You pay for junk mail

[ApostateAbe]

This evening when I checked my mailbox, I got a credit card advertisement from my bank and a pile of political ads. As usual, I stuffed the political ads and excess garbage in the white envelope marked "postage paid by addressee" that came with the credit card ad, and I dropped it back in the mailbox. I do that to help teach them not to send me anymore frivolous mail.

But then I was reminded of a concern I have whenever I get junk mail nowadays. I have to pay for it. It is not just the 37 cents that mailers pay for each piece of garbage that I receive. It is also 1 billion dollars in yearly taxpayer subsidies, including a chunk of my paycheck. If the taxpayers didn't have to shoulder the cost of postage, I am almost entirely certain that we wouldn't get a lot of junk mail, and even if we did, we wouldn't have to pay for it. If we had to pay, say, two dollars instead of 37 cents for each postage, then it is much more likely that Wells Fargo and congressman Brian Baird would use their own money to advertise instead of mine.

I was curious about exactly how much of my junk mail is paid for by the junk mailers and how much of it is paid for by the rest of us, so I went to usps.com. That didn't help. So I did a Google search, and I found an article published by the Citizens Against Government Waste from the year 2000. I found out that there is no way to fulfill my curiosity, because the USPS does not keep track of its finances well enough to answer the question.

But there is much more than that. The article from CWAG is very scary. We pay much more for postage than we think. Although the USPS claims to be self-sufficient, the USPS is exempt from the costly taxes, regulations and fees imposed on businesses that normally help compensate for the public costs of maintaining such businesses. Furthermore, the USPS has a government-enforced monopoly on parcel delivery, strangling the possibility of innovations that could make postage a lot more efficient and cheaper for everyone. The USPS even has the lawful power to decide how much their competition charges, and it uses this power to maintain the monopoly. And furthermore, there is wasteful spending around every corner of the USPS, from daily limousine rides for the executives to sponsoring sports teams (why do they need to advertise?). Those are the things we are paying for.

The best solution that comes to mind is that the USPS should be completely privatized. I no longer feel like paying for such public services that are overused and abused. How can anyone disagree with this?

[dave_a]

Originally Posted by ApostateAbe

Furthermore, the USPS has a government-enforced monopoly on parcel delivery, strangling the possibility of innovations that could make postage a lot more efficient and cheaper for everyone. The USPS even has the lawful power to decide how much their competition charges, and it uses this power to maintain the monopoly. And furthermore, there is wasteful spending around every corner of the USPS, from daily limousine rides for the executives to sponsoring sports teams (why do they need to advertise?). Those are the things we are paying for.

The best solution that comes to mind is that the USPS should be completely privatized. I no longer feel like paying for such public services that are overused and abused. How can anyone disagree with this?

Occasionally I am outside when the mailman delievers the mail. One day he dropped off a bunch of nothing but junk mail for me and he commented that it is a lot of work to deliver all the junk mail. Then he thought about it briefly and said "But it keeps me employed so I guess I shouldn't complain."

I agree the USPS has it's share of issues.

My biggest personal complaint is that I go out and buy a mailbox, dig a hole to put the post in, mix and pour the cement to hold that post, set the mailbox on the post and drill in the screws and after all is said and done the mailbox I paid for and worked to put up says "Property of the US postal service" on it.

Gimme a fukken break, it's my goddamn property!

The law says that the folks who deliver my newspaper will be breaking federal law if they put that paper in my mailbox.

Excuse me? Shouldn't that be my call?

Just imagine the UPS folks telling me I had to install a box for them to put their deliveries in and nobody but them could use it or they would be breaking the law. How long do you suppose that nonsense would last?

I agree the USPS ought to be privatized. Then again I lean libertarian so I like privatizing stupid, obstinant, inefficient, ozymandian government monopolies. Socialists tend to disagree.

[Adora]

Since I don't pay tax, I only have this to contribute to the conversation.

