The CATO Institute believes everything should be privatized. It is funded by far-right billionaires who don’t want to pay taxes. In this post, Chris Edwards argues the libertarian view that the United States Postal Service should be privatized. In private hands, there would be fewer post offices and fewer employees and fewer mail deliveries. The union would be broken. Some towns and communities would have no post office. A libertarian dream.
One huge lesson from the experience of the pandemic is that we need a functioning government with coherent leadership. The libertarians have wanted to destroy the government for decades. Now they retreat to their yachts and gated compounds to watch the spectacle of what they have wrought, without a shred of remorse.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
It’s become a joke that these CEO-Libertarians even call themselves libertarians, since everything they do is designed to destroy popular self-government and replace it with slavery to the corporate totalitarian agenda.
Jon,
Give us a new name.
Libertarians are shills for the Koch brother and DeVos and other funders.
Not Jon, but here is my two cents worth: Reactionary Regressives who want to take us back to an imagined idyllic time in American history that never existed and never will.
I usually call them Corporate Libertarians since corporations are the the only real things they are freeing from accountability and responsibility to the People. Yes, they maintain a corps(e) of infantile rabble-rousers to intimidate local bodies of government, but those twits are just tools and useful idiots. All the True Libertarians I ever knew or even heard of disappeared a long time ago into the Wilds of Alberta or the Outback of Australia.
Glibertarians
Fibbertarisns also works
Glib-OR filbber-tarian
Glibertarian
Naught but glib
Fibbertarian
Fraught with fib
And for people like Koch’s, bribertarian also works
And drivertarian for Elon Musk
And knivertarian also works for some
And for Steve Jobs’ wife
Wivertarian
Oh, and jivertarian
And those like Gates who liked to collect data on our children:
Spyvertarisn
Gibbet-the-Aryan
The plan to privatize the post office has been in the making for years, even though the establishment of the US Post Office in the Constitution. USPS has been targeted for privatization by hobbling it with a burdensome retirement plan that drains money from the USPS. It has also been the victim “creeping privatization” where private subcontractors are the new hires in the post office.
Perhaps privatization may work in Europe where there are few remote areas, but it would fail to serve the needs of rural America. For profit companies will not provide service to remote areas because it is not profitable.
Privatization does not benefit the people. It only benefits corporations and the 1%. Privatization promote inequity, and the service provided would be much worse than the service we now have. Privatization would create new user fees, and it would dramatically increase existing rates. Privatization increases inequality. Wealthy areas would be well served, and poor, remote areas would suffer. Privatization decreases wages and benefits. Working for the post office would be another job that would allow workers to be members of the middle class. Overall, privatization enhances inequality while people pay more for a worse service. http://www.inthepublicinterest.org/report-how-privatization-increases-inequality-2/
The whole article is written in the framework of the value of saving money as if that were the ONLY value–AGAIN, as if capitalism were the ONLY framework to view our world and our institutions from. An example from the article: (my bold)
“. . . cost‐cutting. Congress should allow the USPS to implement long‐needed reforms such as reducing delivery days, closing locations that have few customers, repealing collective bargaining, and other cost‐saving changes.”
Under capitalist-only pay-to-play principles, if it doesn’t have enough “customers,” get rid of it. And (cringe) when did collective bargaining ever help the corporate bottom line? Hence, it has no value.
If we are working under democratic principles, however, and we are assuming public service to ALL, then certainly we want to cost-cut where we can and make changes when change is called for. However, we don’t junk the entire institution because it doesn’t necessarily pay for itself in dollars in cents.
And we certainly don’t place mail service at a “counter” in a private or corporate-run business–that’s would be a rabbit hole for control of service that doesn’t exist in a public/democratic concern.
In a democracy, some things are worth keeping even if they don’t serve the bottom line, even the Government’s bottom line. But as the article openly says:
“Such reforms would provide breathing room for the USPS and help it prepare for privatization. . . . Some members of Congress want to write‐off USPS debts in a new relief bill and push the costs onto taxpayers. <–it’s not worthwhile to preserve democratic institutions? Isn’t that what the whole idea of taxation is about? YES and, as Diane says, that’s why the so-called libertarians want to privatize everything. You have your liberty, but only if you are rich, and it doesn’t matter how you got that way. CBK
How could they have a shred of remorse? Can’t become a billionaire by worrying about the well-being of others. Money/power is the “be all end all” for these people no matter who they hurt.
