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This "argument" always gets under my skin. I'm late 30s and still use the mail ALL THE TIME!
I mail checks. I mail letters (GASP! with actual stamps!!) to my college student and my out-of-state parents! I mail birthday cards to my dozen plus nieces and nephews.
Don't use the USPS if you don't think you need to. We won't mind.
If you thought you had mistaken deliveries before imagine a world where you have a new carrier every few months because flipping burgers for the same pay and no benefits does not entail getting biten by dogs .
That would be nothing new, it's already that way in my area.
That would be nothing new, it's already that way in my area.
As a consequence of removing benefits for new employees and cutting their pay by a third. Thus the revolving door of a new carrier coming in and being forced to work 12 hour days seven days a week with no ideal if or when they will get a day off so they quit in frustration after a few weeks. The slave model is not working.
Packages - especially priority packages - are the moneymakers for the USPS. Those services subsidize letter delivery. Private for-profit businesses have no interest in subsidizing a money-losing operation. That's why UPS and FedEx are only involved in the lucrative options in the first place. If they started delivering first class mail, their profits would go down.
That's simply not how private business works.
And that's even for densely-populated urban areas where those businesses already have a big footprint. Why on Earth would they open a branch in a town of 100 or 1000 or even 10000? Of course, they wouldn't because there's no profit in it.
Some people just don't get it. They think everything that's private is better. But the free market, while an essential component of a modern economy, is just that: a component. Many services simply don't work as enterprises because there's no profit, or work only in very limited bases. How many airports with commercial service are private? (A: One. In the entire country). How many roads are private? How many prisons are private? (A: a few - and states have realized that they're paying more for them than when they were running them themselves) How many police departments are private? So it is with the mail.
The free market is not a panacea. It has a great many benefits but it doesn't work in all situations.
That's why universal postal delivery is a public service.
And privatization of prisons has been a disaster because Private Business = Profits Required. So they must do what they must to fill their prisons.
Parking meters were privatized in downtown Chicago. It costs $6.50 AN HOUR to park at a meter! That's insane! The company who bought it out paid the city $1.15 billion dollars for 75 years of revenue capture. In the first 7 years they made nearly $800 million. In 2-3 years they'll have recouped their investment and still have 6 decades of collecting taxpayer dollars.
I'm with you 100% on everything not being up for privatization and the USPS certainly should not be.
There are way too many post offices. They should eliminate Saturday delivery and at least 1 other day of delivery to reduce the number of employees by attrition. Get rid of the pension for any new employees.
I think there are postal deserts. I live in a suburban part of Arizona with two post offices within a five minute drive (we have a HUGE senior citizen population who still send letters or bills through the mail.) Compare that to say rural Arizona which may only have one for an hour's drive.
And privatization of prisons has been a disaster because Private Business = Profits Required. So they must do what they must to fill their prisons.
Parking meters were privatized in downtown Chicago. It costs $6.50 AN HOUR to park at a meter! That's insane! The company who bought it out paid the city $1.15 billion dollars for 75 years of revenue capture. In the first 7 years they made nearly $800 million. In 2-3 years they'll have recouped their investment and still have 6 decades of collecting taxpayer dollars.
I'm with you 100% on everything not being up for privatization and the USPS certainly should not be.
Some full disclosure:
I'm a Republican. I've also held one elective office or another since the mid-1980s.
I'm also not stupid.
If the people who ride the privatization bandwagon would step back and look they would find out that in almost 100% of the cases that privatization of governmental services always costs more than having government employees do the job.
A couple of personal examples:
We privatized trash service a number of years ago. Except for the first two year contract the costs have since been roughly 30% more than the Town could do it itself, with the Town employees making more than the private contractor's workers.
We turned operation of sewer and water over to a private company for a few years. We then hired own supervisor for it and rebuilt the department. Overall it was a 40% savings over the private operator.
Rhetorical statement:
Take a look at NAVAIR and development of new systems and aircraft design and figure out why Defense Department costs have increased so much since those jobs were taken away from Navy and civilian government employees and privatized.
As you mentioned, profit is cycled in to privatization costs.
Some full disclosure:
I'm a Republican. I've also held one elective office or another since the mid-1980s.
I'm also not stupid. If the people who ride the privatization bandwagon would step back and look they would find out that in almost 100% of the cases that privatization of governmental services always costs more than having government employees do the job.
A couple of personal examples:
We privatized trash service a number of years ago. Except for the first two year contract the costs have since been roughly 30% more than the Town could do it itself, with the Town employees making more than the private contractor's workers.
We turned operation of sewer and water over to a private company for a few years. We then hired own supervisor for it and rebuilt the department. Overall it was a 40% savings over the private operator.
Rhetorical statement:
Take a look at NAVAIR and development of new systems and aircraft design and figure out why Defense Department costs have increased so much since those jobs were taken away from Navy and civilian government employees and privatized.
As you mentioned, profit is cycled in to privatization costs.
As a consequence of removing benefits for new employees and cutting their pay by a third. Thus the revolving door of a new carrier coming in and being forced to work 12 hour days seven days a week with no ideal if or when they will get a day off so they quit in frustration after a few weeks. The slave model is not working.
No, because not everybody in the country have a computer or even computer literate, especially the poor. This is still the only way for millions people, and they don't have extra money to be using these other services. Also, many don't drive or will have transportation to get to these other carriers, then you have city vs rural. It's already been downsized and streamlined due to the competition, but I wouldn't do away with it.
Businesses also use the post office. I'm there at least 3 times a week mailing bills, payments, letters, and packages. All plural! It's not uncommon for me to ship 10+ packages a day. If I was forced to use UPS or FedEx, my business would close. People will NOT pay $10 to ship a $3 item.
The UK's Royal Mail is very efficient. Whatever the Royal Mail does to accomplish this, USPS needs to do.
You're comparing the mail system of a country the size of Alabama which has a population of 64 condensed into an island to a country that's practically the size of the continent of Europe and has a population of 320 million people including places far, far, far away such as Alaska, Hawaii, Puerto Rico, Guam, and our world wide military bases. That's like comparing batteries to apples.
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