Save tax payer money. Close the Post Office

and that's 12 billion , not million.

IS there anything at all that you don't support privatizing?

If we go to 3 day a week mail and big mailers like you go to the supermarket, does the 12 billion debt go away?

The judicial system and police should not be privatized however I'll exempt arbitration and private security.

And when a relative or friend moves to some rinky dink town in Idaho or Montana and it then costs $15 to mail them a birthday card you'll be the first right wing moron clamoring for mail to be renationalized. Just drive us back to the 19th century while you're at it. Retards.

The post office is already requesting that they be allowed to deliver mail less than six days a week. The only people who benefit from subsidized mail are businesses who cram our mail box with junk mail. Your relative who moves to rinky-dink Montana can either get his mail delivered once a week, visit his post office or have it digitized , and printed out on his home computer or a private company that engages in that businesses.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/13/technology/internet/13mail.html

The Swiss postal service has started redirecting some mail from the letter box to the in-box.

A program introduced by the Swiss Post in June allows subscribers to receive scans of their unopened envelopes by e-mail message and then decide which ones they want opened and scanned in their entirety, to be read online.

Subscribers can also ask to have the contents archived, send unopened letters to another address or have them shredded and recycled.

The success of the program, called Swiss Post Box, will depend on how widely digital mail is accepted, said Mark Levitt, a former analyst at the International Data Corporation in Washington, a research firm.

“Even people who warmly embraced digital tools stopped short of giving up on paper,” he said. “In fact, the electronic age has generated even greater demand for printers, paper and ink because people have even more information that they feel the need to print out on paper to read.”

The program uses technology provided by Earth Class Mail, a company based in Seattle that has tens of thousands of individual subscribers worldwide, mostly in Britain, the United States, Canada and Mexico. Clients in those countries have mail sent to one of more than two dozen designated addresses for processing.

This is the first time that Earth Class Mail has licensed its technology to a postal service.

Earth Class Mail’s chairman, Ron Wiener, said the company was talking with other national postal services in Europe and Asia about similar partnerships. He would not elaborate.

Basic service for Swiss Post Box starts at 19.90 Swiss francs, which is about $18.35. In North America, clients pay $10 to $60 a month for Earth Class Mail’s service, depending on how much mail they want scanned.

Michael Laprade, who has used Earth Class Mail for two years, said he had few items forwarded to him, other than the occasional check, and he had confidential items like credit card statements shredded.

“There are very few things you get that you actually have to have in your hand,” said Mr. Laprade, who lives primarily in California but spends the winter in France.

Earth Class Mail says its users recycle 90 percent of their mail. By comparison, the United States Postal Service reported that 40 percent of the mail it processed was recycled.

The Swiss Post Box service is available in several cities in Switzerland and in Frankfurt. The postal service intends to add services in France, Italy and Austria.

At a later stage, Swiss Post expects to offer the service in all locations where Swiss Post International has a presence: Belgium, Britain, Denmark, Hong Kong, India, Malaysia, the Netherlands, Singapore, Spain, Sweden and the United States.

But Mr. Weiner said Swiss Post Box would meet more rigorous standards for data handling than those required by the European Union. Nevertheless, some experts say, digitized mail could be more prone to abuse by a rogue employee.

Mr. Weiner said that Earth Class Mail had not had any security breaches, either by employees or by hackers, since its introduction. He said operational employees did not have access to mail that had been opened and scanned and that the digital images were encrypted.

“Our security is extremely robust,” he said. “There’s a huge amount of infrastructure.”

So you are endorsing the idea of the govt. opening your mail and reading it? You know they are going to read it if they open it.

If you’re a little queasy about the thought of total strangers going through your personal correspondence, the company wants you to know that its employees have special security clearance. They wear pocketless uniforms, and they’re under constant video surveillance.

They’re not allowed to bring anything at all into the facility: no phones, cameras, not even pencils or pens. The company seals the ports on all the computers on site, to prevent workers from copying the scans.

If, despite all that, you’re still queasy, well, you probably shouldn’t sign up.

No layoffs in the latest union contract. So if you were to go to 5 day a week mail and other cuts you cannot reduce staffing except through attrition. That could take 5 to 10 years to show any real reduction in the work force. Wages make up about 80% of the post office budget. We are screwed no matter what improvements are made.