AND they use an uneducated populace to spread their word (lies). I honestly don’t know how/why some people advocate for policies that make life harder (and more expensive) for themselves in the long run? It’s so very easy to see the agenda.
There are thousands of smaller vendors that would be destroyed by a privatized post office. Many small vendors that sell their goods on sites like Etsy or Ebay would find it harder to compete with the giants like Amazon or Walmart. These two stores are practically monopolies now. A privatized post office would drive a lot of small, independent vendors out of business.
The USPS is a public good, a necessary function of government though it is funded through postage fees not taxes. It’s a public service, it’s not supposed to make a profit anymore than the army, navy, airforce, marines, the FBI, NSA, etc., are supposed to make a profit. Some of the real jackass libertarians even want to privatize the police, firefighters and public roads. These phony baloney yahoos who claim to be for liberty and freedom are against the freedom of workers to form unions, especially public sector workers. Libertarianism is a cancer on our society, libertarians stand in the way of any progress in this country. Many libertarians even want to get rid of the 17th Amendment and go back to appointing senators by state legislatures and governors instead of the popular vote. Hideous!
I believe there are two serious cancers in our society and I apologize in advance if I offend someone: 1. Libertarians and 2. a certain Christian religious sect that Trump relies on for blind support.
Michael Brocoum Political and religious bedfellows–not new in history; rather, a pattern followed by past fascists: CBK
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/researchers-find-evidence-pope-pius-xii-ignored-reports-holocaust-180974795/?utm_source=smithsonianhistandarch&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=202005-hist&spMailingID=42542431&spUserID=NDcwMTU4MTg3NTk2S0&spJobID=1761976108&spReportId=MTc2MTk3NjEwOAS2
One more reason why I am not a religious person.
Michael Brocoum Sigh . . . with the Post Office, with Education, and with Religion, it’s not the institutions that are the problem . . . . (in the case of Christianity, Jesus was a social democrat), . . . it’s the resident human beings and the inadequate and twisted application of policy (and doctrine in the case of the Church) that are the problems.
Albeit a cliche, throwing the baby out the the bathwater gets us nothing.
CBK
I don’t know about the rest of you, but I am sending WAY more 1st class mail lately. Especially because of the pandemic, but also as my own small way to help USPS. If everyone began sending more letters again (which is a lost art), we could at least help.
I know it seems small, and maybe it’s not enough, but I don’t know what else to do at this point to help a public institution that we all need.
The problem with the Post Office is that it doesn’t make a profit
Actually it does make a profit. If you ignore the money siphoned off into the pension fund and look at operating expenses vs. revenues, the USPS is in the black. Another thing to be aware of is that privatization will open up that oversized pension fund the USPS to being looted as part of the spoils of being privatized. The USPS also wanted and still wants to switch to electric vehicles for places where that makes sense, like cities. They have a longer service life and much lower maintenance costs. That would also make the USPS a big customer for renewable energy. We know who doesn’t want that to happen. If congress would allow them to reduce the pension fund to a rational level and use the surplus to modernize where needed that would be great.
Jon Taxes are what mature people pay for things that are, at once, true common goods, that is, for the well-being of all in a rich and dynamic democratic culture . . . but that do not pay for themselves in day-trader type profits. CBK
I think that the problem with the Post Office is that it does not make a lot of sense to have people hand carry data from one house to the next. It should all be email and we should use the resources currently spent hand carrying the data to a more socially useful purpose.
Can the packages now sent to my PO Box also be emailed to me? Maybe the pattern of my order could be emailed and I could produce a case of dog food with a 3-D printer?
And all it will take is one hacker (it happened to me a few years ago when my desktop computer was hijacked by ransomware (hackers), electromagnetic pulse, and/or solar flair to crash the electric grid along with the internet.
When the ransomware took out my desktop, I had to scramble to pay my bills on time the snail mail way while a lock computer shop worked to recover my desktop.
For years, I have been thinking and saying that we can not totally depend on the internet for almost everything like e-mail instead of snail mail. That is a really big mistake.
As it is, most if not all business rely on the internet to sell their products. Have you ever been stuck in a checkout line when the internet is really slow or stopped working? Most of the clerks don’t know how to sell you a product without the computer linked to the internet doing all the thinking for them.
Teachingeconomist All e-mail? You are kidding . . . right? . . . CBK
Teaching economist: I can’t send masks I’m sewing to my family and friends via email.
