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Almost every sentence you wrote is wrong... All regulation is not "bad" or you must be totally ignorant on the history of regulation in the US and having some

Almost every sentence you wrote is wrong... All regulation is not "bad" or you must be totally ignorant on the history of regulation in the US and having some regulation does not mean being "heavily regulated". Nothing that has been regulated has ever done better then the free market? One example you give, the USPS is certainly not becoming better because of being privatized. You must be under 25... At one time, the USPS did mostly one thing, delivering first class mail and they did it really well, to anywhere in the US for like 10 cents. It WAS THE MODEL for the rest of the world. Now? They raise first class postage like every six months and keep entering into more deals with direct marketers to distribute even more junk mail to us. Not better... Hey, totally government controlled nor a "free market" is going to be the answer. Any solution will take time and one thing we can't do right now is end Net Neutrality which will only make things worse. I have said this like 10x now in this thread...

Alupis 12y ago
> You must be under 25 Great to see you fall to personal attacks in attempt of proving your point. You are wrong btw... The point I'm making and the point you're missing is that any regulations/legislation is not going to change anything overnight. It will take years, no matter what it done. Perhaps longer with legislation due to the speed of government. A slowly rolled out, 5-8 year legislated plan is a lot worse than a slowly ramped up 5-8 year private business competition and proliferation. When businesses compete, the consumer wins. When businesses get regulated but still have no competition, the consumer loses. You seem to be completely glossing over this very important point. We need more competition -- not more regulation. One does not simply regulate their way into competition. > At one time, the USPS did mostly one thing, delivering first class mail and they did it really well, to anywhere in the US for like 10 cents There are realities here you are not addressing. Dramatic increase in gasoline prices -- dramatic decrease in volume of mail, to name a few. This is why the USPS system is struggling today, and the reason they've been allowed to mostly "go private". The old system was also heavily subsidized by the US Gov't, which isn't happening anymore. If you look at package mail transport (since only USPS can deliver letters to mailboxes), the competition is fierce between USPS, FedEX and UPS. Often times, UPS/FedEX are a lot cheaper to send a package through. (I know because I work for an distribution company w/ warehouse). We've seen some initiatives from USPS to recapture the package shipment market since they went privatish with their "if it fits, it ships campaign", but they still have a long ways to go. This is a great example where private companies in competition have way outbeat the regulated portions in the same industry. You're "we should regulate today to save tomorrow" attitude holds no water here. Contrary, we should develop today to save tomorrow; develop more competition.
- 01Michael10 12y ago
  Saying "you must be under 25" counts as a personal attack? Dude, the Internet may be a little to intense for you. My apologizes if that really offended you... I don't know what 5-8 year legislated plan you are talking about. My immediate concern is preserving Net Neutrality (the way the Internet has always worked) and that can be corrected right now with the reclassification of ISPs. That is only step one... The USPS should have been split up... First class mail delivery (no profit) run by the government and a private entity for package delivery. They could have shared resources and faculties. Requiring UPS and FedEx to also do first class mail delivery would have been another idea. Just privatizing the USPS with the burden of first class mail delivery and thinking they will ever be able to compete with UPS and FedEx in the long run was stupid.
rgbrenner 12y ago
> At one time, the USPS did mostly one thing, delivering first class mail and they did it really well, to anywhere in the US for like 10 cents. Is this your version of, "back in my day a candy bar was a nickle"? Because the last time a stamp was 10 cents was 1975.. which would be 43 cents today. It's called inflation. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_United_States_postage_rates http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_United_States_postag...
- 01Michael10 12y ago
  You say with inflation the price of a first class stamp should be 43 cents? It's 49 cents right now... Thanks, your link seems to prove my point... Approximately, in the first 100 years of the postal service the price went form 2 cents to 10 cents which is a 5x increase. In the year 1971, which is when the government stopped managing the postal service (this is close to our year of 1975) the price has increased another 5x to today but that has only been 39 years. Inflation has only been one factor in the changing price of first class postage over the years but thanks for your comment...
  - rgbrenner 12y ago
    On that same page, you'll see an inflation adjusted chart of postage prices since the postage service started: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_United_States_postage_rates#mediaviewer/File:US_Postage_History.svg http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_United_States_postag... The light purple is the inflation adjusted price (2008 prices); and the dark purple is the nominal price. That is remarkably flat (inflation adjusted). Fact is, it's been roughly 45 cents to mail a letter since the postal service began. Sure, there were times when it was cheaper.. but it was ~43 cents in 1890; 40 cents in 1975 (2008 prices); and 45 cents today (49 cents is 45 cents in 2008 prices.. which is what the chart uses).
    - 01Michael10 12y ago
      I guess my argument has not been clear... I am glad you are good at reading Wikipedia charts but ONCE AGAIN inflation has never been the only factor in first class stamp pricing then or now. Sure, over the long term the cost of anything will tend to match inflation. I have been mainly talking about recent short term pricing of stamps... The original argument (by Alupis) was that the government privatizing the postal system has been making things better for consumers (compared to when it was a government agency). It has not... There has been nine price increases since 2001! This has NOT been because of inflation which has been minimal and stable. The reason has been pension mandates by the government (due to politics) and the decline of first class mail usage. First class mail service has never been overly profitable which is why I argued a essential service like that is better run by the government (especially since the post office is not totally an independent enterprise anyway) and not a private profit-driven organization. The government never would have raised stamp prices nine times in the last 13 years (based on past history) if they were still running the post office which means stamp prices would not have keep pace with inflation (over the last 100 years) incidentally. They would most likely have addressed the pension mandate and taken other measures to keep stamp prices more stable (to not piss off the consumers aka voters). It is also doubtful they would be making deals with direct marketers to flood us with more junk mail.

