This is a t-shirt that someone in my household ordered from a young woman in Thailand. It cost $5.15 to be mailed from Bangkok to New York, where the socialist, unionized postman had the temerity to stop me while I was dog-walking two blocks from my house, just so I could avoid the inconvenience of going to the PO to sign for it.
I resent every penny of my taxes that went toward this outrage, and I long for the day that I am able to crawl from under the crushing weight of the socialist bootheel of the USPS and their axis of foreign postal services. I want my french fries fried in animal fat, and I want to choose an independent, for-profit mail delivery service on the open market. Until then, my daily experience is but a fleeting taste of what true liberty could be.
MagicPanda
Well, to be fair, I actually do want my french fries fried in animal fat.
dpcap
*freedom fries
Doug Harlan J
I never get the hatred of the USPS. I find them easier to deal with UPS by a mile.
Alex S.
If they dissolve the USPS, they’ll give the money to private companies as a subsidy. Rural areas will probably have to pay extra to receive mail. But hey, at least the unions get it….
Fred
Ha….good snark. Thanks for the laugh.
Mmmmm…freeDUMB fries!
Yutsano
Poor wingnuts. Railing on and on about USPS…and it’s in the Constitution. What ya gonna do?
PurpleGirl
@Alex S.: I think rural areas would lose postal delivery services — people would be forced to go to central locations of some sort to pick their mail because the private companies would claim it’s too expensive to have rural routes. As it is FedEx gives things to the USPS to deliver in more rural places.
Villago Delenda Est
@Doug Harlan J:
They’re evil government! Founded by well known soshulist Benjamin Franklin!
mistermix
@Doug Harlan J: I looked it up — It would cost $57.72 for the same letter to be mailed by UPS, though it would be shipped a couple of weeks faster.
Alex S.
@PurpleGirl:
Ah yes, that is even more likely because in the end, nothing will change for private companies. Less change = fewer costs.
quannlace
But look on the bright side. The Republican clown car pulls into New Hampshire tonight for a big debate. Gingrich, Cain, Pawlenty! Should be more entertaining than the Tonys.
jeffreyw
Free market sammich
Svensker
The US postal service delivers a great product at a low price. As someone who used it heavily for our on-line business, I can’t say enough good things about it. We’ve been shipping stuff for almost 10 years without a single loss or damage claim. Compare USPS prices to UPS or Fedex — or to postal service in Europe or Canada? Fuggedabout it. Hands down winner is the good old USofA.
The post office is struggling to adapt to the virtual world, as are many businesses, with the demise of the once profitable first class mail. While I loved being able to take advantage of low-cost shipping, it does seem dumb for everyone in the country to subsidize on-line sellers’ shipping costs. Or does it? What would happen to Amazon if mailing costs weren’t subsidized? Decisions will have to be made on how to handle remaining mail and parcel shipping in the future in all the 1st world countries.
Scott
I love the Post Office so much. Easier to deal with, they’ll ship letters (which UPS charges a shitload for), and they don’t stomp on packages or leave ’em propped up by the door. People who hate the Post Office are crazy.
Yutsano
@quannlace: I will A) be at work and B) be paying much more attention to the Canucks. I don’t expect a lot of heat or light coming out of that, just who can prove their crazy bona fides.
David
Instead of $.42 to send Grandma a card you can FedEx it to her for $14.95. It might cost a little more but at least you won’t be a Socialist stealing from the next generation.
Jon H
Took me a while to figure out that you whited-out the address.
I thought, damn, the address was “United States” and it got to the right place? That’s amazing!
someguy
USPS is basically a private company. They deliver the mail on a fee-for-services basis, and actually subcontract a lot of it out to FedEx and UPS.
Only their budget shortfalls are underwritten by the government. Kind of like Wall Street, except they actually provide some social benefit.
Villago Delenda Est
@quannlace:
There will be more singing and dancing, for one thing.
Zifnab
“Why don’t you just send it FedEx?”
“Fuck no! That shit is expensive.”
Han's Solo
Ironically enough, much of the success the GOP enjoyed during the last few decades has been due to direct mailing, which wouldn’t have been possible without the USPS.
Here is a suggestion: do away with bulk mailing. I’d love to get less junk mail. I’ll just toss it as soon as I get it in any case. Charge all correspondence a base rate of 44cents, that is your floor. Not only will it raise revenue and cut back on USPS workload, it will also help the environment. I mean, how many trees had to die so that I could be informed about death panels?