I cherish the letters my now-husband and I wrote each other when we were dating during the summer where we were apart. Email isn’t the same.
And everyone who stopped writing letters who said that, “Oh, I don’t write letters anymore, I will email” never emails.
And no one looks forward to getting a birthday or condolence or graduation email. Some things still call for the personal, handwritten touch.
Dr. Ravitch,
If your packages were sent through UPS, they can not be picked up at the local post office, but the UPS store. If the packages were sent through FEDEX, they can not be picked up at the local post office, but instead the FEDEX location. If your packages were sent through Amazon, they could not be picked up at the local post office but instead at the Amazon Store or Whole Foods Store. Who delivers your packages? Of course, most of your packages, no matter which company delivers them, arrive at your front door.
The ONLY thing that you must send through the USPS is first class mail. For packages, the USPS is nothing special.
If posters here want to do something concrete for the USPS, stop sending emails, stop sending texts, and write letters instead. Think of how much more income the USPS would have if all of your posters did that! Also, no automatic bill payments. A bill should be mailed to our home, generating income for the USPS, and you should write a check and mail the payment to the business, generating even more income for the USPS.
Funny, I get packages and mail at my post office very often. I know everyone who works there and they always greet me with a smile. I like sending my packages to the post office because I know they will be safe until I get there. I will continue to use the post office despite your disapproval.
I do not pick up packages at the Post Office. They are delivered to my house.
I installed a lockbox on my front porch (drilled into the concrete and anchored the lockbox to the porch – took two hours of my time after I paid $40 for the lockbox at Costco).
The mailman knows the code to open the lockbox. That is where my packages go.
Amazon’s delivery service also has the same code. Smaller packages go into my secure mailbox that works like one of the Post Office’s drop boxes on sidewalks that are usually painted blue. Mine is black and is a smaller version that I bought through Home Depot. I anchored the heavy-duty metal post in the ground with three-hundred-pounds of concrete.
I’m also signed up for secure delivery (this service might use a different name) through the Post Office and they send my an e-mail every morning (if I’m going to get mail) with a photo showing me what is going to be delivered to my house that day, envelopes and packages. The Post Office also lets us track our packages online so we know when they have been delivered to our house.
I use all of these services.
TE, re: “For packages, the USPS is nothing special.” Price is the primary consideration for most of us, including small businesses. For packages like a book (or, recently, homemade masks), or most anything under 2lbs, USPS is always cheaper than UPS or FedEx. Guaranteed 1-2day delivery items are nearly 1/2 the price. USPS can’t match the high reliability/ promised dely window of UPS/FedEx, but I read online that small vendors w/under-2# products find the occurrence of problems so low that it doesn’t pay to use USP/ FedEx.
The issue with the Post Office is not package delivery. They have always had to compete with other organizations in that market. The Post Office’s problem is that we are mailing fewer and fewer first class letters, the things that can only be delivered through the USPS. In 2001 the USPS handled about 103.6 billion first class pieces of mail. In 2008 they handled 90.6 billion first class pieces of mail. In 2019 they handled 54.9 billion first class pieces of mail.
All the readers here can help to reverse this trend. If you have direct deposit for the checks you receive, cancel it and require the check be mailed to you. If you automatically pay some bills, cancel that as well. This will be especially helpful because the bill will have to be mailed to you and you will have to mail the payment back. You could minimize your use of email,texting, telephone and video calling and write letters. Encourage the bloggers that you follow to change over to a newsletter format that is mailed out to subscribers on a weekly basis. Comments could be mailed in and included in the next week’s issue.
Emails for Everything
The doctor sent an email
Electrons to a female
A birth control of sorts
Like tiddlywinks to sports
And I purchased some of John Oliver’s stamps too: Stamps.com/laststamptonight
The State-mandated curriculum of “Government” and “History” courses we took every year in high school (Texas 1960s) taught us the reason for the Post Office being hallowed in the Constitution had to do with the essential function of open public communication in a democratic society — as the Founders learned going back to the days of the Committees of Correspondence and the role they played in establishing the Nation. Thus the Post Office had a role on a par with and just as important as what later became the First Amendment freedom of the press.
I totally agree. It is a fact that many Constitutional Libertarians are choosing to ignore. The fact that more people will be voting by mail in November should not be lost of anyone. Of course, conservatives are trying to limit voting by mail one state at a time. They just lost a case in Texas, although it may be appealed. Florida also recently lost a case where they tried to exclude poor felons from voting in the fall.
https://www.history.com/topics/american-revolution/committees-of-correspondence
If the American Revolution were happening today (yes, I know) Net Neutrality would be written into the Constitution.