[Dingfod]

Parcel delivery services such as UPS, Fedex, Airborne Express, and DHL have put a huge dent in the income of the USPS from their "monopoly on parcel delivery". Even though there have been inroads into letter delivery in some cities, nobody wants to get into letter delivery nationwide, it's not profitable, but by gawd, they do want the parcel delivery part of the business, and they've got it. At one point in the past decade the quasi-private-governmental entity was actually was producing a positive return. And now, internet email has cut into letter delivery big time. My family has been emailing each other for about six or seven years. I don't remember writing a letter to any of them since then. If not for paying some of my bills and mailing seasonal and birthday cards and gifts, the post office doesn't get my business any more. So, I pay for it anyway, $4 per capita, big deal. At least it's there if I need it.

[lisarea]

I've always had the impression that the USPS was one of the better run government agencies.

I believe they've gotten a few appropriations for things such as security, but for the most part, they've been self-sufficient for about twenty years now, their expenses covered by the cost of postage and other direct costs.

Taxpayer money goes to subsidies for private companies in exchange for providing what are seen as unprofitable services all the time. How are appropriations for the USPS any different?

[ApostateAbe]

Originally Posted by lisarea

I've always had the impression that the USPS was one of the better run government agencies.

I believe they've gotten a few appropriations for things such as security, but for the most part, they've been self-sufficient for about twenty years now, their expenses covered by the cost of postage and other direct costs.

Taxpayer money goes to subsidies for private companies in exchange for providing what are seen as unprofitable services all the time. How are appropriations for the USPS any different?

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.

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).

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.

[viscousmemories]

I think lisarea's arguments are more compelling, but then I'm pretty much her bitch so that shouldn't come as much of a surprise.

Originally Posted by ApostateAbe

This evening when I checked my mailbox, I got a credit card advertisement from my bank and a pile of political ads. As usual, I stuffed the political ads and excess garbage in the white envelope marked "postage paid by addressee" that came with the credit card ad, and I dropped it back in the mailbox. I do that to help teach them not to send me anymore frivolous mail.

Teach who? The USPS? The spammers? I'm pretty sure corporations who get "postage paid by addressee" envelopes pay a one-time only flat fee based on the quantity of items they mail, not a fee per use of the envelope. So I think all you're doing when you resend the mail is giving the carriers and processors more mail to carry and process, which isn't likely to have much affect on anyone.

[Dingfod]

The reason you don't hear of Walmart employees going postal is because they can't afford to buy the guns they sell. And "going postal" pretty much applies to anyone disgruntled enough to go to their workplace or former workplace and put the smackdown on their bosses and/or coworkers. The term was coined after an Oklahoma post office shooting in 1986. These days I hear of it happening a lot more at factories and offices than any post offices.

One more point made by Abe. Real estate and taxes are not higher in rural areas than in cities, at least around here. You don't have to go more than 20 miles away from Tulsa and land prices drop considerably. A 1/4 acre building lot in Tulsa would cost $20K-30K, you can get 10 acres on the outskirts of Mannford for that price.

[ApostateAbe]

Originally Posted by warrenly

The reason you don't hear of Walmart employees going postal is because they can't afford to buy the guns they sell. And "going postal" pretty much applies to anyone disgruntled enough to go to their workplace or former workplace and put the smackdown on their bosses and/or coworkers. The term was coined after an Oklahoma post office shooting in 1986. These days I hear of it happening a lot more at factories and offices than any post offices.

You are right. The higher instances of violence in post offices is no more than a myth, as a postal commission study showed. Props to you and lisarea. Nevertheless, CNN reported "The new analysis noted that postal workers file an unusually high number of grievances and equal-employment complaints and said the backlog can take years to resolve, increasing tensions between labor and management." In response to the series of violent incidents in the 1980's the USPS did almost everything it could to stamp out the violence. But the root of the problem still persists.

One more point made by Abe. Real estate and taxes are not higher in rural areas than in cities, at least around here. You don't have to go more than 20 miles away from Tulsa and land prices drop considerably. A 1/4 acre building lot in Tulsa would cost $20K-30K, you can get 10 acres on the outskirts of Mannford for that price.

You are understanding me backward. I said, "People in urban areas must pay a higher price for home rent and ownership." And my point in saying that was that people living in rural areas should bear what is now the public costs of living in rural areas, just as people living in urban areas have to pay a higher rent.

[Dingfod]

Originally Posted by ApostateAbe

You are understanding me backward. I said, "People in urban areas must pay a higher price for home rent and ownership." And my point in saying that was that people living in rural areas should bear what is now the public costs of living in rural areas, just as people living in urban areas have to pay a higher rent.

