The US should sell the US Post Office

It makes sense now more than ever, even though I've kicked around this idea for at least 15 years...



Why sell it?
1. Its outmoded. Essentially the USPS was founded as a way to guarantee public communication and the safety and privacy of government communication in an era long before telegraph >>> telephone >>> fax >>> email >>> etc.. etc... etc...

So, I think that the function of the postal service is outdated and could be better performed by UPS/FeDex/etc.... The government could still retain it own agency for internal communication, etc....

2. It has incredible value. Think about it. The value of the business must be in the billions. On top of that the USPS has prime real estate in every town and city in the US. It has billions worth of equipment, infrastructure, etc....

3. Great source of revenue. So, not only would the govt. bring in billions by selling it, you could still tax it or otherwise take a cut and provide a ton of nearly cost-free revenue.

4. Improve service. As part of selling it, you would mandate that all carriers provide a MSL (minimum service level) on par w/ current mail carriage. Meaning that you can always send a letter that will get from California to Maine in X amount of days for 40 cents. The MSL would be subject to regulation like a utility to guarantee a minimum service for those who couldn't or didn't want to pay for whatever new and improved services UPS/Fedex/etc.. would provide.

And that's the cool 2nd part of it. It would allow new services to be provided by these carriers that integrated mail carriage.

5. Decrease the bureacracy. You could actually reduce govt payroll and expenses while making a lot of $$.

6. Use the money for a 1 time project or benefit. You could tie the sale of the USPS to a paydown of the defecit or to beef up Medicare/Social Security, etc... the main point being that to sell this to the public, you'd link the profit to a specific and measurable project that has an significant public good/impact.

7. Conducting business would be easier. The USPS has a lot of regulations that other carriers do not that very much complicate the shipping of products.

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TBH, I don't think this will ever happen. To many established interests that would block it. Too bad. It would be a great way for the govt. to unburden itself of a big block of bureacracy as well as make a shiiteload of money to put toward paying down the debt, etc...

NOTES:
*Please stick to the topic and make new posts for side-topics/conversations or your pet interest
*Apologies to non-US folks for whom this holds little meaning

Really good idea, actually. I never really thought of the Post Office as a pork project, but now that i think about it... It would definitely be more efficient when run as a for-profit company; it would have to be to survive. No taxes to fund it, and its total real estate value alone has to be in the billions. It should probably be more of a phaseout, though, because it would be remorseless to fire a few hundred thousand employees. I suggest just allowing people to retire and not replacing them, gradually selling off branches. It may also glean more money in the sale that way.

But what kind of precident would that set? Like the government being able to sell off the department of defense or education?

You are correct sir!!

Mastreditr111 said:

Really good idea, actually. I never really thought of the Post Office as a pork project, but now that i think about it... It would definitely be more efficient when run as a for-profit company; it would have to be to survive. No taxes to fund it, and its total real estate value alone has to be in the billions. It should probably be more of a phaseout, though, because it would be remorseless to fire a few hundred thousand employees. I suggest just allowing people to retire and not replacing them, gradually selling off branches. It may also glean more money in the sale that way.

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TBH, I don't see it as pork. I think its pretty much self-sustaining at this point. But, I just see no practical reason that the government should still be in the letter carrying business. Its outlived its original purpose.

But what kind of precident would that set? Like the government being able to sell off the department of defense or education?

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I don't think it would set any bad precedents. Depts. like Defense, etc... have a public use and need that that I find the Postal service no longer does.

edit: I added a 7th reason that just occured to me.

Well, there is the issue of providing service to unprofitable areas...

Perfection said:

Well, there is the issue of providing service to unprofitable areas...

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Accounted for:

4. Improve service. As part of selling it, you would mandate that all carriers provide a MSL (minimum service level) on par w/ current mail carriage. Meaning that you can always send a letter that will get from California to Maine in X amount of days for 40 cents. The MSL would be subject to regulation like a utility to guarantee a minimum service for those who couldn't or didn't want to pay for whatever new and improved services UPS/Fedex/etc.. would provide.

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Do you think people would buy it under such conditions?

Perfection said:

Do you think people would buy it under such conditions?

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What do you mean "buy it"? If you mean, use the service, yes, since it would be no different than what they already have. If you mean would the population agree to this idea? Probably not because special interest groups and Congressmen would run ads 24/7 that promised that undoing the Post Office would somehow be the end of the world and they'd die in pain.

.Shane. said:

What do you mean "buy it"? If you mean, use the service, yes, since it would be no different than what they already have. If you mean would the population agree to this idea? Probably not because special interest groups and Congressmen would run ads 24/7 that promised that undoing the Post Office would somehow be the end of the world and they'd die in pain.

