These activities are absolutely not rare. They are rarely prosecuted, but they are absolutely not rare. Fuel is a great example, both on a global level and a local one. Every year some local consortium of gas stations gets nailed for price fixing, and almost every industry has a landmark price fixing case that occurred in the last 20 years.

Internet is the current hot button topic in that regard, especially in Cambridge. A duopoly can be just as bad as a monopoly, because all it takes is an off the record game of golf and you've created massive profits with no risk of anti-trust or monopoly crackdown.

Why do you think that fedex and ups would be engaging in illegal price fixing schemes if it were not for the USPS?

Most companies don’t have a government competitor and these sorts of activities are rare and result in serious penalties.

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no, there are other insulin manufacturers. The big European manufacturers like Sanofi charge a lot. It’s just simply incorrect to act like Eli Lilly is some evil entity when they aren’t actually overcharging anyone.

Those are examples of things that were at one time private and have been nationalized for the most part. Aspects are still contracted out, and like you said, grids are privately owned, but much of the work to get rural areas electrified was federally managed.

I also think it's good to note that the Postal service keeps private services from price gouging. Even if it doesn't turn a profit, if forced the leading corporations to compete against a third actor, which prevents them from colluding.

Total number of deliveries seems like a bad metric consider the vast majority of mail received by people is junk mail that no one wants to begin with.

You may have a point regarding distribution network, I don’t know enough about that.

It would seem it’s not cheaper though. I guess I should have clarified that that was most of what I was curious about.

They deliver a lot more packages to a lot more people and do it cheaper. Their main financial woes stem from Congress requiring them to pre-fund retirement in a way no company does and could be fixed easily.

Ahh yes that must be why millions of Americans need to ration their monthly insulin rx! It’s just too affordable

By the metric of total number of deliveries and widest distribution network. USPS must deliver to everyone, not just profitable locations like FedEx and UPS

By what metric are they doing a better job than ups or fedex?

The postal service

I’m asking for examples where government does it better than a competing private business.

Also not all of this is even government owned. The us power grid for example is not

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Best I can do is new bike lanes within the bike lanes.

98% of countries, actually. It’s closing in on Germany for 4th in the world

So yes, I’d say they’re in a slightly better financial position to make this happen

and out of curiosity, I looked up and did some back of the envelope math. If you look instead at GDP per capita, you have ~480B / 5M ~= 95k / person.

That's roughly what this page said (though it's Boston-Camb-Newton), where it's the 6th wealthiest metro area in the country, in that respect.

I know it's not the whole story, though, and safe pharma production is a whole thing.

If they send me the recipe I can start homebrewing it in my bathtub

> If a government can do it better and cheaper than capitalism

Genuinely curious but what are some examples of this?

(Besides healthcare in the US)

Yes, I expect my umbilical cord to Comcast will outlive the useful life of my frontal lobes. Frustrating...

Well, first — there are people who live there who do enjoy the change. There are also people who hate any change but will possibly change their minds as they get used to it.

Second — these streets belong to the city and are funded and used by all residents of the city. I’m not sure why people live in the city if they can’t accept that.

Hoyt Field has public tennis courts! It's about a 10-minute walk from Central Square.

Eli Lilly literally has vouchers for anyone to get insulin for $35.

And it's also not a bike lane.

Several years ago, Starry abandoned new installs in buildings with fewer than 50 units.