If the Constitution were bring written today, people like Koch, Gates, Bezos, Zuckerberg, etc would be writing it.
It was the wealthy who wrote it originally and it would be the same today.
As a former Postal employee (ET – PS-9) I witnessed the inefficiencies inherent in the USPS sorting system. Regardless of what Washington claims – middle-level managers and line supervisors have a cash incentive to run operations inefficiently through promotion potential tied to the number of operators they supervise – same as in a LOT of US Govt agencies.
When I worked at the Morgan Station GMF (in Manhattan NYC 9th Ave & 29th St.) I had my employment AND my life threatened by my line and training supervisors for following, what I had previously been informed was, official Postal policy.
I, and others in the ‘Maintenance Crafts’, had prior industry/military training and experience and (per USPS policy) were only bringing our observations and solutions to management in the hopes of improving efficiency and reducing costs – to benefit the end-users – USPS customers.
I had previously been employed by a Hudson Valley firm (MacBeth, Div Kollmorgen) which dealt with color and light measurement technologies used in various industries to control and ensure printing, painting and photographic quality across nations and continents.
[Postal sorting operations relied heavily on manual sortation because automated systems couldn’t ‘read’ type-written addresses on colored paper envelopes such as those mailed on holidays and corporate advertising ‘BBR’ (Business Bulk Rate) mailings – better known as ‘Junk Mail’.]
I merely suggested, to my Training Supervisor, that this company’s engineers could likely devise the means to retrofit the ‘OCR’ sorters (Optical Character Reader) so they COULD ‘read’ the type-written addresses on colored envelopes to-which HE replied “Nobody likes a ‘boat-rocker. You DO want this job – don’t you?”.
He then made mention of an incident which occurred on my first day on the sorting floor wherein a maintenance mechanic was severely injured in a 30ft fall down a conveyor-belt shaft into the machinery below. The Maintenance Supervisor had ordered him to ‘kick-loose’ some mail sacks caught between 2 belt rollers high up inside the shaft – while the belts were running!
This supervisor then ordered someone else to “Punch out his time-card BEFORE calling EMS. We don’t want this happening ‘on the clock'”. The mechanic’s mangled body was carried out by FDNY EMTs.
We had fires nearly every week I was employed there – caused by paper-dust lodged in the electrical circuits and electric motors which were overheated DUE to the lack of ventilation air (blocked by paper-dust). We also had fires in the horizontal conveyor-belt shafts when Mail Handlers dropped lit cigarette-butts down the same metal chutes they emptied the mail-sacks into. THESE belts carried the mail between Morgan Station and the JAF building – the large USPS building with columns across from MSG (Madison Square Garden and Penn Station). I even saw a Postal Inspector light-up as he entered one of the ‘Observation Galleries’ they use to spy on Postal workers. Shortly after the fire alarms sounded again.
One of the mechanics developed a solution to a problem plaguing all the sorting centers. A brass sleeve was used in the MPLSM (Multi-Position Letter Sorting Machine).
This insert had to be replaced every other week due to wearing against the steel housing it was inside of. The mechanic simply cut-out shims made of Teflon and installed 2 in each sleeve housing. Doing this to one MPLSM he never had to replace the sleeves in that machine again! The whole sheet of Teflon cost him $0.45. The brass sleeves cost $20 each and there were 12 per machine
Just this one innovation could’ve saved the USPS $75,000 per sorting center per year – but it was rejected by Postal management. The Training Supervisor told me that the sleeves were produced by a company which had a relative of a USPS ‘big-wig’ on staff. Hence the contract to supply those sleeves was given precedence over cost savings for the USPS AND the mailing public.
Postal management rejected his innovation – threatening to charge HIM for the costs of installing all those Teflon shims in all the machines across the USA! So much for ‘supporting innovation’ to cut costs!
I was working with a mechanic one day when we were ordered to clear jams in an MPLSM. We found the Operations Supervisor had ordered his Operators to load over-sized envelopes into their consoles. The MPLSM could only sort envelopes smaller than 5 inches high and 10 inches long (#10, ‘legal’ size) yet they were loading ‘flats’ sized over 8.5 inches by 11 inches and when the consoles tried to push them into the machinery – they were shredded – causing the machine to shut-down.
As we found – all those oversized envelopes contained Harvard University Student Acceptance letters!
