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Posted by D Sherman [72.47.9.228] on Wednesday, December 07, 2011 at 01:18:51 :
In Reply to: Re: One more thing - "media mail" posted by Kaegi [24.16.253.154] on Wednesday, December 07, 2011 at 00:56:57 :
Our founding fathers might have thought newspapers were good for democracy, but they didn't start the USPS. The trouble for the USPS's finances is that THEY are now expected to subsidize it. If the taxpayers were subsidizing the book rate, at least the USPS's finances wouldn't take a hit. The USPS is hobbled in lots of other ways too -- there's a long list of stuff they aren't allowed to handle, such as wine and guns, that UPS and FedEx will happily carry. These are all anachronisms from the days when the USPS had a subsidized monopoly. Basically, UPS and FedEx (started by a former USPS boss) are skimming the gravy and leaving the USPS with all the money-losing business, including first-class mail. I agree the USPS has its own internal problems too -- pension liabilities, bloated wages, inefficient handling, and often a poor quality product -- but they would be in way better shape if they weren't hobbled with rules requiring them to do money-losing things like universal 6-day first-class mail delivery, while prohibiting them from doing money-making things like charging market rates for books and CDs and transporting all legal products like UPS and FedEx do.
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