[lisarea]

Originally Posted by ApostateAbe

The USPS is not self-sufficient if it gets 1 billion dollars in subsidies AND an untold bundle in breaks from taxes and regulations AND a government-enforced monopoly on the service they provide. Anyone who runs a business knows the advantage this provides.

Do you have a cite for the $1B in subsidies? From the way that article is written, it looks like they're referring to tax savings, not subsidies. I could be missing something, though.

The USPS is fairly unique in its structure, in that it doesn't have a direct tax base, but I believe it does have a fairly strict mandate for mail delivery (I won't argue they aren't inefficient--often, they are), so I can see the reasoning behind the price-fixing and the eminent domain issues and such. The USPS is required to deliver mail regardless of profitability, and the costs are spread among their base. If private businesses are allowed to compete, they would focus only on areas where they can make a profit, leaving the USPS with the Appalachian route, and maybe overseas servicemembers.

Mail delivery is considered a necessary public service, much like telephone connectivity. In areas where services are considered necessities, monopoly holders are provided with a mandate to provide services, and the way that generally works is that the costs of ensuring service to nonprofitable sectors is spread out across the customer base. Regulations and service level mandates are necessary to provide service to unprofitable sectors.

And, my god, if they are one of the better government-run agencies, that is because every government organization is a shithole. Read the section of the article that describes labor/management relations at USPS, and it will tell you how the term "going postal" came about. I went to the website DisgruntledZone.com, where USPS employees post their frustrations, and it was one of the scariest websites I have been to (second only to the one with the haunted room where you look for the ghost, and you get blasted with an ugly screaming face after one minute).

Is it really so much worse than, say, websites for disgruntled WalMart employees and so forth? I took a look at it, and it doesn't look substantively different from any other similar site.

I am the type of person who believes that every person should cover the cost of the public services they use. If they drive a car and live on a public street, they are the ones who should pay for the public roads. If they smoke, then they should pay for their own lung cancer treatment. And if they mail off a huge bundle of advertisements, then they should completely cover the costs it takes to deliver. I am opposed to every government subsidy that encourages this kind of abuse, but the USPS is an especially plain example.

Well, that's a whole new can of worms, isn't it?

I'm getting an urge to start talking about Jonathan Wild now.