OT: USPS Monopoly (was Government competition)

["Norm" <normanmo@clark.net>]

On Thu, 10 Dec 1998 03:04:58 -0500, Eric M. Bennett wrote:

 [Snip]

>I do not think the post office is any sort of model for how the government
>should "compete" with business (by outlawing competition).  Your suggestion
>of shutting down the post office is clearly ridiculous, but I think
>completely spinning the post office off from the government might not be a
>bad idea.  (There would probably have to be government oversight, but I
>don't see why we can't have private companies running this just like we
>have them running other essential services.)


     Although I don't agree with the 'audits' (if a company wants to
waste money sending something 'overnight' that isn't urgent that's
their own business), I don't believe privatization would work.  The
fact is that except for a select few highly congested areas the vast
majority of first class mail is processed at a net loss, so the result
of privatization would be a slight decrease in cost for a few and a
huge increase for the rest of the country.  

     Private companies are only interested in the 'gravy' (most
congested areas).  So what happens to the rest??  Well I see two
possible scenarios, the first is that the private companies provide
service for them at a premium price, or if nobody wants them the USPS
will still provide them service at a huge loss (and thus forcing the
taxpayers to subsidize it).  If you want universal service with the
same price for everyone you're going to have to hand over (or sell) the
entire agency to a private company, and then we're only deciding on
whether you prefer a government owned monopoly or a privately owned
one.

--
 ...Cheers,

 ...Norm

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