Another day I witnessed Mail Handlers moving a large ‘laundry cart’ full of booklets onto a freight elevator. I asked why and was told “We’re taking them down to the incinerator to burn because we’ve got too much work already”. These were ‘postage-paid’ Spencer Gifts catalogs.
The overheating circuitry which controlled many of the sorting machines was circa 1960s – ‘wire-wrap perf boards’. The paper-dust caught in the circuitry BECAUSE of the ‘rats nest’ of wires. I suggested a solution to convert all those circuit boards to ‘printed circuit boards’ which are smooth and would prevent accumulation of paper-dust – thereby preventing the overheating and fires.
At THAT point my ‘Performance Evaluation’ was downgraded by the Training Supervisor and I was denied essential and mandatory training and training manuals all other employees got. I failed the Initial Training course by a mere 7 points and my employment was terminated.
When I applied for Postal employment at other sorting centers I was denied the qualification tests I’d taken when I had applied in NYC. This was in keeping with the threat the Maintenance Dept Manager had made against me when he forced me to sign a ‘Resignation’ form – “If you DON’T I’ll blacklist you from ANY future Govt employment”.
I guess he made good on his threat because even when I passed the tests – I was never called-in for an interview.
BTW One last thing: At the time (1987) I was a member of the Air National Guard. I and two reservists had our annual military training come-due – but we were threatened by the Station Maintenance Manager with termination IF we attended that training.
My unit (103rd TCS) was to fly out to Aviano AFB near Venice Italy. One reservist, stationed at McGuire AFB, was to fly out to Ramstein AFB in Germany and the other (NAVY) reservist’s destroyer was docked near the USS Lexington in NYC for an Atlantic cruise – each of us supporting a global military exercise seemingly designed to support ‘Operation Desert Storm’. Mind you – this was only 3 years before the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait!
The Postal maintenance manager even had THE GALL to mail letters to each of our unit commanders – informing them of the threat! So much for ’employer support of the guard and reserve’!
Still, the USA needs a comprehensive Postal System – but one which REWARDS innovation rather than punishes it!
The Doctor Of course you know that the trifecta of “waste, fraud, and abuse” is a human thing and won’t go away with the advent of privacy. And so we are back to education. Though far from a guarantee of well-being, the moral arts, or good systems and institutions, it’s by far the best horse in the race. CBK
Thanks for the insights, appalling though they are. I think a fast and dirty solution would be an enhanced whistleblower protection act for the USPS in particular. That may be a heavy lift since such protections have been under attack for a while now by our corporate overlords. Anonymous tip offs to the media (in another city) can also work if the whistleblower has not tried to get things fixed internally due to realizing how the deck is stacked.
As a user of the postal service, I have to give praise and accolades to the postal carriers who deliver the mail and pick it up. Over many, many decades, the mail delivery has been excellent. Sure there have been a few glitches over the years but all my payments to the utilities and other companies to which I owed money got there on time and I got all my bills on time, plus birthday cards and other assorted mail. That’s a phenomenal record and speaks to the overall efficiency of the USPS. Overall and on average, mail delivery in this country is great in spite of some of the horror stories that are promulgated about the post office. I give the USPS a grade of A.
I agree that the postal workers do their best under the circumstances. I have been sending and receiving mail with regularity despite the pandemic.
Epic comment here. Thanks.
The Farley building is my home post office.
Just because our postal system isn’t perfect doesn’t mean it’s not valuable and important.
Compared to how messed up Microsoft’s software is, I think the US Post Office is as close to perfect as us humans can make it. I’ll turn 75 in August and cannot think of one time that the US Post Office has failed to deliver my mail and/or bills on time.
But how many times has something gone wrong with the internet and/or my desktop computers? I have had several desktops over the years because hard drives crash and other things go wrong or the old computers cannot keep up with the pace of changes on the internet.
Yvonne Yes . . . even if the P.O. is the shxxiest institution on the planet, let’s FIX IT . . . not give up on public institutions without which, your local business or totally remote and careless corporation is in charge of everything. . . . . do we need a list of what can happen . . . ?
Are Americans so saturated with capitalist-only/pay-for-play thinking that we cannot understand what it looks like when oligarchs are leading us to the slaughter? CBK
Michael Brocoum “I don’t believe the people on this site who claim they worked for the post office actually did so.”
. . . and you base your belief on . . . .? CBK
I think Michael B was referring to a long comment bashing the postal service by someone who said he worked there.
