You’re right. Competition is bad for consumers. We should make everything a government monopoly and save us all tons of money. I don’t know why no one has ever thought of that before!!
Bwah???
The full quote is absolute nonsense. Competition is “good”, but it doesn’t exist. The clear alternative is to not allow it in the first place.
The same thing occurs in health insurance; in many states, there is no competition, and the country has been divided up between 3 or 4 companies.
I see no reason why this wouldn’t happen when existing the postal companies fill the void left by the USPS, given the barriers to entry like have a fleet of planes and distribution facilities.
Not to mention that bulk mailers are pretty dependent on the USPS. There are a lot of businesses whose business model uses the USPS. I still get paper bills through the USPS - should it close down, its going to be much harder for small companies to bill me.
i.e. don’t worry about it. The model needs to change and the USPS needs the ability to change without needing to ask Congress. But it isn’t going anywhere. Too many dependencies.
Sorry you have watched the last few decades with right wing blinders on. The trend in America has been clear. Less competition and fewer companies , mostly through buyouts and mergers. If you somehow believe that trend is making for more competition, you have never seen competition. We have few gas suppliers now with pretty much the same thing offered across the nation. Gas prices and pretty much the same from station to station. They all quit providing oil level checking and, window cleaning and checking tire pressure. They all did that in the past. But we get less and less for our dollars so they can increase profits. But there is no company offering more. that is not how you maximize profits. You kill competition.
The recent ATT merger with T Mobil is being fought by the government on the grounds that it would result in less competition and greater prices to consumers. That is how it is. Sorry you can not understand that a fewer providers, gives less choice and less competition.
Competition is good for the consumers and the country. You get lower prices . You get companies actually innovating and making better products to compete for the consumers. But in a controlled market, they don’t have to do that. That is where we are now.
Competition is bad for companies . That is why they have fought it since the country began.
We have anti monopoly laws for an obvious reason. If a company controls enough of the market, they will give you as little as they can get away with, while charging the maximum.
Could you answer the question I asked about what you think the effect on the price of mail would be for rural areas under a regime in which FedEx and UPS were free to compete in the non-urgent mail market? Do you not concede that the price will be much higher for these citizens? Do you care? Is affordable mail access for all citizens something worth paying for?
ETA: I should add that I don’t dismiss mail delivery privatization out of hand. I just think you need to consider the effects on all parts of the country, and realize that subsidization for rural routes will likely be necessary.
The problem seems to be that Congress in typical short sighted (or Lobbyist influenced) fashion watered down the monopoly in the 70’s allowing private firms to skim off the most profitable services from the USPS.
How about really going outside the box? Return the full monopoly to the USPS. Nationalize Fed-ex and UPS and roll them into the USPS. Regulate all package and mail delivery to be solely the domain of the USPS. Address labor, health care, and retirement issues and roll out the orange, purple and brown Fed-PS trucks.
Wouldn’t that be like taxing the rich? Warn the populace, USPS is socialism!
Well, it sort of is, yeah. It’s taking a good or service and socializing it (i.e., everybody pays the same rather than what the market would dictate, and it’s provided by the government).
Not all social services are a bad thing, as even the most devout libertarian would allow (I think…). Hell, the Constitution pretty explicitly calls for a government-run post.
Answering the OP rather than the tangent, I think that if the USPS shut down, little would change for people in the cities (except mail rates might get cheaper). Fedex + UPS would pick up the USPS mail business city to city no problem. Rural areas would get screwed - Fedex/UPS would probably simply fail to deliver to a lot of addresses and you would have to drive to the nearest major town/city to get your mail at all. Possibly there might be some sort of service introduced where your letter mail gets opened and scanned at the source and you login via the internet to view and print it, and if it is something like a check or money or something you have X days to indicate you want it delivered to your nearest UPS facility for added cost, else it gets shredded.
How the hell would they get cheaper. The mail price does not include a profit margin. That is what private companies would do. They would add 30 percent for management and stockholders. There is no way it would get cheaper.
Service would get a lot worse. We have had excellent mail delivery for a long time. We have gotten so used to it that we don’t think about what it would be like without it.