Alupis 12y ago

> You must be under 25 Great to see you fall to personal attacks in attempt of proving your point. You are wrong btw... The point I'm making and the point you're missing is that any regulations/legislation is not going to change anything overnight. It will take years, no matter what it done. Perhaps longer with legislation due to the speed of government. A slowly rolled out, 5-8 year legislated plan is a lot worse than a slowly ramped up 5-8 year private business competition and proliferation. When businesses compete, the consumer wins. When businesses get regulated but still have no competition, the consumer loses. You seem to be completely glossing over this very important point. We need more competition -- not more regulation. One does not simply regulate their way into competition. > At one time, the USPS did mostly one thing, delivering first class mail and they did it really well, to anywhere in the US for like 10 cents There are realities here you are not addressing. Dramatic increase in gasoline prices -- dramatic decrease in volume of mail, to name a few. This is why the USPS system is struggling today, and the reason they've been allowed to mostly "go private". The old system was also heavily subsidized by the US Gov't, which isn't happening anymore. If you look at package mail transport (since only USPS can deliver letters to mailboxes), the competition is fierce between USPS, FedEX and UPS. Often times, UPS/FedEX are a lot cheaper to send a package through. (I know because I work for an distribution company w/ warehouse). We've seen some initiatives from USPS to recapture the package shipment market since they went privatish with their "if it fits, it ships campaign", but they still have a long ways to go. This is a great example where private companies in competition have way outbeat the regulated portions in the same industry. You're "we should regulate today to save tomorrow" attitude holds no water here. Contrary, we should develop today to save tomorrow; develop more competition.

01Michael10 12y ago
Saying "you must be under 25" counts as a personal attack? Dude, the Internet may be a little to intense for you. My apologizes if that really offended you... I don't know what 5-8 year legislated plan you are talking about. My immediate concern is preserving Net Neutrality (the way the Internet has always worked) and that can be corrected right now with the reclassification of ISPs. That is only step one... The USPS should have been split up... First class mail delivery (no profit) run by the government and a private entity for package delivery. They could have shared resources and faculties. Requiring UPS and FedEx to also do first class mail delivery would have been another idea. Just privatizing the USPS with the burden of first class mail delivery and thinking they will ever be able to compete with UPS and FedEx in the long run was stupid.

rgbrenner 12y ago

> At one time, the USPS did mostly one thing, delivering first class mail and they did it really well, to anywhere in the US for like 10 cents. Is this your version of, "back in my day a candy bar was a nickle"? Because the last time a stamp was 10 cents was 1975.. which would be 43 cents today. It's called inflation. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_United_States_postage_rates http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_United_States_postag...

01Michael10 12y ago
You say with inflation the price of a first class stamp should be 43 cents? It's 49 cents right now... Thanks, your link seems to prove my point... Approximately, in the first 100 years of the postal service the price went form 2 cents to 10 cents which is a 5x increase. In the year 1971, which is when the government stopped managing the postal service (this is close to our year of 1975) the price has increased another 5x to today but that has only been 39 years. Inflation has only been one factor in the changing price of first class postage over the years but thanks for your comment...
- rgbrenner 12y ago
  On that same page, you'll see an inflation adjusted chart of postage prices since the postage service started: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_United_States_postage_rates#mediaviewer/File:US_Postage_History.svg http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_United_States_postag... The light purple is the inflation adjusted price (2008 prices); and the dark purple is the nominal price. That is remarkably flat (inflation adjusted). Fact is, it's been roughly 45 cents to mail a letter since the postal service began. Sure, there were times when it was cheaper.. but it was ~43 cents in 1890; 40 cents in 1975 (2008 prices); and 45 cents today (49 cents is 45 cents in 2008 prices.. which is what the chart uses).
  - 01Michael10 12y ago
    I guess my argument has not been clear... I am glad you are good at reading Wikipedia charts but ONCE AGAIN inflation has never been the only factor in first class stamp pricing then or now. Sure, over the long term the cost of anything will tend to match inflation. I have been mainly talking about recent short term pricing of stamps... The original argument (by Alupis) was that the government privatizing the postal system has been making things better for consumers (compared to when it was a government agency). It has not... There has been nine price increases since 2001! This has NOT been because of inflation which has been minimal and stable. The reason has been pension mandates by the government (due to politics) and the decline of first class mail usage. First class mail service has never been overly profitable which is why I argued a essential service like that is better run by the government (especially since the post office is not totally an independent enterprise anyway) and not a private profit-driven organization. The government never would have raised stamp prices nine times in the last 13 years (based on past history) if they were still running the post office which means stamp prices would not have keep pace with inflation (over the last 100 years) incidentally. They would most likely have addressed the pension mandate and taken other measures to keep stamp prices more stable (to not piss off the consumers aka voters). It is also doubtful they would be making deals with direct marketers to flood us with more junk mail.