Friday, May 27, 2011

It's Time to Privatize the Post Office

And by that I mean sell it off and also allow anyone else to compete in the delivery of mail, who wants to.

The Postal Service can't even survive on its own with its monopoly privilege. According to NPR, it has borrowed $12 billion from the Treasury to stay afloat.

According to Bloomberg, the USPS has 31,871 post offices, more than the domestic retail outlets of Wal-Mart, Starbucks and McDonald's, combined.

Not surprisingly, there are no calls for privatization and the move toward free markets. NPR and Bloomberg even hoist out the idea of a European model where different governments compete in the delivery of mail, but they won't go as far as allowing anyone else who wants to from the private sector, to compete.

6 comments:

  1. Don't you know that the service of mail delivery does not operate under normal market forces? Like other public utilities, the laws of economics do not apply to this vital service.

    Private mail delivery would be madness: $5 stamps, greedy CEOs making ungodly profits, price gouging, etc!

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  2. Like they say, a good day at the post office is a day without customers.

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  3. $5 stamps, HAHA, it would probably wind up like email today, free. Advertisers would probably cover the tab.

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  4. It's true, the post office service is slowly going bankrupt. Maybe they could set up a virtual office malaysia to reduce costs?

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  5. I guess its time to change the terms and conditions in any postal offices.

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