this post was submitted on 23 Mar 2025
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United States | News & Politics

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[–] nokturne213@sopuli.xyz 44 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago)

Wells Fargo stole our house (illegal foreclosure) and nothing happened to them. They also took 5 years to mark our debt as paid, so it stuck on our credit reports for far too long.

[–] Zier@fedia.io 28 points 3 weeks ago

Wells Fargo, who was creating fake bank accounts and signing up customers for services they had no idea about? Fraud! Never trust this 'bank'.

[–] mutual_ayed 27 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)
[–] tonytins@pawb.social 14 points 3 weeks ago

I know, right? They sure as hell are trying to bring us back to their so-called "good ol' days."

[–] NutWrench@lemmy.ml 8 points 3 weeks ago

The current Postmaster General and Trump pick (DeJoy) has a conflict of interest (owns stock in UPS and DHL). He tried to sabotage the 2020 election by performing "maintenance" on mail sorting machines to prevent mail-in ballots from being counted.

[–] Chozo@fedia.io 6 points 3 weeks ago (4 children)

Are there any other nations that have privatized their postal services? Really curious to see who that's worked out for so far.

[–] takeda@lemm.ee 13 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

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.

[–] Corkyskog -1 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago) (1 children)

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.

[–] takeda@lemm.ee 1 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

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.

[–] Corkyskog 1 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

Congress has a hard time passing legislation. Doing so would effectively kill USPS anyway. There is no way they could compete with their mandates.

[–] takeda@lemm.ee 1 points 3 weeks ago

No they don't, they passed several they just chose not to interfere with whatever trump is doing.

[–] reddig33@lemmy.world 5 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago) (2 children)
[–] Chozo@fedia.io 6 points 3 weeks ago

And over the 10 years since privatisation, there’s been a negative total return of 18.9%. But hey, let’s not complain too loudly: over five years, there was a negative total return of just over 51.5%.

Yikes, that seems bad.

[–] anachronist@midwest.social 6 points 3 weeks ago

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

[–] RunawayFixer@lemmy.world 3 points 3 weeks ago (2 children)

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.

[–] easily3667@lemmus.org 2 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

This isn't that far off from the USPS model, but USPS isn't protected from republicans out to destroy it.

[–] RunawayFixer@lemmy.world 1 points 3 weeks ago

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.

[–] DragonTypeWyvern@midwest.social 1 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

So, far, far more corruption and inefficiency than before.

[–] RunawayFixer@lemmy.world 0 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)
[–] DragonTypeWyvern@midwest.social 1 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

You just said yes but okay bro

[–] RunawayFixer@lemmy.world 0 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

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:

  1. you lack reading comprehension. And/or
  2. you read the things that you want to read, ignoring what was actually said.
[–] DragonTypeWyvern@midwest.social 1 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

Idk if anyone told you this but gullible is written on the ceiling

[–] RunawayFixer@lemmy.world 0 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago) (1 children)

?

Edit to add: the insult makes no sense in the context of the discussion, so what the hell?

[–] DragonTypeWyvern@midwest.social 1 points 3 weeks ago

Oh, you're a bot, my bad.

[–] veroxii@aussie.zone 3 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

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.

[–] takeda@lemm.ee 11 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago) (1 children)

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.

[–] easily3667@lemmus.org 2 points 3 weeks ago

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.

[–] TacoButtPlug 1 points 2 weeks ago

And then the people rose up and burnt Wells Fargo into ash on the ground