Now why would the government agree to a contract that's against the interests of the general population? Or are 600,000 secured votes a powerful inducement? So basically we have too many workers delivering an inefficient service that is clearly not cost effective.

Postal workers are actually some of the lowest paid workers in the federal govt. Wages are not the problem.

In fact, postal workers make far less than UPS workers who do the exact same job.

So the post office pays less than UPS and still can't deliver an efficient service? If the Postal Service loses money despite paying their workers less what the hell are they doing?

UPS delivers large packages, which cannot be repalced with technology like letters.

Comparing the U.S. Postal Service with FedEx or UPS is comparing apples to oranges.

I challenge you to mail ANY letter via FedEx or UPS for only 42 cents.

The USPS has been tasked with being THE agency tasked creating our entire mail infrastructure, creating and maintaining a master address system for hundreds of millions of residences and businesses.

FedEx and UPS have benefited greatly by building their businesses on the existing USPS infrastructure, much like these upstart electric companies do on the ConEd electrical grid.

But they are no more cost-effective than the USPS. In fact, their employees are paid considerably more per worker than USPS employees.

Not every government agency is supposed to support itself. In fact, if I'm not mistaken, there isn't a single government-run mail system in the world that doesn't run at a loss.

Sometimes, services cost money, period. And we will always need a mail system. Not everyone buys into this obsession with putting EVERYTHING online, including myself.

"I challenge you to mail ANY letter via FedEx or UPS for only 42 cents."

NYCMatt, maybe that is the problem, you are only paying 42 cents instead of the first class rate of 44 cents.

And with all the bs waste that goes on, eg hundreds of billions in useless weapons systems, er I mean defense jobs programs, that the military doesn't even want, the wacko right wing feels strangely compelled to focus on the f'n POSTAL SERVICE? Something everybody uses and benefits from? Stop it RS, even you don't believe that crap.

And by the way, if you want a piece of eBay purchased pottery or glass to arrive safely, use the USPS. Dont even think about UPS.

First admit it's political..

Democrats receive the vast majority of the contributions made by postal workers' unions, according to campaign finance records, so they tend to be sympathetic. President Barack Obama inserted a proposal in his 2012 budget to absolve the USPS of $4 billion of its retiree health-care liabilities in 2011

http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/11_23/b4231060885070_page_2.htm

We should be more like Europe. At least with regards to the post office.....

Many countries closed as many of their brick-and-mortar post offices as possible, moving these services into gas stations and convenience stores, which then take them over—just as the USPS is trying to do now, only far more aggressively. Today, Sweden's Posten runs only 12 percent of its post offices. The rest are in the hands of third parties. Deutsche Post is now a private company and runs just 2 percent of the post offices in Germany. In contrast, the USPS operates all of its post offices.

Some of these newly energized mail services used the savings to pursue new business lines. Deutsche Post bought DHL, a package deliverer that competes with FedEx and UPS. "More than half of our workforce is outside of Germany," says Markus Reckling, executive vice-president for corporate development at Deutsche Post. "It's pretty much the same thing for our profits."

Many used their extra cash to create digital mail products that allow customers to send and receive letters from their computers. Itella, the Finnish postal service, keeps a digital archive of its users' mail for seven years and helps them pay bills online securely. Swiss Post lets customers choose if they want their mail delivered at home in hard copy or scanned and sent to their preferred Internet-connected device. Customers can also tell Swiss Post if they would rather not receive items such as junk mail.

Sweden's Posten has an app that lets customers turn digital photos on their mobile phones into postcards. It is unveiling a service that will allow cell-phone users to send letters without stamps. Posten will text them a numerical code that they can jot down on envelopes in place of a stamp for a yet-to-be-determined charge.

Anders Asberg, Posten's head of marketing and development, says the service is experimenting with these initiatives, and he expects some will prove to be lucrative. "The customers are all on these digital interfaces now," he says. "That's where the growth is going to be in the future."

Posten can afford to take chances. In 2009 the Swedish mail carrier merged with Post Danmark, the Danish postal service, creating PostNord, a company with $6.2 billion in net sales and $320 million in EBITDA. In 2010 the latter rose by 43 percent, to $490 million.

