Issue 508 Postal monopoly: Letters and magazines January 19, 2015

The United States postal service still holds a monopoly on two forms of U.S. mail.  And last I checked, monopolies are never a good thing and that government supporting one is even worse.  Allow me to express why I believe this monopoly should be broken.

The Postal Monopoly:  I believe that due to the post office having total control and authority to deliver letters and magazines that it has caused businesses to go under (case in point are certain businesses that could not afford the prices of the post office to deliver advertisements or their wares, or the actually shipping companies falling under due to not being able to deliver a wider variety of goods).  My reasoning is that if letters and magazines were allowed to be delivered by say DHL, or UPS that they could actually deliver the mail cheaper and possibly easier than say the United States postal service.  This is because competition is the mother of invention in a free market society like ours.  An example of this is when Cablevision on long Island New York had sole monopoly on providing channels outside of broadcast channels.  When Verizon and Dish network were allowed to begin selling their services Cablevision reduced the price of its services.  From there, the cost fell further, or services were added that made the continued use of their other services more worthwhile.  As such quality improved.  This same thing can happen with the breaking up of the monopoly that is the United States postal service.  By allowing private companies to deliver letters and magazines, businesses could get better deals and we the consumers will get more options with respect to price and quality of service.  Not only that, but if Congress allowed it, the post office could be freed up from most of its constraints to allow it to act as a real private enterprise that would as a result increase its quality as an institution and thus its revenue.  Sure, letters are slowly disappearing with each passing generation (though they may become a novelty item), but magazines are here to stay.  So let us remove the monopoly already.

Conclusion:  No this is not about eliminating the United States postal service, it is about doing the counter intuitive things to save the post office from obscurity.  What needs to be done is increase competition and variety in services so that it can survive (this means allow it to run like a true private company).  But to do that, it means creating a real even playing field with the other companies who are in the package delivery business.  So shall we increase the quality of services or are we just going to continue to allow the post office to languish into obscurity forever.