Postal Blues
Why Do We Need the Post Office?
By Daniel Muniz

The United States Postal Service is a huge bloated federal bureaucracy that can only survive by raising rates and by continuing to receive big government subsidies by insulating itself in its monopoly. The Post Office simply cannot sustain itself by its own revenues and its inefficient cost centers all while the private sector continues to run circles around it.

The time has come for this government monopoly to be privatized.

The overwhelming use of email has led to collapse of personal letters being sent through the mail. In fact, with rare exceptions, almost every letter inside your mailbox is business related. Also, with much in the business world that can now be accomplished by email. Consumers still have not completely disavowed getting all their correspondence by postal mail but few people disagree that such a day will come.

Overnight and second day delivery companies like Federal Express and UPS have shown that they can do the job better than our self-important government agency and unlike the Post Office; they have the profits to prove it.

UPS has also demonstrated that they can deliver parcel posts at a profit which encouraged its competitor FedEx to slowly expand its ground delivery business. In addition, there are a plethora of small and specialized delivery businesses that move packages and cargo at a profit.

On the mailbox front, the Post Office is continuously being embarrassed by the Commercial Mail Receiving Agencies (CMRA) that offers private mailboxes. UPS tossed its weight into that market when it acquired the largest retail chain, Mailboxes ETC. And independent mom and pop CMRAs have been doing well for decades on their own. As a result, the Post Office has tried to rewrite the rules and regulations to stifle its competition but with little success.

In many ways, rewriting the rules of competition is about the only way that U.S. Postal Service can maintain viability.

As every year passes, the Post Office has had no choice but to continuously raise rates and ask for more money from the government.
 

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Although it has improved certain efficiencies in some of its processes, this bureaucracy is still very much a lost cause when all other factors are taken into consideration like labor costs. They have tried outsourcing to private mail delivery companies in which labor costs are half of that of postal employees but there is still such a long way to go to achieve any significant savings.

In all fairness, America did need the Post Office at one time.

When nobody else can provide a service that benefits everyone, like national defense, then the government is obligated to step in and solve the problem. The Post Office did a great job especially when the massive corporate infrastructure to invest in it did not exist. The government was the only way to get this job done and from that perspective, it was a true success.

But those times are long gone and the United States Postal Service has outlived its usefulness and its mission.

Private industry can do it better, cheaper, and still be profitable at it.

But profit in itself is still what prevents everyone from jumping on the bandwagon to private the Post Office as well as many other subsidized government operations. There is a segment of the population in which profit still smacks of vulgarity. In fact, some people don’t even mind if a governmental entity is inefficient and wasteful as long as a “greedy” corporation isn’t around to make money off of it.

And as long as such groups of people continue to support government waste, then the opposition to privatization will always be fierce if not virulent.

Such a position is a hollow argument. Everyone in society benefits from successful profitable businesses instead of wasteful inefficient government services. Yes, the strength of labor unions will be diminished and certain high paying wages will be eliminated. However, that is part of the free market, not the government, decides the value of employment.

The unions got by from a happy coincidence.

At the time, there wasn’t any competition with the U.S. Postal Service and the unions had free reign over their labor force. Today, it is difference. There are plenty of people who are more than willing to work at a lower rate to do the exact same job. And without the bogus union work restrictions, they can also do it faster, better, and be more productive.

I would be remiss to say that the Post Office has not done a good job because they have actually done very well since its inception. They have done a good job and there is nothing that can take it away from their accomplishments in our history.

But being good is not good enough in our free market society.

Consumers now have choices and there is a corporate infrastructure that can now provide the services better and at a cheaper rate. The days of their monopoly and government subsidies ought to be numbered.

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COMMENTS FROM READERS

Amen to that one!! Our mail is so horrid; I actually take the bills and mail them from work... I too hope for some competition for that dinosaur... -Laura