"The question is, are there any special circumstances that suggest all these other countries are wrong and we are right?" says James I. Campbell Jr., a consultant in Potomac, Md., who advises foreign governments on postal policy issues. "The answer is pretty simple: The European countries are on a reasonably viable course. The U.S. is not."

http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/11_23/b4231060885070_page_4.htm

And with all the bs waste that goes on, eg hundreds of billions in useless weapons systems, er I mean defense jobs programs,
----------

I agree the defense establishment/procurement process is a mess. But don't use that as an argument to maintain a grossly inefficient mail delivery service.

No it's not political. Even this registered independent libertarian recognizes that govt should be in the business of running a national mail system. Anything less is an embarrassment. Perhaps the unions are simply smart enough to send some money to the one party that DOESN'T want to bring us back to the pony express simply because the Koch brothers think it's a good idea.

So Finland, Germany, Sweden & Switzerland are totally wrong here and ruining their country?

no ... the only one that is wrong is you.

stop posting all this ridiculous crap.

How many post offices in Columbia County, NY?

At the two minute mark

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5mrMSXr8_nQ

""The question is, are there any special circumstances that suggest all these other countries are wrong and we are right?" says James I. Campbell Jr., a consultant in Potomac, Md., who advises foreign governments on postal policy issues. "The answer is pretty simple: The European countries are on a reasonably viable course. The U.S. is not." "

Consider the source of this one-sided, pro-privatization article: BUSINESSWEEK magazine.

Why just shut down the post office? The MTA is always losing money. Let's shut down the subway. We will shut down every line except the F line. If you don't live near it, too bad. Walk.

Why just shut down the post office? The MTA is always losing money----

What a terrible argument? We should keep one money losing operation going because we have another?
At least in the case of MTA we have a service that arguably the private sector could not profitably undertake.
I suspect this was once true with the mail, but we no longer have the need and the private sector could do the job cheaper and more efficiently.

Consider the source of this one-sided, pro-privatization article: BUSINESSWEEK magazine.

No the GAO is saying much the same thing
http://www.gao.gov/new.items/d10455.pdf

http://voices.washingtonpost.com/federal-eye/2010/04/gao_postal_service_business_no.html

The U.S. Postal Service's current business model "is not viable" and the mail agency should make deeper job and wage cuts, hire more part-time staff and consider outsourcing operations, according to a draft of a government audit acquired by The Federal Eye.

Auditors also urge Congress to remove restrictions on the Postal Service's ability to cut Saturday mail delivery and close post offices, according to the report, which offers recommendations similar to the USPS's own proposed 10-year business plan.

How much will a stamp cost in a privatized postal service?

Just cut it down to 5 days a week. Put me down for "okay with that".

@Socialist; Okay with that too, I'm near the F.

Why does the postal serice still sponsor Lance Armstrong? How about we cut that?

Amtrak is losing money too. Don't forget to shut that down too. Goodbye Acela. Hello Greyhound.

LOL! Ever ride the ACELA? IT'S hardly a bullet train. Probably the slowest "express train" in the world. Nothing like they have in Japan, China, France or Spain.

Honestly I wish they got this right instead of wasting all that money. There are certainly enough actual and potential riders to warrant a true express service.

oh wait strike that Amtrak idea. The Republicans beat me to it. And I am sure they will have no problem finding investors STUPID enough to invest in high speed rail. Yeah, good luck with that.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/house-gop-proposal-would-privatize-high-speed-rail-along-amtraks-northeast-corridor/2011/05/26/AGBEZKCH_story.html

I agree. But now we can't have true express service on the northeast corridor since Christie killed the tunnel.

Actually the ACELA could be fixed if the government exercised it right of eminent domain. A true bullet train between NY and D.C. would be real competition to the airlines. The resulting operation could be privatized and spun off.

"Actually the ACELA could be fixed if the government exercised it right of eminent domain."

Hold it right there. Are you advocating the govt. seize private property? Is that you Riversider or has someone hacked into your account? Since when do libertarisns support big govt. policies like eminent domain? Have you converted to Socialism?

his thoughts are very "complex" socialist. don't even try to understand his reasoning.