MagicPanda
Getting serious for just a sec…
It’s fun to make fun of the Koch map, but I find the underlying problems around framing and messaging troublesome.
The right wing is very good at proposing simple (and wrong) answers to complex problems. “We need more freedom. Freedom == less taxes and less regulation”
The left, meanwhile, tends to make everything more complicated. I know this has been discussed to death before, and I know that people here have a variety of different responses to the importance of framing and messaging (e.g., “messaging doesn’t matter” or “democratic positions are more intrinsically nuanced” or “democrats have a more diverse caucus” or “republicans are better at it because they lie” or….)
But IMHO, messaging DOES matter, and our side DOES suck at consistent messaging (relatively speaking) and there is no intrinsic reason why arguments for the left are more difficult to message than ones from the right.
Here are some simple things we could be saying:
“Cutting taxes on rich people doesn’t create jobs.”
“The best way to get the economy started again is to put money back into the hands of consumers.”
etc.
There is nothing intrinsically simple about the notion of supply side economics. It just sounds simple because every single republican talking head has been saying the same thing for 20 years.
Ok. I know my concerns are either naive, unsolvable, or both. Feel free to tell me why.
Fred
@MagicPanda: It’s simpler than that.
The right is better at talking about governing. The left is better at the actual governing.
And the only reason the right is better at talking about it is because they have no problem lying. It is much harder to tell the truth which is why the left is not as good at the messaging.
Gin & Tonic
Snark all you want, but if you haven’t ever had french fries fried in duck fat, then you haven’t lived.
Yutsano
@MagicPanda: Here’s the real issue: the Democratic message isn’t getting out. Period. No matter how much screaming and wailing and shortening of the message. The reason? Everyone’s favorite whipping boy: the media. For whatever reason Republicans are just better for media pocketbooks. Witness the breathless hounding of the Teabillies wherever they pop up regardless of the actual size of the group as opposed to tens of thousands protesting for better Democratic policies and nary a peep about it in the media. Until that calculus is altered the Democrats will always have a tougher time.
Commenting at Balloon Juice since 1937
A lot of stuff that gets shipped UPS, etc ends up at your local PO and that last couple of miles of delivery is handled by the PO. They’re better set up and are running those routes anyway. Conversely, I have sent things via PO and they sub it out to a shipping company for the long distance portion of the trip.
MikeJ
@MagicPanda: But that map wasn’t just less taxes. Washington has no state income tax, yet we were listed as one of the “least free” states. The only reason I can see is because we vote for Democrats.
dpcap
@MagicPanda: I have a canned response for all these:
liar.
liar.
LIAR LIAR PANTS ON FIRE!
MagicPanda
@Fred: Well, I totally agree with you, but the question I’m asking is “why?”
Caring about governance doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t care about messaging. And having simple, clear, consistent messaging is not the same as lying.
In the 70s, advocates for choice were able to make their point clearly. “A woman should be able to make choices about her own body” is simple. And it was said consistently by everyone to the point where it became orthodoxy.
So why are we unable to do that around, say, issues of economics?
cyntax
@Svensker:
Absolutely true. Nobody covers as much geography and as large a population as quickly, cheaply, and reliably as the USPS. Is it no wonder the wingnuts hate it?
Yutsano
@dpcap: And the media will slob the knob of the guy screaming “LIAR!!”. Mostly because he will most likely be a Republican.
Campionrules
Funny rant. You do realize though that the USPS is really in essence a private company that doesn’t receive direct tax dollars?
In fact, although the government and can and does underwrite any budget short falls – it’s not even a government agency.
Lee
@MagicPanda:
I’m a math guy and I’ve started going with:
“Cutting taxes on the rich has never created any jobs” or “There is no data that (whatever)”
If the person I am speaking with runs out the “Cutting taxes….” line I just reply with “Based on what?”. They usually look at me dumbfounded and then I reply with the “There is no data that….”
When they roll out “But I’ve been told….” the following “You have been lied to” usually ends that line of conversation.
Lee
@Campionrules:
Pretty sure we can thank the Republicans for that one (Nixon?).
Bulworth
@MikeJ: Maybe Washington state regulates stuff or, God forbid, employs some kind of affirmative action. Maybe Washington allows gay pride parades, too. Freedom!
MagicPanda
(removed this post, since it got stuck in moderation)
David in NYC
@Jon H:
Maybe not in this case, but another thing that the USPS does that nobody else will is deliver mail that is addressed like that. Every once in a while there will be some story about the dozens of e-mails that were delivered to, say, Tiger Woods, with something like “Tiger Woods/USA” the only address. (I use Tiger as an example because I actually remember reading a story like that, before he had his own weiner problems.)
