I’m trying to be just amazed at this:
President Trump on Friday threatened to block an emergency loan to shore up the U.S. Postal Service unless it dramatically raised shipping prices on online retailers, an unprecedented move to seize control of the agency that analysts said could plunge its finances into a deeper hole.
“The Postal Service is a joke,” Trump told reporters in the Oval Office. To obtain a $10 billion line of credit Congress approved this month, “The post office should raise the price of a package by approximately four times,” he said. [WaPo]
Why should the USPS take the advice of a “businessman” who has failed many, many times? Why should anyone even pay attention to his laborious business claims?
But raising USPS prices so sharply may not have the impact the president desires, analysts said, as it would put postal services prices far above those of UPS and FedEx, allowing them to raise prices a little and still gain market share, they said.
“This is about as catastrophically stupid an idea that anyone could ever imagine,” said Mark Cohen, director of retail studies at Columbia University Business School. “As if anyone from Amazon to the local mom and pop delivery businesses would ever put up with a rate increase like that when they have alternatives.”
Jon Gold, the vice president of supply chain and customs policy at the National Retail Federation, said in a statement that higher prices would “significantly hurt rural communities and small businesses in addition to USPS.”
Tell me again why we’re expecting any business sense out of this failed businessman? He should be critiquing actors, not companies.