I finaly achieved my goal of converting Riversider into a Socialist!

clearly the internet should be a public service, owned by government, if not national then certainly lcality by locality---nyc could have free wireless for all for pennies, but bloomberg won't consider the concept--without the public to loot most of his telco ceo buddies would be relegated to actually working for a living, nit just administration of price-fixing of their government awarded monopolies--

privatization as efficient is a long standing joke--too many enrons, boa's, aig's worldcom to list...privatize should be defined as " rendered to condition best suited for looting by executive suite"...

redbaiter...you are such a dope...f'ing waterboy to the koch bros... they laugh at your sorry ass over fine cognac...chump

hey redbaiter...have you given this year's 5 bucks to the heritage foundation??

What does any of this have to do with New York residential real estate?

i ask this of everyone who drops that name like they've been on to them for years: when did you first become aware of the koch family and their sinister plans for this country? the "koch brothers" meme is really odd.

Hfscomm1

bless you

I heard of the Koch brothers as far back as August 2009 since back then Rachel maddow was the only person talking about them.

This is separate from the Koch Queensboro bridge, right?

SATC - the wealthy bachelor "catch" of the year is a thinly disguised DK.

Buying Jackie O's apt.

Nymag article about the family + NY social diary stuff.

Then the New Yorker article cemented it.

With $42 billion and seven homes, why are the Kochs buying our Democracy?

http://kochbrothersexposed.com/videos/

here here 10023! can we just forget this sillyness and get back to the important business of discussing julia's outfits?

we're a republic, dipshit

There you go. http://www.nytimes.com/1998/01/11/magazine/woman-ascending-a-marble-staircase.html?src=pm

I'm afraid to click on a link of videos for Koch Brothers exposed. What will my ISP think of me?

The next time Republicans say they are fiscally conservative, remeber these facts:

Lat GOP Pres to balance the budget: Eisenhower
Last Dem Pres to balance the budget: Clinton

Nixon, Ford, Reagan, Bush 41, and Bush 43 were financially wreckless.

To the Editor:

Re “Overhauling the Post Office for the 21st Century” (editorial, Nov. 25):

As a retired letter carrier with 29 years in the United States Postal Service, I’d like to point out the crucial element in its ever-worsening crisis.

The financial backbone of the Postal Service had always been the first-class letter. The rise of the Internet, cellphone and fax have relegated the first-class letter to utter obsolescence. The Postal Service finds itself on the brink of financial extinction because for some 15 years postal management willfully ignored this communications revolution.

No amount of tinkering with a five-day delivery service or the closing of small stations will save it from its self-made doom. Without the transformation of the Postal Service into an integral part of the Internet, there will be no future in the Postal Service and no Postal Service in the future.

ALEXIAN GREGORY

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/05/opinion/saving-the-postal-service-in-the-internet-age.html?_r=1

The fact is that many SOCIALIST countries (Germany, Canada, UK) have privatized the postal service long ago, and ended daily mail service and for suburban and rural residents, direct-to-home mail. In canada, most people have to go to the singe postal kiosk on their block to get mail - just like New York high-rise dwellers.

I think its hardly objectionable to privatize the mail service, and open it up to Fed Ex, UPD, DHL - as long as rural residents are gurenteed say twice a week delivery.

did you know that american home mail delivery started in 1863 in cleveland, ohio by a postal employee named Joseph W. Briggs who was so distraught at seeing dozens of women lining up outside the post office all winter waiting for news about their menfolk fighting in the civil war he started delivery mail to their homes and encouraged other postal workers to do the same.

The reason the USPS is losing money is that a law was passed a few years ago that requires the agency to fully fund all pensions of future workers out to 75 years in the future.

This is an onerous burden that no private business could afford, not even Goldman Sachs!

Yet, the USPS is required to fully fund the pensions of future employees WHO ARE NOT EVEN BORN YET.

This law was passed as a blatant attempt to destroy the postal serivce. The reason there are enemies of the postal service is that there are people who want to destroy public sector unions, and this attack has been ongoing for years.

It doesn't matter if the postal service provides a service that the citizenry needs, or if it is good for small communities. Nothing matters to these people except the complete destruction of the public sector unions!

We should really ask whether these Grover Norquist types are functionally insane, they are so obsessed. They are certainly not democratic and not public-minded.

If the Postal Service were required to only fund the pensions of its employees out to say, 20 years, it could operate fully in the black.

