General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: Help me out here. 2 dems co-sponsored the bill to kill the postal service? [View all]HiPointDem
(20,729 posts)from making it obsolete, the internet has added to that business. FedEx was founded in 1971, a year after Congress made the PO a 'for-profit' corporation in competition with other 'for-profit' corporations. Fed Ex was founded *because* of the reorganization because it opened up more delivery business.
Furthermore, I don't know where you live, but USPS delivers a lot of UPS & Fed Ex packages on routes that those companies find 'unprofitable':
When youUSPS Delivered 30% of FedEx Ground Shipments in FedExs Fiscal Fourth Quarter need to ship low-weight packages to residential customers, consider efficient, economical FedEx SmartPost shipping service. By utilizing the U.S. Postal Service® (USPS) for final delivery, FedEx SmartPost reaches every U.S. address, including P.O. boxes and military APO, FPO and DPO destinations. You can even use FedEx SmartPost to ship to Alaska, Hawaii and all U.S. territories.
http://www.fedex.com/us/smart-post/outbound.html
USPS Delivered 30% of FedEx Ground Shipments in FedExs Fiscal Fourth Quarter
http://cepobserver.com/2012/06/usps-delivered-30-of-fedex-ground-shipments-in-fedexs-fiscal-fourth-quarter/
So look forward to the cost of delivery going up as USPS disappears.
Currently, I read, UPS charges $8 to deliver what the PO delivers for .44.
Furthermore, the excessive junk mail came out of the same 1970 'profitization' of the PO.
you may not be aware of it, but congress has rolled out a shit-load of legislation that put a ball & chain on the PO; for example:
The 2006 law also specifically prohibited USPS from offering new products that would create an unfair or otherwise inappropriate competitive advantage for the Postal Service
So USPS is now *prohibited" by law from offering new services. The junk-mail thing was similarly orwellian, though i can't remember the details.
http://onthecommons.org/magazine/end-post-office-public-institution
Congress has been purposefully destroying the USPS, step-by-step, for a long time. It's planned, not an accident.