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I'm willing to bet that if there a private company had to operate under the same stifling rules as the USPS, they would have quit a long time ago. The USPS cou
by ajays 15y ago
I'm willing to bet that if there a private company had to operate under the same stifling rules as the USPS, they would have quit a long time ago.
The USPS could raise the price of delivering mail to match the costs. BUT THEY CAN'T! Even though the Government does NOT provide any funding to the USPS, the Government (specifically, the Congress) keeps thwarting the USPS' efforts to operate like a business.
You want to fix the USPS? Take away the Congress's ability to interfere with it. The USPS' only mandate should be to deliver mail to every physical address. That's it. Just let them fix their rates, their benefits, etc. and I'm willing to bet they'd be just fine.
- jonknee 15y agoThe stifling rules go both ways--USPS has a government granted and enforced monopoly on mail. It may be a shitty business, but at least you can't have competition.
- digikata 15y ago"USPS has a government granted and enforced monopoly on mail." What? Does Fedex and UPS know?
- jonknee 15y agoYes, which is why no one else delivers non-urgent mail. You'll get shut down by the postal inspector.
- deleted 15y ago[deleted]
- digikata 15y agoNo one else delivers mail to a post box. But private enterprises don't have many barriers here - they are free to convince their customers to accept delivery elsewhere, or put up a private delivery box - many newspapers do it this way. Companies have already picked off the most profitable areas of mail delivery, overnight mail and packages manage to deliver to your doorstop. The USPS is stuck with mandated delivery scope which was taken on by our founding fathers. That mandate could be debated, but making this a private vs public efficiency polemic seems a little strained.
- ajays 15y agoThe vast majority of the routes that the USPS runs are money losers. Try delivering a 44-cent piece on a mule to the Havasupai at the bottom of the Grand Canyon. Don't you think, the way the Congress can be bought, that a private company that thought it could do the USPS' job wouldn't have bought its way in?
- jonknee 15y agoThe vast majority of mail isn't delivered to the money losing routes the USPS always likes to mention (mules, snowmobiles, bush planes, etc). The vast majority of mail is bulk rate and sent from/to urban areas.