Here is an article that explains the pension-funding requirement:

http://www.truth-out.org/last-union/1315492298

I haven't read through all these comments, but I will add that I have a friend who is blind and is not very computer proficient. She reads Braille and gets all her communications by regular mail. The whole world is not computer literate and closing the post office will severely affect this population.

I'd also like to remind people that the post office provides many other important services including passports, money orders, and post office boxes.

I am not blind, and I am computer literate, but I REFUSE to pay my bills online. There have been so many cases of hacking of banks and bank accounts that I simply prefer to pay bills the old fashioned way. And, while I do purchase things online using credit cards, if my account is hacked I do not have to pay the bill. Whereas if my bank account is hacked, I have to fight and wait to get MY money back into my account (and that assumes everything goes well).

And frankly, I also still prefer to send out actual birthday cards,etc. not just "facebook wishes"

ph41 you should of course do what makes you comfortable, but your greatest threats in terms of online identity theft are new account fraud, meaning new accounts opened with your info, and friendly fraud, meaning fraud committed by someone you know. the most careless thing that people so without thinking and i see this all the time and i can't believe people actually do this is write their social security number on medical forms at doctor's offices, which you have to fill out even if you only see the doctor once.

Republicans are trying to destroy the post office by manufacturing a crisis to cause hysteria so they can privatize it. Once they get their way, and hopefully they will not, they will move on to trying to destroy Amtrak. THose are the 2 govt serivices tebaggers hate the most: Post office and Amtrak.

I'd also like to remind people that the post office provides many other important services including passports, money orders, and post office boxes.
---
there's nothing magical about the post office that suggests this is the only way to get these services provided. Times and technology change.. if we're at the point where the post office no longer makes sense we need to adjust.

'I'd also like to remind people that the post office provides many other important services including passports, money orders, and post office boxes. "

All of this can be done by private companies. In fact ARE done by them. You think widows and orphans are want for mail services in the UK or Germany, where they long ago privatized the postal services? Hint: they are NOT.

And when you have private companies doing it, there's competition for doing it better and cheaper. Win Win for consumers and tax payers. Truth is that nothing is free , even when provided by the government, a mis-allocated investment is an opportunity lost.

Almost everything the govt does, it does it poorly. Why, you ask? Well, whenever the govt enters any field (post offices, schools, healthcare, TSA, etc.), it does so by excluding all competition in said field and thereby creates a monopoly. Monopolies always degenerate into shoddy service, b/c without competition there is no pressure on the monopoly to provide quality service to its customers (why bother providing excellent service when your customers have no other option except to keep paying you regardless of the quality of service they receive?).

Govt workers are not inherently dumb or lazy, however they have VIRTUALLY NO PRESSURE on them to "serve" their "customers" well (i.e., the taxpayers). Only the most abjectly slothful of govt workers get fired for cause - most skirt by doing the minimal amount necessary to retain their jobs and keep the gravy train of paychecks and more-than-generous benefits a'rollin'.

"THose are the 2 govt serivices tebaggers hate the most: Post office and Amtrak."

Neither of which would even exist today without massive taxpayer subsidies. They would have been destroyed by the creative destruction of capitalism long ago without such subsidies.

There's a distinguished list of governments and people who think they can allocate capital better than the private market
USSR
China
Obama(Solyndra)

It's not that these countries or people are dumb, it's more that in the beginning the choices of seeking out good investment opportunities is obvious, but over time the low lying fruit is gone and the market signals(interest rates) are missing, so it's pretty clear government will always screw up.

Don't forget Chavez in Venezuela - look at how his capital allocation skills have worked out!

http://voices.washingtonpost.com/federal-eye/2010/04/video_snl_mocks_government_wor_1.html

90% of what I get in the mail is junk mail. And this is what my tax dollars subsidize?

Dudes, the post office doesn't get any taxpayer money. The "subsidy" they get is a monopoly on first class mail, which turns out not to be such an awesome benefit lately.

Just wait for the deal where postal pensions get absorbed by the tax payer. Add to that lost taxes on postal revenue.

FYI...The USPS contracts out to FedEx to move pieces of mail and packages across the US. If you would like and example of this, visit the GPO on 8th Avenue in Manhattan. The cross streets are lined with FedEx trucks and not USPS trucks.