Hello Diane: I know what notes he was referring to . . . it was his belief, one way or the other, that I was questioning. CBK
I thought my belief was clear from my statement.
Michael Brocoum Do you know the difference between belief and knowledge? I asked WHY you don’t believe those who claim (on this site) to have worked at the Post Office?
The whole question misses the point however–which is twofold: FIRST, that institutions are only as good as the people who work in them; and SECOND, that the intrinsic value of PUBLIC institutions AS SUCH does not depend on the FIRST above.
In other words, if we understand and value public institutions and their importance to the maintenance of a vibrant democracy, like education and the post office, and if there are examples of bad implementation of either, then those examples only points to keeping the public institutions and doing what we can to fix them.
Any teacher can give a list of (1) committed errors, poor staff, bad policy and implementation; but also of (2) excellent efforts, outcomes, staff, in-house collaboration and corrections, and good planning for the future. It’s a going concern, “in-progress.”
So what you believe, in this case at least, doesn’t really matter a hoot anyway. CBK
You sound a “bit” annoyed. Obviously you give a big “hoot” about my belief!!! (LOL)
Michael Brocoum In our time, conspiracy theories are about belief and not only NOT about knowledge, but as opposed to it. But there is no need to answer my questions, if you don’t want to. CBK
I prefer to avoid long debates on this site. To be clear I am a strong supporter of the post office. But, I retired from public education ten years ago and saw first hand how the “education reformers” could care less about the quality of education. Their goal was in my view very simple: get rid of public education, teacher unions, and grab those 800 or so billion dollars spent on it. In fact Rupert Murdoch to his credit for honesty admitted as much when he stated he wanted a piece of the action! So when people claim to work for the USPS criticize it strongly I am suspicious that some are disgruntled (went postal) or, fictitious looking to strengthen the privatization agenda. Again, it is my belief, pure and simple.
Michael Brocoum I appreciate your explanation. CBK
Michael Brocoum Do you know the difference between belief and knowledge? I asked WHY you don’t believe those who claim (on this site) to have worked at the Post Office?
The whole question misses the point however–which is twofold: FIRST, that institutions are only as good as the people who work in them; and SECOND, that the intrinsic value of PUBLIC institutions AS SUCH does not depend on the FIRST above.
In other words, if we understand and value public institutions and their importance to the maintenance of a vibrant democracy, like education and the post office, and if there are examples of bad implementation of either, then those examples only points to keeping the public institutions and doing what we can to fix them.
Any teacher can give a list of (1) committed errors, poor staff, bad policy and implementation; but also of (2) excellent efforts, outcomes, staff, in-house collaboration and corrections, and good planning for theA future. It’s a going concern, “in-progress.”
So what you believe, in this case at least, doesn’t really matter a hoot anyway. CBK
Yvonne
You are thinking logically — the way an honest problem solver does.
But when many people essentially make the “USPS sucks” claim, their goal is not to address the problems and fix them but to scrap the entire thing.
Hence the refusal to provide the badly needed funding requested by the Postmaster General.
SOMEDAM Starve the beast until it is too weak to struggle when it’s time to drown it. (The Beast=anything public, including education.) CBK
Let’s carve out a reservation somewhere in the United States (any suggestions) like the ones the US forced Native Americans to move to during and after the Indian Wars. Then we round up all the known libertarians and force march them to that reservation where they can have their own limited government as Native Americans have on their reservations.
That means the FBI would be watching over the libertarians keeping them in line.
The CATO blog post says “”Congress should allow the USPS to implement long‐needed reforms such as reducing delivery days, closing locations that have few customers, repealing collective bargaining, and OTHER cost‐saving changes.”
The link to “ other” is (ironically) an extended account of the debts caused by outsourcing some of USPS services to the private sector…exactly the cure that CATO wants.
Cato’s Chris Edwards thinks that these features are just what everyone wants: less service, from low wage workers, no benefits for those workers, and for customers in remote areas, fewer locations for mail service. These “innovations” are proposed as if virtues of privatization. In his Edwards’ view, we should open counters in retail businesses, and close down all standalone branches.
He does not offer a single proposal on how mail is transported from retail locations to destinations not flush with retail locations, or the profits these locations would expect from the service.
This post is really intended as an attack on proposals from Democrats (some worthy of criticism) intended to shore up USPS, which has unexpected costs, many in addition to a pension requirement beyond its control and designed to make it fail.