Sorry, I read rural instead of urban. That's the first time I've ever made a mistake in my life, I just don't understand how that could've happened.

By damn, them rural folk ought to pay for living out in the sticks. As if most of them are living there by choice. If rural folk had to pay the actual cost of getting roads, electricity and telephone service to their homesteads, a lot of them still wouldn't have those things we now consider essential services. We'd have a hell of a lot more third-world barefoot hillbillies farming via the old inefficient methods. Plus, transporting their products would take a lot longer and not at all during the rainy season because of the unsubsidized rural highway system that would't exist if people like you had their way. You'd pay more for everything if not for these subsidies. Subsidies like these ARE in the best interests of everyone.

The postal service, or rural electricification, never was about anything more than serving business interests or the government's ability to communicate with it's citizenry, which some would deem essential in a democratic republic, whether for election purposes, taxation, or to raise an army. Granted, it the postal service was more important in Ben Franklin's day than it is with today's technology, but just having the service available still is a necessary thing, and a real bargain at less than $4 per capita subsidy. I'd bet businesses are subsidized more by the postal rates not meeting actual costs than individuals are. And, isn't that what government is for, serving business interests? Sure seems to be.

[wade-w]

Another point on the "rural people should pay more" argument is that not all rural areas have the same level of service from the USPS that urban people do. I live in a semi-rural area, and the USPS does not deliver to my address. That's right, I am required to have a P.O. Box if I want to get any mail, including bills, etc.

[Dingfod]

Originally Posted by viscousmemories

Teach who? The USPS? The spammers? I'm pretty sure corporations who get "postage paid by addressee" envelopes pay a one-time only flat fee based on the quantity of items they mail, not a fee per use of the envelope. So I think all you're doing when you resend the mail is giving the carriers and processors more mail to carry and process, which isn't likely to have much affect on anyone.

Except to require more government subsidies of the post office or higher postal rates.

Or, maybe cause some overworked postal employee to flip out and "go postal".

[lisarea]

Originally Posted by viscousmemories

Teach who? The USPS? The spammers? I'm pretty sure corporations who get "postage paid by addressee" envelopes pay a one-time only flat fee based on the quantity of items they mail, not a fee per use of the envelope. So I think all you're doing when you resend the mail is giving the carriers and processors more mail to carry and process, which isn't likely to have much affect on anyone.

I'm not ApostateAbe, but only because I haven't been able to guess his password so far.

But I think what he's talking about is using the prepaid postage envelopes to send spam back to the spammers.

Normally, the bulk mailers get a discounted rate on their services because they're presorted and require less processing. That's neither here nor there, but I think it came up earlier, and it remotely relates to the fact that they also, I think, get the same or similar rates on response envelopes, which have that little bar code thingy on the bottom, which allows them to be charged per response.

Some time back, though, in response to people taping those response envelopes to bricks and whatnot, they imposed some limitations on what they'll charge the addressee per envelope. I'm going to guess it's something along the lines of them paying a straight $.11 or whatever it would normally cost to process a compliant return envelope. So if your response is too big or too heavy or whatever to be sorted automatically, I think the post office eats the cost of processing, but the addressee still pays for compliant returns. Usually, just stuffing another ad in is perfectly compliant, so the bulk mailer does end up paying for it.

Does that make sense? I had to do this bulk mailing thing some years ago (it wasn't spam or anything), so I'm working on foggy memory, and I've definitely forgotten some of the terminology and probably some of the details.

[viscousmemories]

Originally Posted by lisarea

Does that make sense? I had to do this bulk mailing thing some years ago (it wasn't spam or anything), so I'm working on foggy memory, and I've definitely forgotten some of the terminology and probably some of the details.

That does make sense, thanks. I wasn't aware that there were some return postage paid envelopes that are paid for per sending, and I didn't factor in the simple pest factor of sending junk back to junk mailers.

As for whether $.37 is unbelievably cheap for small envelopes I agree that it is. But I assume that the actual cost of processing mail falls somewhere between the cost of sending a postcard and sending a manila envelope with 10-12 documents. The former is like $.15 and the latter is usually in the $4-6 range I think. So I just figure the people who mail a lot of larger stuff cover some of the cost of mailing the smaller stuff.