AMERICAN CONSERVATISM IN 2008 AND BEYOND

It's quite funny for a foreigner to follow this topic of the discussion.

Here, it doesn't matter if you get your parcels from German Post/DHL or FedEx or any other parcel service.
All are insured and can be followed on the internet.
The advantage for Post/DHL is that I can it the same 250 yards from the local post office branch (privately run like nearly all post offices here, in a liquor/drinks store).

Your thesis is supported from the many business bankruptcies. If they had done things "right," they would still be in business. Interesting how MACs have the tendency to look at personal experience about any topic, and not relate it to the total environment. Myopia can be deadly to the mind.

Try getting FedEx to deliver something across the country for 44 cents, Fox. Try getting them to deliver something for ten times that. Then try the postal service.

FedEx does certain things well and cheap because it limits what it does.

Fed Ex is not always the cheapest or the best way to send something.

Fed Ex is awful for small packages or letters that could ship via USPS. It is often more than 10x as expensive for those items.

For larger packages, I often find a freight forwarder that does air shipments is cheaper than Fed Ex. Not only is it cheaper but I can easily designate a specific time I want the package delivered with a freight forwarder. I have never used Fed Ex to ship packages out of country other than to Canada.

Fed ex works great for a very small segment of shipments, 3-40 pounds in small boxes that have to get there overnight or 8-50 pounds in small boxes that can go ground. If the item is medium to large, there are better ways. If the item is heavier than 50 pounds there are better ways.

Precisely the point, parados, I think.

Government has to satisfy the needs of everyone. It can't cherrypick. FedEx cherrypicks. Newt cherrypicks too. He creates a simplistic comparison and thinks it represents something in the real world. He is living in fantasy land. Remarkable that some on tghis thread have accused liberals of dealing in fantasy utopias, when in fact it is always the conservatives who deal in the simplistic fantasy golden-ages-that-never-were.

FedEx is not a fantasy. It is an American success story, born out of entrepeneurship and innovation. In fact, FedEx transports alot of the Postal Service mail, because it is more efficient than the Postal Service doing it themselves.

By the way, I would love to see the government open up small envelope mail to competition. What are they afraid of? Why not?

+1

Without FedEX, the USPS would suck more than it currently does.

Read parados's post, okie. He's right. FedEx cherrypicked part of the USPS service that it could make a profit on and left the rest of it, that it couldn't make the large amount of money on, to the government. If it had to do all kinds of mail and packages and delivder them to everybody, everywbere, as the USPS does, it wouldn't be profitable. Yet the Constitution established the PS because it thought it was a public good.

Same thing with HMOS ande insurance com[panies. thehy cherrypcik the healthiest, on whom they can make a profit, and leave the rest to the government, who have to service ALL the people.

Sure it would.

The private sector would quickly find a way to make general mail delivery a profitable service.

The first thing they would probably do is NOT deliver 6 days a week...

There you have it, from a real economic guru.

Sure, and not in rural regions. By lowest paid personal - it least that's the result from elsewhere.

Could you elaborate on your point?

Look at the examples in Europe.

That's not going to help us here...

As I said: The private sector would quickly find a way to make general mail delivery a profitable service.

Well let's see. If FedEx or UPS took over the postal service, what would be the first thing they would do to service ALL the people? For starters, I think they would look at the Hwy we affectionately call Hwy North 14 that runs along the east side of the Sandia Mountains. There are five--count them five--post offices within 10 miles of each other out there serving a rural unincorporated population that doesn't add up to more than a small city. And 95% of that population has to drive right past the Tijeras post office to get home from work every day or go to the city for any purpose.

The first thing I would do, and I think FedEx would do, is install a whole bunch more mailboxes at the Tijeras post office and shut down and sell the other five, all located on prime commercial property. Mail delivery would be limited to banks of community mail boxes located X number of miles from the main post office and could easily be handled by a handful of employees.

Both UPS and FedEx provide a service people are willing to pay for and both have been amazingly successful operating on seven continents and moving packages and freight in a highly efficient manner. They might not go every single place that the US Post Office goes but they can't be too picky or they wouldn't be as successful as they are.

I have paid a premium fee to send a shipment to some obscure wide spot in the road but have never had a shipment refused.

I'm not knocking the US Post Office , but if they had operated as smoothly and efficiently as UPS and FedEx do, they wouldn't have lost all that lucrative business. And why should the people have to put up with inefficiency and extra frustration from the government when there are those in the private sector who can do it better?

All excellent points - being missed by the "government doesn't do anything right" conservatives.

Considering that the (larger) postal services started in the Western world on private basis already around 1300 in Germany ...

It's within the Powers of Congress, isn't it?

Yes the USPS is within the powers of Congress and is the oldest or second oldest government agency--can't remember for sure.

It initially was a limited operation I think primarily coordinating sending and receiving mail from overseas. It grew up along with the rest of the nation and became the envy of the world. You could send a post card from Los Angeles to New York City for a penny and it stayed that way for generations. But once government succumbed to politicians looking to enhance their own power and fortunes rather than looking to serve the people, the post office like so many other departments and functions of the Federal government became more and more expensive and less and less financially efficient. It is still the envy of most of the world but has lost much of its luster and continues to require more and more money to run while cutting back on more and more that it used to do.

Foxie, The USPS didn't lose its luster; that's your imagination at work! Compared to many countries, the USPS works just fine. All you conservatives know how to do is complain without really providing any real solutions.

The fundamental issue about any government operation is that we elect them into government to make those decisions, and they include both parties.

If you have a better wheel, why don't you run for government and change it?

Quit your bitching. FACT: All humans make mistakes. Any large organization whether civilian or government also makes mistakes; some more than others, but both at some time in their existence make huge mistakes. Not all managers are good whether they work for commerce or the government. For most, their salaries or bonus/benefits has no bearing on their skills as a manager.

Quit your bitching cice girl!