Postal Hike Coming "Up", Biggest Yet

True, but they can only raise the cost so high without forcing buyers to go elsewhere. While China has the largest known rare earths deposits, there are also large deposits in Brazil, Australia, Russia, and India. The Chinese are presently mining them the cheapest, but how much of an increase in price can they sustain before it makes more sense to buy elsewhere?

 

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Disappointing, I guess I’ll stop by the Post Office tomorrow and stock up on those forever stamps. To think that the cost of mailing a letter was just 39 cents 10 years ago.

About the post office itself, it probably wouldn’t have made a difference if it was privatized or not- prices would be the same. Also, in many post offices here in the Bay Area, (as of early 2010s) the service is terrible, and I’m pretty sure it wouldn’t change with privatization.

 

Socialism has a price.

 

It was 4¢ when I graduated from high school, and 10¢ just before our Bicentennial. The USPO decided then that all first class mail should go at the Airmail rate, so the cost of a stamp rose 3¢ in 1976.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_United_States_postage_rates

 

Actually, non-political junk mail makes money for USPS and helps pay for losses in first class and elsewhere. Most political junk mail also makes money. The exception is political junk sent by sitting members of congress. It's free for them, which means the rest of us pay for it.

Cal

 

I learned patience ordering from the Mint back in the early 70's. Order your proof and mint sets in February, checks were cashed immediately (no credit cards accepted), no way to track your order or cancel it, and your sets showed up in November. If they sold out it might take them a year or more to let you know, and that they would be sending you a refund at some point. (The law that requires a company to give you the option of cancelling an order if they can't ship it within 30 days does not apply to the government)

But who owns those other deposits? It may be like with platinum. Most platinum group metals come from Russia. Our Platinum and Paladium eagles have to use domestically mined metal. There is only one significant source of Platinum group metals in the US and that mine is owned by a Russian company. So we have to buy our domestic Platinum from Russia. Russia also owns a very significant portion of US mined Uranium as well. I wouldn't be surprised if those other rare earth metals deposits aren't owned by China as well.

 

Clearly it's a complicated issue but I'm thankful for the USPS. I live in a US territory. USPS considers us domestic. Shipping by any other carrier (FedEx, UPS, DHL) costs 2x, 3x, or even 4x as much and involves extra paperwork.

Most of the postal workers I've encountered here and in the mainland US are very helpful and friendly.

 

I got curious and started looking around the internet, found an article but haven't had time to look for more. Evidently the "rare earths" aren't really all that rare, they're just a huge pain to process. Prior to china entering the market and driving prices down, the US was the worlds major producer, but the processing plants were shut down because it became cheaper to buy from china than produce our own (surprise surprise). I just wonder at what price point would it become profitable to reopen our processing facilities?
https://www.theverge.com/2018/4/17/17246444/rare-earth-metals-discovery-japan-china-monopoly

 

Yes, expressed as percent of the earth's crust, the rare earth metals are more common than mercury, cadmium and silver. Some are as common as copper, nickel, zinc and lead. The biggest problem is that they are well distributed, so concentrated ores are scarce. And, yes, extraction procedures are expensive too.

Last operating mine in the US was the Mountain Pass Mine in Calif. It and the processing facility could be re-opened with a government subsidy. A less expensive plan would be for the government to pay to keep them in readiness, but not pay for actual operation at present.

Cal

 

What we are seeing is the slow collapse of the U.S. Dollar. When I was a kid, gasoline was 25 cents a gallon (unless there was a gas war). What is the value of the silver in a 1964 quarter? How much is a gallon of gas today? About the same, right. The government has manipulated the dollar with the invisible tax - inflation.

 

Gas today is far cheaper than it was 50 years ago... adjusted for inflation and incomes. There was a town that was in a constant state of gas wars about 150 miles from where I went to college. I made it a point to be running on empty whenever I was headed home at holidays so that I could take advantage of the prices there; they were usually 9¢ up to 11¢ while the rest of the state had normalized on about 32¢. The least I ever paid there was 6¢ per gallon. Even so, at an average of 32¢ per gallon — which was a fairly typical price east of the Mississippi then — it's not about the same today; I'd say it's comparatively cheap. Otherwise I'm with you, gas is the exception.

 

Gas is cheaper today because of inflation. But what he was saying is that when gas was a quarter a gallon, the same silver quarter value today, is still = to 1 gallon of gas.