Freep Poll (Should Post Office monopoly end?)

www.countypressonline.com ^ | 4/7/04

[Tribune7]

LOL

[TalBlack]

20 years of the soft life lifting and carrying parcels and sacks full of mail at 3am has just about busted his spine.

Good thing he doesn't have a real job or he'd be dead!

[Colonel Kangaroo]

The funny thing is he's trained some people who believed the stories about it being a cushy job and were sorely dismayed when they saw it involved pretty strenuous work in hot, dusty conditions with bad hours. One new hire quit before lunch. The pay and benefits may be good, but moving the mail at the big mail facilities is real work and would be a surprise to those who get their knowledge of the PO from Cheers or the surly, slow window clerk.

[JakeSladder]

Why do you think one couldn't?

I'm not saying one couldn't, just that it would be too costly for a private company to do what the postal service does six days a week.

[Tribune7]

Why do you think one couldn't? I'm not saying one couldn't, just that it would be too costly for a private company to do what the postal service does six days a week.

I had a conversation once with a UPS guy who said it would be no problem for them. Of course, he could have just been talking the talk. OTOH, if the law was changed and private companies were able to compete they would deduce they can't do it and not try, miscalculate & fail or succeed.

Regardless, the PO still would be in business and it would have a competitive advantage since it's infrastructure is already in place.

If cherrypicking routes should turn out to be a problem, at that point you can instute tax-funded subsidies.

An artifical (governement created) monopoly is not the answer.

[Psycho_Bunny]

Ya....like I want my personal letters arriving with

"DRINK COKE"

"CAN YOU HERE ME NOW?"

"VAGISIL : A BETTER UNDERSTANDING OF BETTER INTIMATE CARE"

stamped the f*(& all over them.

Thanks but no thanks.

[ASA Vet]

That private company will not charge a flat $.37 for a 1 oz 1st Class letter.
They'll zone it and charge more for rural out of the way places.
USPS operates on the average cost within the entire delivery area.
From Guam to Puerto Rico for 37 cents.

The only monopoly is on 1st Class mail.
1st Class mail volume is dropping due to the internet.
All other mail is already open to any private company who thinks they can turn a profit.

At least (so far) no ones used the phony "tax money" argument.

[Fiddlstix]

The law grants the United States Postal Service a monopoly on home mail delivery. Similar postal monopolies have ended in other countries such as New Zealand and Sweden. Should this monopoly be ended here?

Yes
	66.7%
No
	33.3%
Total votes: 120

[Kay Ludlow]

You're right about 1st class being the only protected monopoly for the Postal Service.

No private carrier is willing to deliver to every address in the country. When you get to the really remote (costly to get to) locations, the UPS and others take their packages to a post office near their air terminal and MAIL THEM!

USPS currently only receives subsidies (tax dollars) for non-profit mail, congressional mail and for the retirement costs of people who retired before Re-org (1972). Congress is in arrears in providing the subsidies for non-profit, yet they require the Postal Service to provide low rates to non-profit organizations (like the Nature Conservancy).

Since Postal service is one of the few things the founders thought the government ought to provide (to ensure it was available to all as a low-cost means of communicating), I'm inclined to think we ought to get rid of all the other agencies that are NOT constitutionally mandated, like the NEA, EPA, Dept of Education, etc.

[Tribune7]

When you get to the really remote (costly to get to) locations, the UPS and others take their packages to a post office near their air terminal and MAIL THEM!

You think we should give the USPS a monopoly on packages?