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The U.S. Postal Service has requested yet another price hike, but Daniel Gross says higher...
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Thursday, July 8, 2010, 6:15 PM ETThe U.S. Postal Service has requested yet another price hike, but Daniel Gross says higher postage rates are actually good for the economy, businesses and consumers. Has he gone postal?
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The only segment of the population that I think really 'needs' mail is the elderly. But why not allow the post office to sell discounted stamps to the elderly - after all there are all kinds of senior discounts in the world. Then charge a rate that will ensure the taxpayers don't contribute a dime.
The remote and rural areas services are evidently subsidized. The postman has to drive miles between mailboxes to making deliveries in some instances.
Providing a universal postal service to all citizens is a de facto 'Price to Pay for Nationhood'. As otherwise the folks living in remote and rural areas having to pay a tiered rate would 'suffer' so to speak.
However, the USPS has inherited the mind-set of a civil service mentality. Their hours are 830 to 430 in most locations which coincide with most working class Americans. If you are not in a high pressure service job, you could get away for half an hour or so to go to a nearest office to look after your parcel or other special mailings. In other words, they don't really exactly care to CATER to YOU. YOU have to adjust to them!
Providing passport application and renewal service is a good idea. It used to that YOU have to come up with the correct passport photo that meets THEIR requiemens. How inconvenient. Of late they realize they have to make life easier for their customers and provide photo taking right on the same spot. Well, I wish they have had implemented this a lot sooner.
By and large, I could attest that the United States has the best postal service in the world!
The first NO was for unsolicited mail (which would be somewhat useless in the US since I get my 5 credit card offers mailed first class to me, all personally addressed)
The second NO was for local magazines and newspapers.
It worked quite well!
On most days I can directly deposit all the 'mail' in the recycle bin.
Very wasteful... I've learned that the US is all about waste: so much talk about being energy independent and drilling locally, so little talk of actually using less energy... keeps the world moving though...