, and in the manner I happen to be speaking in now, it is a user tax, wielded by a federal government as partial compensation for a public deed. So, they tax the tax. They tax the tax. I don't know about you, but I am dumping all of my teabags into the Humber bay.