Uggghhh. Not one person here seems to realize that post offices have ALREADY been privatized elsewhere with none of this doom and gloom! Old people and rural people get mail in the UK and Germany! They really do! And they get passport photos and money orders too!

It is true, we could further privatize and still get our mail. The world would not end, but we would gain a more efficient system.

What exactly do people think would be more efficient if the Postal Service were privatized?

Cheaper mail delivery,faster delivery? , along with an increase in new services... the usual suspects.

Well sure, I could say any of that, but
1 - what will make the mail cheaper? And is it really too expensive right now?
2 - mail is pretty fast, how will privatization make it faster?
3 - what new services are you longing for that is being inhibited by the current status of the post office
4 - the usual suspects??

1)Email is faster than the physical mail. Where one side sends/receives the old fashioned way technology could convert electronic to paper. And let's cut down on wasted paper, especially when it comes to junk mail.
2)Post office has little reason to optimize pricing(1st class vs 3rd class mail)
3)Closing post offices is political and not cost driven
4)Work rules can be driven by unions and politics and not profit and efficiency
5)Do we really need Saturday delivery?
6)Imagination of entrepreneurs, something the current system does not encourage.

>1)Email is faster than the physical mail. Where one side sends/receives the old fashioned way technology could convert electronic to paper. And let's cut down on wasted paper, especially when it comes to junk mail.
We are talking about physical mail. So converting physical mail to email seems to be a clever rhetorical diversion.
Junk mail, which is paid for by the sender, handsomely, is direct mail that the mailer wants to mail because it is profitable.

>2)Post office has little reason to optimize pricing(1st class vs 3rd class mail)
And a private business will lower their prices and revenue for what reason?

>3)Closing post offices is political and not cost driven
Good luck with getting privatization agreed by Congress without pre-conditions that keep these post offices open.

>4)Work rules can be driven by unions and politics and not profit and efficiency.
I don't know, but I get my mail pretty quickly. And I think it is bargain the price I can send mail for.
But if you think that Congress is going to privatize the post office and all of the employee base is going to switch over to some other model, I'd like to hear that explanation.

>5)Do we really need Saturday delivery?
Maybe not. How will privatization answer this question?

>6)Imagination of entrepreneurs, something the current system does not encourage.
But you have ideas. So you aren't the entrepreneur. Your whole plan is dependent on finding someone magical with magical ideas who hasn't yet made himself visible during the past one or two decades when this has been discussed.

BSexposer, do you really think the private sector does a better job of encouraging free-market competition? If that is the case, why have we seen the growth of conglomerates in nearly every industry and market -- conglomerates were formed for the express purposes of squelching competition?

A corporate executive explained it to me once when I asked why his firm had acquried another company that had a very different kind of operation. He said, "So we can set the price" in the market where the acquired company did business.

When a company with deep pockets, say for example the tech company Cisco, goes out and buys a company that makes automobile seat covers -- a completely different line of business -- you might scratch your head and wonder why it would do such a thing.

Most of the time it is because the Cisco-type company intends to drive all the competition out of the seat-cover market by selling the product at a price so low no one else can match it.

Once all the competitors are gone, Cisco raises the price of seat covers to a never-before-seen-high.

This is the history of corporate America. There is virtually no free-market competition anymore, there are only conglomerates that are so big no one can compete with them, that then artifically "set" prices.

And would you hold up corporate America as an example of performance or efficiency that the public sector cannot match? Really? When was the last time you tried to get Time Warner service to come to your apartment, or to get a computer technician on the phone?

When was the last time you examined the quality of new construction in condos built by Lennar? And have you tried to get customer service at a big company to help you with some product you bought -- a vaccuum cleaner or an ipod or even some food product or pharmaceutical?

The private sector has grown fat and incompetent on the lack of competition, and it is sucking our society dry. Your view of private-sector-versus-public has been out of date for the last two decades.

You Republicans make me laugh! You won't be happy until we come back to middle age !! Oops! Too young of a country to understand the concept! But that's probably your problem! Europeans, you conveniently quote when it relates to privatization, have, as a civilization, fought and work hard for progressing its Society as a whole, understanding that its society is made of strongs & weaks but also that the government as a utility to provide its citizen with tools to function & progress. Tools like infrastructures, & public services.