Imagine what someone like FedEx or UPS would do with items like that. My idiot UPS guy either delivers to the wrong address or just dumps the entire 22-unit building’s packages on the front step, which is why I have everything that is even remotely carry-able delivered to work.
Yutsano
@Bulworth: Well we do have an everything-but-the-word law. But if you at their rankings they regard that as a plus. The big stick up their asses seemed to revolve around eminent domain. Oh and we have one of the strongest workman’s comp systems in the nation. That really got their gourd too.
balconesfault
I know that you’re trying to be ironic, but the radicals on the right really do want to destroy any vestige of government that is viewed as providing valuable service to the average middle class American. There’s been essentially a propaganda war against the USPS for decades, and I think that every time a Koch et al might pass the small town Post Office on their way to a hunting lodge, etc, some mean bile rises up in them that this community feature should be crushed.
Hell, they’re even coming after public libraries.
MagicPanda
@Yutsano: I happen to be one of the folks who doesn’t blame the media (although yes, the media sucks).
I blame ourselves for not working with the media that we have.
The media sees their job as being something like a debate moderator or referee. Their job (as they see it) is to be even-handed and to stay out of the way.
Meanwhile, politicians are responsible for making news. If the Democratic message isn’t getting out, it’s the Democrats who should be thinking about what they can do to get the message out, not the media. They need to MAKE news and bang their drum.
Now in an ideal world, some policy person would just make a single speech and the news would report it and analyze the policy based on its merits. Meanwhile, it would figure out that people wearing tri-corner hats and shouting about sharia aren’t newsworthy.
But that’s just not the world we live in. So I suggest that we Dems should just deal with that and go to the next step, which is to figure out how to get our message out rather than lamenting the fact that it isn’t happening all by itself.
Dream On
@Yutsano: And we can thank Bill Clinton signing the ’90s Telecommunications Act for that tightly consolidated media monopoly. What a guy.
jwb
@Yutsano: It’s not even that Republicans are better for media pocketbooks, it’s that the media is owned and run by rich people.
MagicPanda
@jwb:
Well, that’s true. And it’s a structural deficit that’s hard to overcome.
I still stick by my statement that the Republicans accept the way the media is and their answer is to work the refs as hard as they can to get the coverage they want, whereas Democrats tend to just complain about how the media doesn’t cover them and not know what to do.
bkny
is it too much to ask that one of these overpaid dc press whores ask T-Paw how he sends out his mailers to all the gazillions of his fanboyz?
i’m guessing it’s not the privatized services of fedex/ups/et al … and likely to be that dreaded usps…
does T-Paw even know what it costs to mail a letter? do the overpaid whores of the dc press know? why can’t they ask that very simple question to put T-Paw’s idiocy to rest?
jwb
@dpcap: Yes, and since Republican talking heads outnumber Democratic ones about 4 to 1, you hear the Dem talking point and then four Republicans yell, liar, liar, liar, liar. Then you hear the GOP talking point and the response from the panel is, good stuff, good stuff, liar, good stuff. So the GOP position always looks like a consensus opinion.
Fred
@MagicPanda: Because the issue is not simple.
So the GOP simply lies by saying, “we are going broke and it’s all Obama’s fault”
The left, will say, “George Bush doubled the national debt of 42 previous presidents in only 8 years. He did that by starting 2 wars, cutting taxes on the rich, and giving seniors a prescription drug plan that was not paid for”
So which message do you think will resonate better with the masses? I’ll take dems telling the truth any day even if it means the messaging is more difficult.
rikyrah
I really do get tired of them beating up on the Post Office. both my parents grew up in rural areas. good luck having a PRIVATE COMPANY deliver mail to the rural areas of this country.
Mike in NC
@Yutsano:
Obviously the teabaggers need to amend the Constitution to get rid of all the pesky parts they don’t like. Make it three pages long so even Herman Cain can read it.
kay
@Campionrules:
I used to work for the Postal Service, and this is way too broad. The Postal Service has a universal service duty (by statute) that no private carrier has or would ever accept. They have to offer universal service at a national, consistent, affordable price and they have to offer mail security.
Every address. No matter how unprofitable. I can tell you, it doesn’t take long to figure out that rural areas are unprofitable, particularly when you realize the Postal Service is carrying FedEx the “last mile”.
The objective is to break even, not to make money, which makes them fundamentally different than a private for-profit.
