I just sat down and read that article and I didn't get any sort of sense of how important the USPS is. I did get a sense of how badly it's run, how powerful the

I just sat down and read that article and I didn't get any sort of sense of how important the USPS is. I did get a sense of how badly it's run, how powerful the employees's union is, how quickly (even in 1994) businesses were moving to electronic communication in order to route around the USPS, and how unlikely any sort of improvement is. Franzen even writes, near the end, "The attachement of Americans to their post office is pure nostalgia." I have my own nostalgia for post offices of my youth, but the move away from the USPS for important communications has been going on for a long time.