The USPS has really taken it on the chin in so many ways in the past. Last year, the postal service lost almost $9 billion. The business model is simply not sustainable any more.
Consider this: Back in my college days, the cost of a 3-minute long distance call was equal to several hours of the average American’s wages. You only made a long distance call for life-changing events when somebody died, got married or had a baby.
Today, however, long distance is free for most of us, and people call each other just to shoot the breeze. Then there’s also e-mail, texting and social networking for staying in touch. Times have changed and the mail is no longer as important as it once was. The recession has only compounded the problem for the postal service.
So I expect you’ll be seeing a big fight with politicians grandstanding and saying that you can’t close this post office location or that one. But I think the whole entity should be sold off to a private vendor, period.
Mail played a very important role in the early days of our nation when it was the primary form of communication in the Thirteen Colonies. But times have changed radically.
Now, don’t get me wrong. What we pay for postage is actually very reasonable. But I still think the answer is to sell the postal service off and get rid of it being an obligation of the federal government. Let the free market figure out how to best deliver mail.