Yutsano
@kay: Not to mention under federal pay and taxation rules they are regarded as federal workers. Though they do have their own version of OPM.
jwb
@MagicPanda: It’s easy to work the refs when the refs are being paid by your side. The Dems do have to figure out a way to solve their media problem, but as with so much it is not a problem with a simple solution—or rather the simple solution, buying a media company that has a similar reach to Fox, is extremely expensive.
Villago Delenda Est
@MagicPanda:
That’s not their job at all, and they know it.
It’s to generate controversy that attracts viewers who they can then sell to advertisers.
It’s all about the ratings. Every hour of every day. Nothing more. If people are actually informed along the way, it’s a byproduct of the actual job of the US media. Which is to attract an audience so that advertisers seeking to reach an audience will pay them for.
kay
@Han’s Solo:
I see your point about bulk mail, and political mail actually gets two subsidies: they get bulk and they get a sort of political speech subsidy, but on balance, I think the USPS is good for the environment.
Rural people mail order everything, and they did that long before the internet. Tires, saw blades, clothes, animals (baby chicks, but I once delivered a full-grown swan), food, seed, well, you get the picture. They’re not driving to purchase those things. There’s one delivery vehicle replacing god knows how many pick up trucks. So in the areas of the country where there’s vast miles to cover, it makes sense.
MagicPanda
@Fred: I don’t get your example. It seems like exactly the kind of thing that you can choose to say in a simple way or a complex way.
Would it be lying to say “Bush caused the recession and Obama fixing it?” Isn’t that as simple as the GOP talking point you gave?
Here is the disconnect I see.
Democrats know that their message isn’t getting out. So their instinctive answer is to explain the facts that bolster their case (e.g., doubled the national debt in 8 years).
Meanwhile, I am saying that the reason the Democrat message isn’t getting out is because they need to say the same, simple thing over and over again.
Saying dozens of facts is not a substitute for clear messaging. In many cases, saying something simple over and over again is a better way to get through to people than saying a lot of facts.
kc
I want to choose an independent, for-profit mail delivery service on the open market
If you were a typical conservative, you’d demand vouchers for that, and you’d call it “Delivery Choice.”
kay
@Yutsano:
They are. I once did a stint in the dead letter office, which isn’t an office, but is a run-down booth in the back where eccentric people work who are obsessive about detail. It is absolutely amazing what they will go thru to deliver a piece of first class mail, without opening it. It’s like breaking a code.
They get really good at guessing what was intended by this crazy made-up address.
MagicPanda
@Villago Delenda Est:
True. Except that I would add that the media are more like vampires that feed on controversy that exists out there in the political wild. And the GOP is better at manufacturing TV-ready controversy to bolster their case (e.g., the Brooks Brothers riot).
NonyNony
@kc:
Oh Grod – I can totally see this becoming a Republican cause in the near future.
Probably once they get done dismantling the public school system.
jane from hell
@Han’s Solo: amen to the bulk mail bullshit. We subsidize the vendors again with our fees for trash/recycling. Junk mail is a HUGE portion of my recycling.
kay
@Yutsano:
I used to get shit from the political pre-curser to Tea Partiers (I don’t know-did we used to call them “assholes”?) anyway, they would complain that I was wasting their tax money by working in their tiny rural post office. It isn’t factually true, but what the hell. Since I was ONE PERSON, I would ask them how we could cut costs. We’d have to close, right, because this place can’t be open with less than one person?
MagicPanda
BTW, my point behind all my complaining is not to point fingers at other Democrats.
I just feel that instead of complaining about the way the world is, we should feel free to take power into our own hands to fight for what we believe in.
So instead of talking about how the media is not doing their job, we should be getting our message out there given that the media only cares about ratings and a superficial appearance of even-handedness.
Instead of complaining about how the general public is easily swayed by simple catchphrases, we should give them something simple to remember what we stand for.
When we say IOKIYAR, we are not powerless. The media largely serves as a reflection of what the parties do.
Instead of expecting the media to call out the Republicans for being hypocrites, the Democrats have to call out the Republicans. Then, the media can say “well, according to the Democrats, the Republicans are hypocrites”.
(note: I realize the irony of me complaining on the comments of this here blog that all Democrats know how to do is complain instead of fight. I promise during the 2012 election to actually do other stuff to make a difference. :-)
fasteddie9318
@Doug Harlan J: USPS is very much a YMMV deal. Chicago’s postal service is legendarily bad, and while the folks I deal with for work are lovely and have never caused me a problem, the branch that handles my home mail was a frigging disaster that only recently seems to be improving.
karen marie
Did you all know that the mailboxes and green mail-holding boxes the UPS has on street corners are stamped with the year they were made on the bottom corner?
