Actually the US runs their post office better than just about every country in the world. They’re just effected by the economic and technological trends beyond their control. There are far better arguments against socialized medicine than our pretty efficient postal service.
For comparison purposes, here are two that are privately held that are "better":
Deutsche Post Mail operations earned 880m Euro's through first 9 months. DPWN First 9 Months P&L
The Dutch Postal Group (TNT) made 413 million Euro's through first 9 months: TNT financial reports
Like the efficiency of waiting in line at the post office just to buy one stamp? I went last week and our post office doesn’t have an automated stamp vending machine. There were 3 people in line ahead of me with no more than two packages each; two clerks were working. I stood for twenty minutes before I got my turn. All told, it took nearly 25 minutes to buy a 44 cent stamp.
With UPS I can just print a label and stick it on my doorstep after filling out a form online.
Just because the post office is the most efficient in the world doesn’t make it efficient.
Am a postal sorting clerk (23 yrs in the job). While I’m for less govt. involvement, etc., hopefully our service has been pretty good over the years and pretty affordable. Note:
—You would think the debt could be made up by a price increase—say, from 44 cents to 50. Can’t be done. Under law you can only increase it so much, keeping with rate of inflation. Let’s say it did go up to 50 cents though. Send a letter for that price 3,000 miles away. Daily newspaper: 2 or 3 times that. Other consumer goods have gone up but postal
rate not all that bad. How about a buck for a stamp? Nope.
Now consider how much a 1 cent increase in the price of gas would affect the postal service. All the transportation costs involved.
Or the money that had to be spent on anthrax-detecting material after 2 postal workers lost their lives not long after 9/11
As much as I hate quoting a liberal comedian, Jimmy Tingle had a routine in ‘88 talking about how outraged people were that “the price of a stamp went up to a quarter! Is there no God? How do people live there. Listen, a guy comes to your house, picks up a letter, delivers it 3,000 miles away...for twenty...-five...cents. You want change? TIP
the guy 3 cents, man!”
Of course this was before e-mail, etc.
“There’s less mail to sort”. Tell me about it: at my facility many have taken early retirement so now we have MORE mail (per worker) to sort (or some kind of consolidation of facilities has done that). It’s more hectic than ever trying to get it all out
(I’m in a manual area; as much as machinery/automation can sort a lot of mail in a little time, there is still a need for manual)
The P.O. has costs related to pensions and health care which need to be addressed. They are trying to save money by stopping new facilities being built; consolidating
districts; early retirements/attrition, and so on. We try to
get money from the gov. but can only get so much.
>>There are far better arguments against socialized medicine than our pretty efficient postal service.
Indeed. Oh, and have we gone through a postal strike
lately? Nope, because I think we’d be fired if we tried.
We’re deemed essential workers. The last strike was in ‘70
and it was hell for the country.
The current postal unions came about after that, I think. And speaking of unions, does mine (Amer Postal Workers) want us to believe that Obama, whom they supported, is good for us...because he’ll help to bring universal health care—and ours will now suffer? They won’t come out and say that.
And for every rare story about “letter falls behind
filing cabinet, takes 56 years to deliver!”, realize that billions of mail pieces DO get to their destinations in a timely manner.