U.S. Postal Service going belly up.

Post Reply New Topic

Take a look at this:

http://www.thirdage.com/news/usps-going ... 09-05-2011

and

http://abcnews.go.com/Business/postal-o ... d=14449522

If the United States Postal Service can't do something simple like deliver the mail, what can they do right (besides lie to the people and get us into unnecessary wars)?

ruveyn

Sigh. Each market is affected by different types of dynamics, so the Postal Service isn't a reliable measure of the Government's overall suitability in every type of market. Seeing as the Government is established as a monolithic, centralized macro-managing structure it is effective for things that are suited for that. Private charity for example is very localized and due to its decentralization it doesn't have standardized quality control which is why we have taxation and social assistance. Oh and private charity also have layers upon layers of bureaucracy which ends up with a lot of the money being siphoned before it even reaches the people its supposed to. And of course there is the same potential for corruption since there is no cause, ideal, or campaign that can't be ran like a business.

This illustrates that the government should not be operated like a business, esp. since the Wealth of Nations wasn't published until years later. (Hint: How can you base something on something else before the "something else" existed?, Oh, that's right, just butcher history!! !).

Yeah Uncle Sam can't run a business. I have a feeling much of the profit the US postal service used to bring in was eaten away by package services, that's how the package services stay in business. I think in all probability first class mail would be a loss center for FedEx or UPS or any of the other package services. Yeah they can take it on, but I don't think they want to.

Let it go belly up. It will be obsolete soon enough when everything is digital, private business can pick up the rest.

The solution is to let private firms handle whatever first class mail must be handled. We have several private firms that deliver parcels. They should be able to handle first class mail as well. It will be realistically priced and it is good-bye to rural free delivery. Since the U.S. is mostly an urban country there is no reason to subsidize deliveries to rural customers. They should bear the actual cost of the service. People living in urban densely populated areas will get a break in postal rates, people living out in the sticks will just have to pay more because it costs more to pick up and deliver to them.

ruveyn

The U.S. Postal Service has statutory obligations in its pricing and service. Sure, it could operate more like a for-profit business and charge higher rates to rural customers or not serve them at all. Traditionally, the government has provided services that the private sector could not profit from.

Article 1 Section 8 of the US Constitution empowered the US Congress to establish post offices.

Is there anything else that you don't like about the Constitution?

isn't the postal service still semi-privatized?