You can almost trace the growth of your city or town by walking around and checking the dates on the boxes.
And thank you for this post extolling the virtues of the USPS. It has long been a pet peeve of mine that it gets so much bad press when it does such a terrific job at a very low cost.
It took 53 years for the price of a first-class stamp to increase by 40 cents. Considering infrastructure costs and inflation, that is truly remarkable.
Gin & Tonic
Those complaining about “junk mail” should be aware that third class (bulk/pre-sort) actually subsidizes first-class. Bulk mailers do a lot of work to bundle and pre-sort their mail, meaning that the USPS has to do much less work. Most non-ideological papers I’ve seen indicate that the price the USPS charges for those deliveries is considerably higher than its costs. So eliminate the “junk mail” and you’ll just pay more to send that birthday card to your Aunt Sylvia.
JK
It is easy for the Republicans to just put this xandu out there of “free markets”. Their argument is very black and white. It is difficult to counter this argument with a just as simple argument b/c the Democrats counter argument is to “govern smarter/better”. There are basic services that need to be managed outside of the corruption/exploitation of “free markets”. Free markets look for ways to minimize service to maximize profits. See “pre-exisiting condition clause” in insurance industry. Do you really think that Univ. of Wisconsin students will receive better network service at a better price now that a private carrier will be providing the service? Greed rules in free markets. Customers suffer. Owners get fat.
gene108
@Villago Delenda Est:
Too bad the silly Founders forgot to make sure the Post Office would be part of the Constitution, therefore changing the attitude of 21st century right-wingers in an instant, because everything in the Constitution has been divinely inspired and is therefore perfect.
Villago Delenda Est
To include the clause in Article VI about religious tests and public office.
spark
Down with the government post office, which charges me .44 cents in government scrip to mail a letter!
(Yes I know that when the free market gets its hands on the postal service, my rates will go up. But the union socialist mailmen will be fucked even worse! *malevolent leprechaun teabag jig*)
spark
Down with the government post office, which charges me .44 cents in government scrip to mail a letter!
(Yes I know that when the free market gets its hands on the postal service, my rates will go up. But the union soshlist mailmen will be fucked even worse! malevolent leprechaun teabag jig)
Ruckus
What I’d like the post office to do is to raise their rates more than 2 cents at a time so they don’t have to do it so often. As well as raise the bulk mail rates so it pays for itself. Bulk mail may be easier to handle at the drop off end, it isn’t at the delivery end. So it can be somewhat cheaper than first but it should not be subsidized.
Gin & Tonic
@Ruckus:
It isn’t. In fact the converse is true.
tkogrumpy
While I agree with the thrust of this post, attention must be paid to the elephant in the back room of the post office.My brother spent two decades in the South Boston postal annex, during which he was constantly belly-aching to me about the featherbedding, slowdowns, sleeping on the job etc. He was one of the few people in a very large workforce who was actually pulling his weight, which his co-workers apparently hated him for. When he won the Mass. lottery for $7.5 Million his co-workers literally force him out of his job to make room for someone who “needed “the job more. He also made clear to me that Boston was the norm, not the exception. One can only speculate how efficient the post office could be if they really tried.
Davis X. Machina
Think of the poor postman who stopped and gave you your package.
So long as one of us, somewhere, is covered by a collective bargaining agreement, how can any of us, anywhere, truly call ourselves ‘free’?
blondie
@Han’s Solo: Hah! Right, let’s also abolish the franking privilege.
ruemara
@Gin & Tonic:
making this for my 4th of July bbq.
Last meeting I had to broadcast had a commissioner ranting against budget cuts that would leave his municipality with less cops and less firemen during fire season. I snorted and said, yeah but we can just contract that out to the free market and use contractors instead of expensive big government union employees with fancy pensions. Don’t you like the free market principles? He laughed and said yeah, I’m a registered libertarian but you’ll still pay more with contractors not less, it’s better to make deals now to have decent firemen & policemen and make cuts to waste and add a few small tax increase. I had to laugh. I told him he’s not a very good libertarian if he still believes in math.
This was my brush with libertarian greatness.
PurpleGirl
Article I, Section 8, Clause 7 of the United States Constitution, known as the Postal Clause or the Postal Power, empowers Congress “To establish Post Offices and post Roads”.
