Re: Legal Monopoly

I predict in another fifty years the Postal Service will largely be nonexistant because the IT technology will have replaced it (as it has largely done so through e-mail) with bill mailings, tax forms, and other deliverables. Just look at the Entertainment Industry; soon, you will be able to download movies on a much grander scale than you can now, so there will be no need to buy the DVD's.

Re: Legal Monopoly

The Postal Service has been independent of the Govt. since 1971 and has not received any taxpayer dollars since 1982. The reason for the big losses they have incurred is the requirement, by law, that they prepay to OPM $5 BILLION a year to fund the costs of future retiree health benefits, the only federal agency required to do so. And, unlike UPS and FedEx, they are prohibited, again by law, from raising rates to compensate for shifts in the economic tide--when gas prices were at an all time high UPS and FedEx instituted surcharges to offset those gains. Each penny increase in gas prices cost USPS an estimated $8 MILLION. Be careful what you wish for with privatization. For a private carrier to provide universal service to every home and business in America now delivered by the Postal Service, rates would have to be substantially increased, probably double the cost paid by consumers now.

Re: Legal Monopoly

Of course we could. We could select the lowest bidder. They would hire people at the lowest possible pay & benefits. The caliber of people, their training, & their dedication for being comittted & long term workers would be highly varied. They would probably never match the current government work force, as a whole. They would probably hire some illegal workers & people with criminal back grounds. (do you really want them touching your mail??) The service level would drop, as they promise one thing with the winning bid of the contract & the actual delivery to the US citizens. Cut hours, closed facilities, higher fees, quality control issues, crime.... Only a "dead ender", "Bushmonger", & neo-con would want this.

Re: Legal Monopoly

until the unworkable union contracts are rescinded there is no hope for the survival of the PO. the work rules date back to Ben Franklin and they still use the same terminology

Re: Legal Monopoly

"Only a "dead ender", "Bushmonger", & neo-con would want this. "

Very nice - personally attack somebody who has a different viewpoint than yours. That's usually a last resort employed by extremists when losing a debate.

Re: Legal Monopoly

Fed Worker & Union Guy, are you saying those issues don't exist in the PO, that they are a huge problem with FedEx/UPS, or that the American public is too stupid to select their own service based on its merits?

How about this. The cheap, crappy mail service that would inevitably spring up would be accepted by some. Then a competing, higher-quality higher-priced agency would compete for those (like you and me) who don't want crappy mail service. Then, miracle of miracles, the crappy service would probably get better and keep a lower price! Then the higher-quality service would have to cut costs!

You're acting as though the current monopolizing mail service is somehow above the problems you mentioned, or as if somehow one crappy mail service would dominate and monopolize the entire market. Well, they are right now; that wouldn't be the case if the free market were allowed to do its thing.

Re: Freezing oy exec sal

There are other places the USPS could cut costs that are very obvious.

I lived in Central Oregon from 1990 to 1999 and there are two little towns (Crescent and Gilchrist) about 50 miles south of Bend that have a combined population of about 500 people, (with a very sparse rural populatiuon in the surrounding area since it is mostly National Forest Land, or else timber company lands). BOTH of these towns had their own Post Office, EACH with it's own full-time Postmaster, and the PO's were only a mile apart! What a waste!