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no, venture capitalists

Perfection said:

no, venture capitalists

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Oh, I have no doubt. I bet you anything UPS/Fedex/DHL, etc... would love to get into this business. Think of the possibilities. You'd see them do things like carry all of a companies mail business as part of what they already do for parcels, etc... how'd you like to pay an annual fee to have all your mail picked up/delivered? etc....

And, if not, new companies would emerge that would relish this opportunity.

.Shane. said:

Oh, I have no doubt. I bet you anything UPS/Fedex/DHL, etc... would love to get into this business. Think of the possibilities. You'd see them do things like carry all of a companies mail business as part of what they already do for parcels, etc... how'd you like to pay an annual fee to have all your mail picked up/delivered? etc....

And, if not, new companies would emerge that would relish this opportunity.

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Using Perfection's point and Canada's postal service as an example...
Is their any profit in picking up a letter on the remote east coast rock of Newfoundland with a 51 cent stamp and delivering to somebody on the island of Victoria, BC (about as far west as you get). Unlikely.

The beauty of the national postal service is that it provides equal access to all Canadians regardless of the "profitability". Yes our taxes fund it.. but we also all benefit from it.

RedWolf said:

Using Perfection's point and Canada's postal service as an example...
Is their any profit in picking up a letter on the remote east coast rock of Newfoundland with a 51 cent stamp and delivering to somebody on the island of Victoria, BC (about as far west as you get). Unlikely.

The beauty of the national postal service is that it provides equal access to all Canadians regardless of the "profitability". Yes our taxes fund it.. but we also all benefit from it.

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I agree. Some things, like the post office, might not be the best-run companies, but they're the only one to provide a service at a loss. That's what taxes are for.

i think they could be made profitable relatively easily... after all the same truck that is carrying a few dozen packages can probably also handle a few bags of mail with little decrease in efficiency, and quite a bit of added monetary input

also, now that i think about it, i doubt the phaseout idea i proposed would be needed. After all, UPS or whoever will need trained people to deal with letter-sized packages

Well, I think it could be done, and it's a reasonable idea, but I'm very hesitant to alter the status quo when it works quite well.

But it really doesn't, not in relation to the major for-profit shipping services.

Furthering my old topic, I suspect some people would lose their jobs if we did a simultaneous sale, but not too many, nor perminently. They are trained in this, and when a private package service buys the entire USPS, they will need quite a few trained personnel.

Mastreditr111 said:

But it really doesn't, not in relation to the major for-profit shipping services.

Furthering my old topic, I suspect some people would lose their jobs if we did a simultaneous sale, but not too many, nor perminently. They are trained in this, and when a private package service buys the entire USPS, they will need quite a few trained personnel.

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It doesn't work well? I guess I can't speak for your country but in Canada I can send a letter via Canada Post more conveniently and more cheaply then either FedEx, Purolator or UPS.

Think about it - our national postal system is really quite efficient. I can write a letter, slap a 51 cent stamp on it... drop it in a postal box less then 20 feet from my home and it can go ANYWHERE in this entire country - and it will get there in about a week. Less then three days generally within my province.

Not only that but the same letter (for slightly more cost) can go anywhere in the US... for slightly more again it can go overseas.. and all of these government run postal services interact with one another... all across the planet. AND it serves all Canadians regardless of the "profitability" of their location... In my opinion - it's a well oiled machine - and cheap to boot.

Sell USPS? now thats an idea!

Redwolf, our postal service has a rather bad rep for losing mail, one far worse than the package carriers (though they can almost always blame E-Bay or Amazon.com) Also, from what I have heard (I will have to do some research), it is a quagmire for government funding.

Perfection said:

Well, I think it could be done, and it's a reasonable idea, but I'm very hesitant to alter the status quo when it works quite well.

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I agree with this. The USPS is not costing the government money, and selling it only risks the elimination of non-profitable routes and such. There are somke suggestions made for stipulations, but they only account for current efficiency. Right now, it would be unreasonable to expect a letter to take less than four days to travel from Maine to Hawaii, but, 50 years form now, that likely will not be the case, but a corporation would not hesistate to slow down mail to and from Maine if it's cheaper that way.

Put another way, regulating a corporate USPS would cost the government money. The current USPS does not cost the government money. I find it difficult to imagine that any company would even be able (let alone willing) to shell out the kind of money that the USPS is actually worth, and thus the government would get a loan (because the money must slowly be reinvested via regulations) for less money than the USPS is actually worth. You may be able to convince me otherwise, but it will take quite an argument.

How about Amtrak? The rail business is rocking and this one isn't. It's another biz that needs to be sold. The USPS' decentralized model is a model many U.S. government agencies should follow.