Is the US Post Office socialism?

leftysergeant said:
you mean let a corporation have the lucrative routes and stick the usps with carrying mail into the hinterland?

Not even a good idea.

We still need the usps for the same reason that fdr initiated the rural electrification program. The corporations were only going to pick the low-hanging fruit from which they could make a profit.

I kind of doubt that the corporate carriers would be interested in hauling mail out into the boondocks. They want to take over the service, they need to take all of the service and i cannot see how they would be able to maintain the same profit levels if they did, at the same or lower cost to the people.

The mail is part of the commons. Never has a corporation taken over any part of the commons without, in the end, causing hardship on the people.

Private mail would be about as good an idea as enron.
Click to expand...

amen
 
The Post Office - socialism which is written into the very Constitution itself. Karl Marx was a crafty, crafty man.
 
leftysergeant said:
WUBRINY63 said:
Private industry has screwed up every government function they have gotten their hands on that I can recall. Keep their grubby hands off our mail. It isn't supposed to be a profit center in the first place.
Click to expand...

Funny, I think the exact opposite is true. The government simply screws up whatever it touches. However, I do agree the postal service should remain governmant run. I actually think it does a good job of getting mail where it is supposed to go, and at a reasonable rate.
Click to expand...
 
schplurg said:
Funny, I think the exact opposite is true. The government simply screws up whatever it touches. However, I do agree the postal service should remain governmant run. I actually think it does a good job of getting mail where it is supposed to go, and at a reasonable rate.
Click to expand...


That was Lefties quote not mine. He screwed up his quote marks in his original post. No agreement or disagreement at this time, just setting the record straight.
 
schplurg said:
leftysergeant said:
Funny, I think the exact opposite is true. The government simply screws up whatever it touches.
Click to expand...

Bull flops. The government has done a hell of a lot better job distributing electricity than private industry and the last time I looked, the private industry dirtbags who took over the Marine Corps funstions guarding embassies wererather screwing it up.

Shriek all you want to, government works for the benefit of the people, even if it discomodes a few investors.

For profit health care, by contrast, has made worthless critters like Bill Frist fabulously wealthy and screwed an enormous sector of the population.
Click to expand...
 
And how many people are satisfied with the job that private industry has been doing with public mass transit since they bopught out the street cars systems back in the 1940s? Do you want to turn THAT back over to government?

Oh, wait...
 
KANSAS CITY, Mo. -- The familiar U.S. mail that we've all known for years -- the one that visits your mailbox in person six days a week -- is officially ``at risk.''

The Government Accountability Office recently slapped that label on the U.S. Postal Service, which is struggling to stay solvent.

Blame the recession or the rise of the Internet, but the volume of mail is plummeting and taking revenue with it. The Postal Service is on track to close fiscal 2009 in a few weeks with a staggering loss of $7 billion or more. It is expected to run out of cash by the end of next month.

``It's a disaster,'' said Richard Watkins, postal spokesman for the Mid-America District.

And that could mean significant changes in the way we get the mail.

The Postal Service has been trying to cope by slashing payroll, closing post offices and consolidating routes. That is saving billions of dollars but is not enough.

Options being discussed within the Postal Service and in hearings this year on Capitol Hill include cutting mail deliveries back to five days a week and raising postage rates yet again.

The ultimate fallback is for the federal government to swallow the losses.
Click to expand...
http://www.miamiherald.com/news/nation/story/1198473.html

Dying a slow painful death. Euthenize this sick puppy.
 
leftysergeant said:
And how many people are satisfied with the job that private industry has been doing with public mass transit since they bopught out the street cars systems back in the 1940s? Do you want to turn THAT back over to government?

Oh, wait...
Click to expand...
Difference is there's a need for public transportation.

The post office is rapidly becoming this century's buggy whip, irrelevant and unnecessary.
 