Ruckus
@Gin & Tonic:
That’s not what I was told a few years ago when I worked for a non-profit which bulk mailed about a half a million or more pieces a year.
I have looked for supporting info and don’t find any easily. Do you have a source?
MagicPanda
@Lee: Love that response!
jafd
A couple of decades back, ’twas an employee of the coroner’s office in Philadelphia who was making some extra cash (illegally) by removing parts from unclaimed bodies and shipping them to a firm in Salt Lake City that cleaned them off and sold them to biology labs, etc.
Until one hot summer day the post office employees in Louisville noticed a package that smelled really bad. And was leaking. And, when opened, was found to contain four detached human heads.
Well, the former employee of the coroner was tried for ‘abuse of corpse’ and several other charges, and convicted. Taking him to the jail, the baliff said “You’d’ve saved everyone a lot of trouble if you just used Federal Express.”
“Yeah,” the miscreant replied, “but they charge an arm and a leg.”
Gin & Tonic
@Ruckus: Depends on what you mean by a “few years.” The amount of the subsidy to non-profits has been declining for some time. In legislation, the term was “revenue forgone,” and efforts have been under way to reduce it starting in 1993 or so. A fairly dense study of the subject is found here. Probably an over-long quote from that is:
Ruckus
@Gin & Tonic:
Thanks!
A few yrs in this case was about 10. So still somewhat true then but not what I was led to believe. And it looks like not true at all anymore.
Mnemosyne
@MagicPanda:
Here’s the problem, though:
Of course it does — St. Reagan proved it.
That’s what tax cuts will do, so clearly you agree with the Republican plan.
We do need simpler messaging, but those are far too easily refuted and turned around to support the Republican position.
Alan
What’s the detest fascination with french fries cooked in animal fat? I’m at the age of dropping dead from a heart attack. To me, taking fish oil to get my Omega-3s isn’t enough. To keep my omega-6 to omega-3 ratio in balance I also avoid oils that are loaded with omega-6–which pretty much includes all vegetable oils. Coconut oil and animal fat (preferably 100% grass fed tallow) are my safest bet.
maus
It always amuses me how many USPS employees (including some of my family) are union-hating Becktards. They’re quick to point out that it budgets itself just fine, but never call for it to be privatized. Funny, that.
Snowwy
To add my two cents:
That article you linked way up there advocating abolishing the postal service? yeah, I couldn’t keep reading that beyond the gargantuan wall of fail presented by his conveniently restrictive definition of monopoly.
MagicPanda
@Mnemosyne: So your point is that just because a simple message won’t overturn years of GOP messaging in a single day that we shouldn’t try to come up with a coherent message?
High level messaging takes time. You have to say the same thing over and over again, sometimes for years and years.
Or is your point that my particular attempts were sucky? Because you’re probably right. I invite people (and our elected officials, especially) to come up with better ones, and then use them.
“A woman has a right to choose what happens to her own body” (and variations thereof) is a message that people have been saying for years. It hasn’t changed the opinions of 100% of the people out there, but the message is clear and effective, and a heck of a lot better than being mealy-mouthed.
I just want a similarly clear position on other issues, especially economics. The GOP stand for “reduce the size of government” and “lower taxes”. Meanwhile, the Democrats stand for… what? I’m not even sure sometimes.
Caz
They are losing billions of dollars each year. You really think we should keep throwing money down the USPS pit? We ought to follow Germany’s lead on this issue and privatize the USPS. Mail delivery service should be wholly within the private market’s purview. Companies can compete for our money, bringing more efficiency, innovation, and quality to the mail delivery service. Why anyone wants to continue this govt disaster known as the USPS is beyond me. Unless you actually like when the govt wastes taxpayer dollars. Aren’t we having enough financial problems without wasting billions of dollars a year insisting that the govt should run the mail delivery of the nation? There is not a single valid reason for keeping the USPS under govt control. If there is, I’m all ears.
rt
Caz – here’s one good reason. The USPS has established routes and workers who go to every address in this nation every day of the week except Sunday. They are the designated network of distribution for medicines/prophylaxis to citizens in the event of a regional or nationwide chemical/biological attack.
Secondly, ask England how well the privatization of their postal service went.
Nylund
Has anyone else read this article on the privatized postal service they have in the Netherlands? It sounds absolutely horrid. Numerous companies that deliver mails at different times on different days who rely on students and pensioners to sort and deliver the mail for less than minimum wage. The description of the lady overwhelmed with crates of unsorted mail, letters just sitting for months in her apartment, sounds pretty terrible.