CATO has a great sense of timing, don’t they? They deliberately schedule this little salvo during the pandemic & hugest unemployment stats since Great Depression, listing the USPS’ 600k employee rolls in the same breath as “pre-crisis, first-class mail volume was already down 47% since 2001.” Whee, let’s add 300k to the unemployment rolls, the time is ripe! Go to hell, CATO.
So what we need to do is to continue to fund an agency that can’t manage to do its job despite constant increases in rates and tax payer money – brilliant. Regan was right, government doesn’t solve problems, it subsidises them!
Are you proposing that instead of using the democratic process voting for our representatives at the state and federal level and the legislation they enact to fix government problems and run the country, we turn over the leadership to corporations?
Instead of voting for our leaders, they become CEOs. Will one CEO run the country or will the most powerful and wealthiest CEOs divide the country up into corporate fiefdoms?
Let’s look at Trumpty Dumpty.
Trump had six bankruptcies that cost banks more than a billion dollars. He also collected corporate welfare in the form of tax subsidies that adds up to almost a billion so in the long run, he lost about $2 billion just from that.
Donald Trump and his decades of legal battles in 20 seconds
Then once the government is gone, those corporations that filed bankruptcy, just like Trump did six times, become our government.
And like private sector charter schools, voucher schools, and virtual education, that government would have no transparency and could close down whenever the money ran out thanks to some fraud and crook like Trump that cheats his partners, his workers, his customers every chance he gets. Once he’s taken as much of their money as he can get, he closes that business down or files bankruptcy again.
Donald Trump and his rivals have talked about his four bankruptcies, but it turns out he actually has six on his record.
Do you want Trumpelstiltskin or someone worse than him managing the country like hedoes his businesses?
The USPS was formed to pay for itself and the postal service has been around longer than the United States. The USPS isn’t incompetent. If you think it is, prove it with evidence from primary sources and links to those sources so readers like me can check to see if you know what you are talking about.
All the USPS needs is the ability to charge enough for its services and the USPS cannot raise its prices to meet the cost of doing business without approval from Congress.
With private businesses delivering the mail, how many will there be (instead of one, dozens, hundreds) and what happens when one or more of them go out of businesses?
Will these private mail services deliver the mail to everyone or just where they can make the most money and how much will it cost?
My local post office is an epic disaster, almost living up to the popular caricature of USPS dysfunction. That said, I support the institution and I love my daily mail carrier.
US Postal Service since 1775: “Neither Rain, Nor Sleet, Nor Dark Of Night Shall Stay These Couriers From The Swift Completion Of Their Appointed Rounds.”
Libertarian Motto: “If you cannot pay or refuse to pay what we charge, we will not deliver your mail to you, but we will charge you anyway. Our goal is to make a profit even if drive our victims into poverty and homelessness.”
I know it’s fashionable to knock the USPS, blah, blah, blah. I am a big fan of the USPS and I believe that it is still necessary to the functioning of the US, without it, this country would crash to a standstill.
From the USPS web site:
*Each day the Postal Service processes and delivers 181.9 million pieces of First-Class Mail.
*On average, the Postal Service processes 19.7 million mailpieces each hour, 327,838 each minute and 5,464 each second.
*With one of the largest corporate email systems, the Postal Service handles more than 3.5 million legitimate emails a day delivered to more than 222,000 email accounts.
Our corporate email system handles more than 3.5 million legitimate emails daily to more than 222,000 email accounts.
Monthly:
More than 1.2 million email messages are blocked due to spam.
More than 680,000 emails are blocked due to content.
More than 10,500 malware messages are blocked.
*The Postal Service issues 269,098 money orders daily.
*The Postal Service processes and delivers 472.1 million mail pieces each day.
I don’t believe the people on this site who claim they worked for the post office actually did so.
Michael Brocoum Do you know the difference between belief and knowledge? My earlier note disappeared but I asked WHY you don’t believe those who claim (on this site) to have worked at the Post Office?
The whole question misses the point however–which is twofold: FIRST, institutions are only as good as the people who work in them; and SECOND, the intrinsic value of PUBLIC institutions AS SUCH does not depend on the FIRST above.
In other words, if we understand and value public institutions and their importance to the maintenance of a vibrant democracy, like education and the post office, and if there are examples of bad implementation of either (there always are), then those examples only points to keeping the public institutions and doing what we can to fix them.
