Re: Government competition

[Steve Cohen <stevecoh@mcs.com>]

Eric M. Bennett wrote:

> Steve Cohen wrote:
>
> >Any privatization
> >scheme runs up against this requirement.  Typical schemes of privatization
> >would usually involve "cherry picking" the profitable segments of the business
> >and letting the others go, or leaving the losers to the government which makes
> >their situation even worse.
>
> Not at all.  Why not allow multiple businesses to deliver all types of mail
> to every address in the US, as long as each business charges the same
> amount to all its customers regardless of location?  Maybe Fed Ex could
> deliver letters to everybody for only 30 cents.
>
> --
> Eric Bennett (http://www.pobox.com/~ericb/)
> Cornell University, Field of Biochemistry, 377 Olin Chemistry Lab
>
> I am a Macintosh loyalist and a happy user of Microsoft software.  Thus,
> 99.7% of everybody even remotely involved with computers has reason to find
> fault with me.
> -Mark Lincoln

The key word is your "allow".  Unless potential private carriers are required to
provide all the services the Postal Service is required to provide to every
address in the country, you are allowing cherry-picking with inevitable decline of
service to the areas not covered by the cherry-pickers, as the USPS is left with
the losers.