The price for mail to rural areas would reflect the cost of living in rural areas. Rich people in rural areas can pay that cost. If poor people need assistance, give it to them. But why should we subsidize rich people who live in rural areas? Other people would be more motivated to shift to e-mail or e-pay for bills. Or, learn to live with a lower level of service (mail delivery 3 times per week, for example).
A Federally mandated one-size-fits-all postal rate and delivery schedule is just stupid. Would any of us want that kind of system for a cell phones? Of course not.
One rather suspects that the cost of differentiating pricing by income would outweigh any benefit. Is there really that many wealthy individuals living (as a percent of addresses) in rural areas in the USA that such a calculation is of any particular interest, actually?
That sounds like a perfectly stupid idea. Roll back your postal system to some 1950s set up?
It would rather make more sense to diversify the Post as most European and indeed OECD nations have done. Some degree of cross-subsidy for the “social service” side of the postal system for the poor is demonstrably sustainable in other OECD countries.
Not that Americans would ever bother to study other OECD nations, US exceptionalism and all that.
[nitpick]
It’s more than “pretty explicitly”; it’s “totally specifically”: Article I, Section 8, Clause 7.
[/nitpick]
ETA: Belated thanks to Xema and John Mace for links to the Private Express Statutes.
I should have said “non-poor” instead of “rich”. And you don’t have to cost differentiate pricing. Poor people get assistance from the government. Taking into account the added cost of postage can be made part of that. Then you allow people to decide how to allocate the money they have. When you price something below the market value, you discourage people from using other alternatives (in this case, e-commerce or e-mail).
If I suddenly have to put a $1.50 stamp on my electric bill every month, I’m more motivated to pay it electronically instead.
OK, so we do agree that rural mail service will cost more (potentially much more).
I have to say that as a taxpayer I think I’d rather subsidize rural mail service directly rather than pay “mail assistance” that then gets paid to private for-profit companies, but YMMV.
My final question would be, what if no private company wants to provide that service at all? What minimum level of service do we, as a country, want to guarantee, and how do we want to pay for that?
I don’t disagree with this at all, and I think USPS should have much more leeway in setting service schedules and pricing (subject to the gauranteed minimum discussion above). I just don’t think that market forces will allow for the complete elimination of the USPS without a dramatic reduction in services for large portions of the country.
That clause doesn’t seem to require a government monopoly, however, or even that the government do the delivery. The entirety of the text is: “The Congress shall have power… To establish Post Offices and post Roads;”
Yes, it will probably cost substantially more.
Only a fraction of the people living in these areas need the assistance. Why pay for those who don’t? Do you object to food stamps going to for-profit companies?
I’m not really invested one way or another with the answer to your first question. As for the second, we should pay for it in a way that reflects the actual cost, so we know what it is. We shouldn’t disguise it in a system that makes everyone pay the same rate.
Well, I read that in USA rural internet is not the rule, and I rather suspect, given my impression of domestic politics, that this would be an area of prime cutting.
That’s really the systemic flaw, here, Mace. And I’m surprised it’s not the focal point of this thread.
The USPS does one hell of a job and I consider it a net good for American society as a whole. Just as I do for rural electrification, air service, and other things that would be a part of breaking the country into semi-independent enclaves with a lower connection to the nation as an entity.
But when you look at things…
- The USPS budget is out of whack (just as most are right now)
- Congress has the power to bind and loose.
- Congress will not do so.
Who’s fault is it that the USPS can’t function? There have been many rate base increases over the years, sure. But not enough to overcome increased costs. In the time a comic book went from $25 (~1975) to $3.99 (now) stamps went from 10 cents to 44 centers. They do a great job with less money than most acknowledge.
The solution, provided one considers non-metro delivery worthwhile, is to allow the USPS to set the price at an effective rate. Would a $1 letter delivery be terrible? Let the USPS establish their own costs with federal oversight just as many utilities do with their PUCOs. Problem solved in 20 minutes. But congressmen know they’ll take the fall for any large rate hike and won’t think of it.