Any teacher can give a list of (1) committed errors, poor staff, bad policy and implementation; but also of (2) excellent efforts, outcomes, staff, in-house collaboration and corrections, and good planning for the future. It’s a going concern, “in-progress.”
So what any of us believe about the authenticity of posts here (about working in the PO), in this case at least, doesn’t really matter a hoot anyway. CBK
“Now they retreat to their yachts and gated compounds to watch the spectacle of what they have wrought, without a shred of remorse.”
Pretty much, yeah. Nicely said, and thanks for saying it.
Change “watch” to “enjoy” and it works even better.
Yacht Parties
Retreating to their yacht
Enjoying what they wrought
The billionaires have got
Exactly what they sought
Hmm, my imagination is thinking of a drone that sprays a mist over an object like a yacht, a mist infused with COVID-19. This is probably a future plot for a future novel
By the way, what I love about this site is that people write poetry and don’t even realize it.
All I need to do is rearrange things a little.
I guess that makes me a poetry editor.
SomeDAM Poeditor
Perfect, SomeDAM, just perfect.
“Exactly what they bought” also works
The best reason for keeping the Postal Service control under the aegis of the Federal government is to ensure the security and legality of absentee voting. (Even if UPS and FedEx could somehow “ensure” security, there would undoubtedly be a legal problem with their handling absentee ballots.)
And, for some, that also happens to be the best reason for getting rid of or privatizing the Postal Service. In fact, that is almost certainly behind the recent effort to kill off the Postal Service by denying it funds.
Agreed! It is an agent of a secure democracy.
BINGO.
“Grown men do not need leaders.” – Edward Abbey
If I did business in the same manner as government does, and forced strangers to give me money, would you consider me a criminal?
Was Ed Abbey ever a grown man?
I’ve read a lot of his books and I seriously doubt it.
Not that that’s necessarily a bad thing.
But it’s just kind of funny coming from Ed.
It’s also very funny when Libertarians quote Abbey because Abbey wanted to do what most of them would consider “locking up” millions of acres of wild lands and making them off limits to development.
In other words, when these people quote Abbey they are cherry picking and/or utterly clueless about what he actually believed.
Trying to imagine a meeting between Ed Abbey and prominent Libertarians like the Koch brothers.
There would have been sparks flying (if not guns blazing) for sure.
I worked for a company when I was younger. It had many of the same problems associated with government. In the late 70s, it was becoming fashionable to talk bad about the government. Ronald Reagan beat Carter on that idea alone. Sine his election, this has been the ascendant philosophy.
It is time to realize that human organizations, whether they be owned by an individual, a group, or by a people, will have problems born of the contradictions associated with the status of being human. greed and corruption know no bounds within humanity. For the last 40 years, most have agreed that the private sector does a better job of delivering on human desire than the public sector. Perhaps that is true in certain instances. I will bet anyone that my brother will build you a better house than some corporation trying to make money at any price. Bureaucracy exists in all organizations, whether they be public or private. The failings of these organizations are often protected by members of the organization who benefit. This does not mean that we need to junk governments.
Like the Schools, the USPS has to serve everybody. Could they do it more efficiently? sure. Are there problems? sure. Would certain people like to strip off the profitable part of it to make money? Most assuredly. Keep the PO and work to cure the problems. New bath water. Same baby.
I once worked for a private company doing government contracts and if anything the problem is more severe in that case than in the case of the government itself.
I also had many engineering friends from college who worked for private government contractors and they all had a similar story to tell.
Suffice it to say that minimizing cost to the government (and thereby also minimizing the company’s own revenue) is not the primary (or even subsidiary) goal of a private company.
If it were, the Pentagon would not end up paying $600 for hammers that cost $20 at Home Depot.
I used to crack up laughing every time a poster with the name Charles used to comment here because he pretended that somehow private government contractors like the one he worked for were more efficient than government workers doing the same thing would be.
Ha ha ha!
There have been many political and economic models that have managed to survive for long periods – monarchies, democracies, empires, dictatorships, operatine under plutocratic, capitalistic and socialist economies (it is debatable whether the world’s remaining communist states are tuly communist, but that’s not important here). There has never, however, been a successful state run on libertarian principles. Some say that Somalia is such a place, but that country is a failed state that is closer to anarchy than liberty.
Many Libertarians actually are anarchists.
Trump wants postage rates to increase,
and the timing is right (wrong) for the P.O.’s demise before the election, in which Trump doesn’t want the P.O. to help with write-ins.