Post Office Cutting Service = Time to Privatized

The U.S. Post Office is now considering closing 3,700 post offices. The post office last week said they soon they will cut Saturday mail service and could go to mail service three days a week by 2025. In 2011, the Post Office is expected to lose $8.3 billion. The U.S. Post Office employs over 583,000 people. What is really bizarre is why so few people are talking about getting rid of it or drastically scaling it back. The Post Office has been in business since 1789. If you added took the income-expenses since 1789 the total $13 trillion. Yes $13 trillion or a little less than the total U.S. GDP for one year has been spent on mail. So the United States would have been better off never have creating the Post Office and using a private organization.

A no brainer is to let the government to privatize the mail and let FedEx and UPS to work their magic. FedEx moves 3.4 million packages a day. UPS delivers 15.6 million packages and documents a day. I am here to inform you that these companies also make a profit. UPS made a profit in 2010 of $3.49 billion. FedEx made a net profit of $1.18 billion.

People might say something like “I don’t want a business seeking profit delivering my mail”. However, we meet people every day in profit seeking businesses that deliver high quality with low prices. If anyone has been to the post office they know of the long lines, employees who seem too busy to help you, and inferior service. I never notice long lines at a FedEx or UPS store. As a general rule I don’t notice any long lines at profit seeking entities. An employee that has worked for the Post Office has never been laid off. What incentives do Post Office workers have if they can never be fired?

On the books is a law that makes it a felony to allow anyone to deliver first class mail except for the U.S. Postal Service. It is somewhat strange that this is still in effect today. FedEx and UPS handle millions of pieces of mail. I see no reason why UPS or FedEx wouldn’t be able to handle the job of the U.S. Postal Service since they already handle millions of pieces of mail every day. Communities could work deals with any mail carrier they wanted for their mail like they do with trash and recycling. More than half a million people would be out of work if the U.S. Post Office was shut down. However, some of these people could work for a for-profit company and be required to create value. Some of these people would have not had jobs for long if they spent one day in the private sector.

Very few people I think realize how much money the U.S. Post Office is losing every year. If the American people realized how much U.S. taxpayers are subsidizing the mail I believe they would be more in favor with getting rid of it and privatizing it. The Post Office could have never in a million years dreamed of FedEx or UPS.