Which would give you better mail service a private company the U.S. Postal Service?

Myself | Myself

[notpoliticallycorewrecked]

Okay enquiring minds want to know :

Which would you prefer a private company delivering your mail or the U.S.P.S.?

[irish guard]

I don't really care one way or the other. All I want to figure out is how to stop all these damn catalogues from coming.

[Generic_Login_1787]

England and Australia don't cover six time zones and 6,000 miles. Sending a letter from Key West, Florida, to Barrow, Alaska, costs 39 cents. Beat that.

As for the "attitude" argument, please don't argue that you don't get attitude from bored teenagers at privatized fast-food joints. The service industry hiring pool is fairly universal.

The whole point about privatization vs. government control is that private companies can do whatever government can better. So come up with the business model that costs LESS and runs MORE efficiently than the U.S. Postal Service and I'll support it. We're not talking about the Education Department here.

[babyface00]

What examples do you have that make you come to that conclusion?

Since private carriers are banned from providing mail service, the only comparison that can be made is package delivery.

In my experience USPS is the worst package delivery service. They lose about 5% of the packages, the packages can't be tracked (until the next day), and the delivery times are clouds of probability.

UPS and Fedex have never lost a package of mine, always delivery on time, and the package can typically be tracked within minutes of it changing steps in the shipping process.

Also, in some cases, UPS and Fedex can actually reroute packages in transit - an impossibility for USPS.

For me, the savings shipping USPS aren't worth unless I don't particularly care if the package makes it to its destination.

[toddlintown]

"Keep the U.S. Postal Service!!!- Otherwise, the bars in America will be empty between 2:00 and 5:00 pm."

Back in the day, did I ever stop at your joint? And 5 P.M. C'mon, that was the beginning of Happy Hour!

[teenyelliott]

Maybe, but I think the current system has reasonable pricing and great service.

Now, if a private company could do it for $.10 a letter, fine, but I don't see that being possible.

[notpoliticallycorewrecked]

Example #1
I live in a large city by most standards. I get my mail between 4:30 and 7 P.M. almost every day. They continuously give me mail that isn't mine and give my mail to other neighbors. When I complain to the post office supervisor he (on at least four occasions) has told me that they don't even have to deliver my mail, if I don't like their service, then I can drive across town to pick it up at the post office. The post office where my mail comes out of is clear across town. There are 3 or 4 post offices between the my neighborhood and the post office that my mail comes out of. So much for efficiency.

Example #2
I had a check sent to me on December 17 that was mailed from the same town that I live in, I still don't have the check.

Example #3

When I go to the local post office those waiting on customers are so slow that my 88 year old neighbor states that she walks faster than they. It is almost comical to go over there to watch them "work". They take baby step and have one speed, which is mosey. It is like a game with them to see who can go the slowest while still moving. "Mother. may I take 6 baby steps?"

[adamsjas]

Well sa1d MineralMan.

People like to bitch and claim the USPS can't manage its money, and does a poor job. All well and good to spout off and sling charges, but far from the truth.

The USPS is quasi-privatised now, operating as a public corporation and more than meeting the needs of Americans.

The new things they have implemented in the last few years vastly exceed what any of the so-called private carriers do.

Click-N-Ship is nothing short of amazing. Private stamp printing on line is great, both the post-office version and the private third party versions like Stamps.com.

Nobody else will find the right address of some backwater neighborhood in some quiet town to deliver your letter to uncle bob for anywhere near the price.

Yet every time there is another minuscule rate hike the bitchers and carpers come out of the wood work ready to dismantle one of the most successful undertakings of the US Government.

Tell you what anti-Post Office winers: Write your congressman. But don't mail the letter for 39cents. Send it FedEx or UPS for 7 to 12 dollars.

[andyandval]

I can't belive what I am hearing from FReepers.

The USPS is a typical government bureaucracy, bloated by waste, mismanagement, shady finances and union labor.

What amendment to the Constitution created the USPS???

[Doohickey]

The USPS does okay. I wouldn't mind seeing privatized, but keep in mind that mail delivery is one of the few enterprises government is involved in that is actually in the constitution.

[muawiyah]

Since every other postal service in the world charges much higher rates for the same service, privatized or not, odds are there'd be tremendous price pressure with any move out of the current system.

On the other hand, I think I could pull it off ~ give me USPS, latitude regarding where and when I provide service, and there's some money to be made.

What I don't understand is why you guys are upset with the least costly postal service in the world? Are you nuts?

[muawiyah]

BTW, the "part" of Japan Post that's set for privatization is the BANKING OPERATION. Concerning Nederland, that's about the size of Metro New York ~ hardly anything to compare a nearly continental sized business to.

[Generic_Login_1787]

(1) In 14 years of receiving mail as an adult, I think I've missed exactly one letter ever. And I live in a city that's famous for poor service of all kinds. *shrugs*

(2) "The check's in the mail," huh? ;)

(3) Again, my McDonald's example. It would be nice if service workers were always nice. But I'm not entitled to a smile.

[muawiyah]

ROTFLMAO ~ well, anyway, I would stop this cr*p of delivering mail to people for FREE.

There's NO FREE LUNCH in the future.

[RVN Airplane Driver]

USPS seems to have a service philosphy of if there is more than 3 people in line one of the clerks takes a break.. I can get a mad - on driving by the PO on most days. I avoid them if at all possible and would never send anything I wanted to make sure would arrive at the intended destination in a timely manner. It's unionized and that probably tells everyone where the problem lies...

[muawiyah]

There's not been a subsidy since the days of Ben Bailer, and that's decades ago. Time to catch up on the news.

[notpoliticallycorewrecked]

See post #26 and that is only part of my beef with the U.S. P.S. I do have friends that work for them and they say that by a large their fellow employess are a bunch of lazy slackers that could get twice as much work done if they only applied themselves a little bit.

[fat city]

"Back in the day, did I ever stop at your joint?"

Hehe- you may have. Most of the mailmen I drank with back in the day drank in places on their routes until they clocked out- then they drank in their own neighborhoods. I actually went to a "Mailman Picnic", once- man, what a blowout!

[Gordongekko909]

A private company will probably be more expensive at point-of-sale. That's because they don't get tax subsidies.

Here's the thing: your taxes prop up the USPS no matter if you use it or not. So even though the marginal price of sending a letter is a mere thirty-nine cents, you're still paying more through your taxes. And you really get burned if you don't send any letters, because then you get very little utility (you still get some benefit from receiving letters, but most of the cost is borne by the sender) while still paying for the service.

It's more of a free rider problem than anything else.

[Doohickey]

Do you think we ought to amend Section 8 of the Consitution first?

[BlazingArizona]

I completely disagree. What examples do you have that make you come to that conclusion?

Never more than 2 windows running out of 6 at my most-visited PO, for one. Vending machines that are perennially out of order or out of stamps, for another. And when the USPS does come up with a genuine innovation, it never stops looking for a way to screw it up. Consider the APC, the new Automated Postal Center that can weigh packages and print exact postage in any amount.

Last month, I had to mail out 25 identical photo CD's in standard bubble-wrap disc mailers, all domestic. I used the APC to weigh one, postage $0.83. Now since I had 25 identical in-country items to send, I should have been able to hit the "times 25" key and have it print all the postage, right? No, the APC won't let you do that. It makes you weigh each one individually. Since this was Christmas, and people were queuing up behind me, I went to the function to dispense postage in specified amounts. I could print any amount ! wanted, but one dollar minimum. So I had to have it print 25 $1 stamps for my packages.