Anyone who has read my posts and thinks I'm anything other than a liberal democrat is illiterate. And AGAIN Europe which far more liberal has largely done all this years ago. Stop being knee jerk.

>Anyone who has read my posts and thinks I'm anything other than a liberal democrat is illiterate.

I got the impression that you were a helmet wearing retard who shoves pennies and glue up his nose. I guess I'm illiterate, except I'm actually writing this sentence. Confusing.

>When a company with deep pockets, say for example the tech company Cisco, goes out and buys a company that makes automobile seat covers -- a completely different line of business -- you might scratch your head and wonder why it would do such a thing.
Most of the time it is because the Cisco-type company intends to drive all the competition out of the seat-cover market by selling the product at a price so low no one else can match it.
Once all the competitors are gone, Cisco raises the price of seat covers to a never-before-seen-high.
This is the history of corporate America.

Excellent example!!

"I am not blind, and I am computer literate, but I REFUSE to pay my bills online. There have been so many cases of hacking of banks and bank accounts that I simply prefer to pay bills the old fashioned way. And, while I do purchase things online using credit cards, if my account is hacked I do not have to pay the bill. Whereas if my bank account is hacked, I have to fight and wait to get MY money back into my account (and that assumes everything goes well).

And frankly, I also still prefer to send out actual birthday cards,etc. not just "facebook wishes""

I'm with you, 41.

"Almost everything the govt does, it does it poorly. Why, you ask? Well, whenever the govt enters any field (post offices, schools, healthcare, TSA, etc.), it does so by excluding all competition in said field and thereby creates a monopoly. Monopolies always degenerate into shoddy service, b/c without competition there is no pressure on the monopoly to provide quality service to its customers (why bother providing excellent service when your customers have no other option except to keep paying you regardless of the quality of service they receive?)."

I totally agree, BS.

And as has been explained above, PRIVATE COMPANIES are hardly immune to such degeneration when THEY become monopolies.

At least with the government, however, ordinary citizens still have redress for bad service, vis-a-vis their elected officials. With a private company, you are totally on your own and S.O.L.

"And when you have private companies doing it, there's competition for doing it better and cheaper. Win Win for consumers and tax payers."

OK, for argument's sake, lets compare the USPS with its competition.

Could I really FedEx a letter for 44 cents? I could drop a four-page document in a business envelop into a USPS box in Manhattan and it'll be delivered THE NEXT DAY in Brooklyn ... for 44 cents. Or I could FedEx those two pages for next-day delivery for $12.95.

And how exactly could UPS "do it better" than the USPS? The Post Office handles 177 billion pieces of mail each year, compared to the UPS' 3.94 billion in 2010.

How convenient it is to forget that shipping companies use and profit from an infrastructure that was forged and maintained by the good ol' post office: our entire system of street addresses, right down to the ZIP codes. Hell, UPS and FedEx even have drop boxes INSIDE Post Offices!

Guess what, the mess at the Post Office would be much more manageable were it not for the Post Office having to prefund its pension obligations something that few other companies do. That's not to say, the Post Office does not need to reform but I like getting Saturday mail and don't mind paying for it.

"BSexposer, do you really think the private sector does a better job of encouraging free-market competition?"

No - the govt is supposed to prevent monopolies in the private sector - that is why antitrust laws exist. I favor vigorous competition, which leads to better products and services at lower prices. If you read (and understood) what I wrote, you would realize that I was criticizing monopolies period, not just in the public sector. They all lead to pathetic service and products.

Nice, Tax payer has been subsidizing the post office for years..

