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Q: economic,what's your opinion ( No Answer,   3 Comments )
Question  
Subject: economic,what's your opinion
Category: Business and Money > Economics
Asked by: audrey0906-ga
List Price: $3.50
Posted: 16 Apr 2006 11:11 PDT
Expires: 18 Apr 2006 11:36 PDT
Question ID: 719471
1. Do you believe that universal access is a core mandate of the
Postal Service? Should the rural population pay the gull cost of
providing service to those people who live in remote areas?

2. If the Post Office is privatized, how should the government select
a new owner? What conditions, if any, do you think should be placed on
ownership? Would you prefer to see a privately owned, regulated Postal
Service? If so, why? If not, why not?
Answer  
There is no answer at this time.

Comments  
Subject: Re: economic,what's your opinion
From: redfoxjumps-ga on 16 Apr 2006 12:12 PDT
 
You meant to write: Should the URBAN population pay the FULL cost of
providing service to those people who live in remote areas? 

not Should the rural population pay the gull cost of
providing service to those people who live in remote areas?

As to question 2 The post office is already a hybrid. Partly a private business.
You should go to one as part of your class, and look around.
:)
Subject: Re: economic,what's your opinion
From: frde-ga on 17 Apr 2006 02:43 PDT
 
The rural population probably receives considerably more mail than it sends.

Having multiple tariffs would be complicated to adminster.

The problem with publicly owned companies is that they tend to be
complacent and inefficient. They also suffer from Government
interference.

The problem with private companies is that they are run for profit,
the shareholders are quite a burden and there is temptation to go for
short term gains.

Privatization is not a 'magic bullet'.

Post Offices are not really that concerned with the postal system,
they are more 'Government Offices' for distribution of pensions,
benefits etc and collection of taxes, road tax, TV license fees, NI
etc.

One could probably run the postal system without 'Post Offices'.
Newsagents sell stamps, they could easily take in packages and have
scales for pricing postage costs.

There is already a fair bit of 'privatization' in the postal delivery
side, I believe that pre-sorted mail gets a preferential tariff. That
means that someone else is being paid to do some of the job.

Postmen have told me that the Post Office makes a lot of money from
junk mail, probably that arrives directly at the final sorting office.

Parcelforce was a fiasco, I don't know whether it still is, I would
have closed it years ago.

Personally I would leave the rest of the system alone, it worked quite
well until relatively recently. For a long time it actually paid a
'profit' to central government.
Subject: Re: economic,what's your opinion
From: jack_of_few_trades-ga on 17 Apr 2006 06:16 PDT
 
I don't think that universal parity should be provided by the post
office.  There are remote houses that require postal workers to spend
hours (hundreds of dollars weekly) to deliver mail to.
I think these people should be given a free PO Box in the post office
and free external mail delivery (up to a reasonable yearly limit), but
that all mail should go to/from the post office.  It should not be the
responsibility of the US population to pay extra for a small group to
live where they want to live (reminds me of the small group in Alaska
demanding a $100M bridge through congressional means).

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