🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <1992Aug8.152413.28164@mercury.unt.edu> ian@ponder.csci.unt.edu (Ian Parberry) writes:
>Playing Devil's Advocate again, how do you know that this will save money?
>Perhaps you are just dithering around the optimum again.  Does anybody know
>the results from similar moves in other countries?  If my memory served me
>correctly, privatization of essential services was the primary algorithm
>used by the Conservative governments in England and Commonwealth countries
>in the 1970's.  I don't remember any great tax savings.  How much of your
>tax goes to support the USPS?  I must admit, I don't know.  Are we talking
>about $2, $20, or $200 per year per taxpayer?  I don't have any hard figures,
>but once again, I am skeptical of any claims of significant savings.

Adam Smith says so.

Several hundred years of capitalism say so as well.  It is simply the nature
of free enterprise (where "free" really does mean "free" ...) that continued
reductions in price and increases in quality appear when the free market is
allowed to be moved by Adam Smith's invisible hand.

Consider all of the taxpayer dollars that have been spent to "automate"
the postal service.  Now, consider the 750,000 postal workers.  Consider
the move from the rural areas to the suburban ones that have taken place
within the last 40 years.  Now consider the cost of postage and how it has
outpaced inflation about 3 to 1.

>Does anybody know if there is any published analysis of how the taxpayers'
>money is actually spent?  Perhaps we could liven up this tired old
>discussion with some real facts, rather than cluttering up the net with more
>"we don't need no taxes" mother-and-apple-pie platitudes.

Are you saying that we need more taxes, or just that you are tired of being
told that we don't need the federal government in the postal delivery
business?  I'm not sure which part of this you object to - my claim that
free enterprise is more efficient or your disgust with my trying to lower
my tax bill.

>BTW, you probably read in the newspaper, as I did this morning, that the
>USPS is revamping itself to save money.  I might allow myself a modicum of
>hope ...

Oh boy.  I remember when there was the great claims that the ZIP Code was
going to save MILLIONS by allowing mail routing to be automated.  Do you
know what the cost of a letter has done since then?  So far as I can tell,
mail is STILL sorted the old fashioned way - they toss it up in the air,
and whatever lands in the mailbag goes with that carrier ...
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