http://www.treasury.gov/ffb/press_releases/2011/07-2011.shtml

.S. Postal Service 6/01 $1,900,000,000.00 6/02/11 0.166% S/A
U.S. Postal Service 6/01 $369,600,000.00 6/02/11 0.166% S/A
U.S. Postal Service 6/02 $1,704,000,000.00 6/03/11 0.166% S/A
U.S. Postal Service 6/02 $412,000,000.00 6/03/11 0.166% S/A
U.S. Postal Service 6/03 $1,600,000,000.00 6/06/11 0.166% S/A
U.S. Postal Service 6/03 $261,600,000.00 6/06/11 0.166% S/A
U.S. Postal Service 6/06 $1,357,000,000.00 6/07/11 0.166% S/A
U.S. Postal Service 6/06 $235,800,000.00 6/07/11 0.156% S/A
U.S. Postal Service 6/07 $1,020,000,000.00 6/08/11 0.166% S/A
U.S. Postal Service 6/07 $219,500,000.00 6/08/11 0.135% S/A
U.S. Postal Service 6/08 $863,000,000.00 6/09/11 0.156% S/A
U.S. Postal Service 6/08 $226,800,000.00 6/09/11 0.135% S/A
U.S. Postal Service 6/09 $750,000,000.00 6/10/11 0.135% S/A
U.S. Postal Service 6/09 $254,300,000.00 6/10/11 0.145% S/A
U.S. Postal Service 6/10 $1,885,000,000.00 6/13/11 0.135% S/A
U.S. Postal Service 6/10 $285,300,000.00 6/13/11 0.145% S/A
U.S. Postal Service 6/13 $2,130,000,000.00 6/14/11 0.145% S/A
U.S. Postal Service 6/13 $290,300,000.00 6/14/11 0.145% S/A
U.S. Postal Service 6/14 $1,924,000,000.00 6/15/11 0.145% S/A
U.S. Postal Service 6/14 $296,500,000.00 6/15/11 0.156% S/A
*U.S. Postal Service 6/15 $700,000,000.00 9/15/11 0.176% S/A
U.S. Postal Service 6/15 $1,809,000,000.00 6/16/11 0.145% S/A
U.S. Postal Service 6/15 $289,800,000.00 6/16/11 0.145% S/A
U.S. Postal Service 6/16 $1,633,000,000.00 6/17/11 0.156% S/A
U.S. Postal Service 6/16 $334,400,000.00 6/17/11 0.145% S/A
U.S. Postal Service 6/17 $1,469,000,000.00 6/20/11 0.145% S/A
U.S. Postal Service 6/17 $343,600,000.00 6/20/11 0.145% S/A
U.S. Postal Service 6/20 $1,347,000,000.00 6/21/11 0.145% S/A
U.S. Postal Service 6/20 $277,900,000.00 6/21/11 0.145% S/A
U.S. Postal Service 6/21 $1,109,000,000.00 6/22/11 0.145% S/A
U.S. Postal Service 6/21 $257,500,000.00 6/22/11 0.135% S/A
U.S. Postal Service 6/22 $950,000,000.00 6/23/11 0.145% S/A
U.S. Postal Service 6/22 $277,800,000.00 6/23/11 0.135% S/A
U.S. Postal Service 6/23 $767,000,000.00 6/24/11 0.135% S/A
U.S. Postal Service 6/23 $302,500,000.00 6/24/11 0.135% S/A
U.S. Postal Service 6/24 $1,931,000,000.00 6/27/11 0.135% S/A
U.S. Postal Service 6/24 $167,500,000.00 6/27/11 0.135% S/A
U.S. Postal Service 6/27 $2,160,000,000.00 6/28/11 0.135% S/A
U.S. Postal Service 6/27 $154,300,000.00 6/28/11 0.135% S/A
U.S. Postal Service 6/28 $1,800,000,000.00 6/29/11 0.135% S/A
U.S. Postal Service 6/28 $298,200,000.00 6/29/11 0.135% S/A
U.S. Postal Service 6/29 $1,636,000,000.00 6/30/11 0.135% S/A
U.S. Postal Service 6/29 $320,800,000.00 6/30/11 0.135% S/A
U.S. Postal Service 6/30 $2,456,000,000.00 7/01/11 0.135% S/A
U.S. Postal Service 6/30 $336,000,000.00 7/01/11 0.135% S/A

Riversider, the Post Office is one of the services that the government provides that is supposed to be supported by our tax dollars like the military, like building roads, etc.

How about "Save Taxpayer Dollars -- Close the Federal Reserve"?

The USPS is necessary to insure continued delivery of disability checks, government pension checks, etc. Non tax payers need the tax payers to continue to subsidize this very important role.

> The USPS is necessary to insure continued delivery of disability checks, government pension checks, etc. Non tax payers need the tax payers to continue to subsidize this very important role.

why on earth use checks when the $ could show up in a checking account every month?