Even the President thinks the Post Office sucks;

I mean, if you think about it, UPS and FedEx are doing just fine, right? No, they are. It's the Post Office that's always having problems."
Click to expand...
President Obama, 8-11-09

Sounds like private is better than public. I can't believe he let that slip out.
 
WildCat said:
Difference is there's a need for public transportation.

The post office is rapidly becoming this century's buggy whip, irrelevant and unnecessary.
Click to expand...

You mistake decreased need for no need at all. There still are uses that can't be replaced by e-mail and whatnot. Particularly things like stamped documents and cards. Pretty much things that can't be copied.
 
Mitchell314 said:
You mistake decreased need for no need at all. There still are uses that can't be replaced by e-mail and whatnot. Particularly things like stamped documents and cards. Pretty much things that can't be copied.
Click to expand...
Who sends documents through the post office any more? Cards I'll give you, but of course it's illegal to send them any way besides the post office. Unless you charge at least 6 times the post office rate and they weigh over 12.5 oz.
 
WildCat said:
Who sends documents through the post office any more? Cards I'll give you, but of course it's illegal to send them any way besides the post office. Unless you charge at least 6 times the post office rate and they weigh over 12.5 oz.
Click to expand...

For example, school transcripts are ones that I had to personally deal with. As I said, it can't be presumed that everything is email-able. For those that aren't, snail mail is what you have to go with.
 
Mitchell314 said:
For example, school transcripts are ones that I had to personally deal with. As I said, it can't be presumed that everything is email-able. For those that aren't, snail mail is what you have to go with.
Click to expand...
Do the schools that send you the transcripts have the choice to use another carrier, or do rules require them to use the post office?
 
WildCat said:
Do the schools that send you the transcripts have the choice to use another carrier, or do rules require them to use the post office?
Click to expand...

Why would they care? All that matters to them is that they get the thing.

As a coincidental tangent, this was the same transcript I was bickering at SC. But that was a problem with the sender, not the actually mail service, whoever that was. Personally, I don't care if it's the government or a non-government business handling the mail, as long as it's done well. Still, there will always be the need to send physical mail.
 
Mitchell314 said:
Why would they care? All that matters to them is that they get the thing.
Click to expand...
Because a government entity would want to support another government entity. Because the teachers union wants to show solidarity with the postal carrier union. These things happen.
 
leftysergeant said:
Private industry has screwed up every government function they have gotten their hands on that I can recall. Keep their grubby hands off our mail. It isn't supposed to be a profit center in the first place.

Privatizing the mail would work as well as privatizing the Public Utillities Districts did.
Click to expand...
Oh, I'll give you garbage collection as an example. Years ago when there were metal cans and you had to pick up the cans and dump them into the garbage truck it was a 2-person job. Now we have the plastic 90 gal. cans that have a bar on them an arm on the truck poicks up and dumps into the truck at the pull of a lever. But Chicago, instead of taking advantage of this, still has 3-man garbage crews per truck. A driver, who never gets his fat butt out of the truck, and 2 others who waddle along behind the truck rolling the bins to the truck and pulling the levers. It takes them about 3-4 hours to do their route and they call it a day. For this they make an average of $60,000/year plus benefits. And the job is so stressful (this is sarcasm folks) 30% of them don't bother showing up for work on any given day (not sarcasm, it's actually true!).

Somehow, even the Teamsters working for private trash haulers pulling the much larger metal dumpsters for commercial buildings manage to get buy with one person per truck. There's no reason city garbage crews need 3-man crews per truck. And the city is going broke.

But no doubt lefty supports the guys who take every 3rd day off and would fight to keep them in their completely unnecessary jobs.
 
WildCat said:
Because a government entity would want to support another government entity. Because the teachers union wants to show solidarity with the postal carrier union. These things happen.
Click to expand...

I don't know how to respond to that. They just wanted the transcript to be in their hands. They didn't care even if I personally took it to them and dropped it in their lap. This out of the blue teacher union thing . . . it's not on topic and doesn't make sense, I'll put it at that.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Back
Top Bottom