[OT] Postal services (was: better Internet)

[Benjamin Scott]

On Wed, Apr 7, 2010 at 12:20 PM, Thomas Charron <twaffle at gmail.com> wrote:
>> The USPS delivers a letter from here to CA for under 50 cents.  You
>> couldn't hire someone to lick the stamp for that.
>
>   No, they don't.  They subsidize the entire process by balancing all
> charges.

  That's just flat rate service.  An example apropos to the original
thread: Most residences pay the same monthly fee for Internet,
regardless of how much bandwidth they use.  A light user like my mom
consumes less transit bandwidth than a heavy user like most techie
people, but pays the same.  There's nothing wrong with that concept.
Many businesses offer services that way.

  The USPS *does* receive subsidies -- some Federal tax dollars go to
support it (or did, last I knew).  That's something else entirely.

>  There's another catch.  Be federal law, anyone competing with the USPS
> must charge 3x what their charging, no exceptions.

  Citation needed.

  As far as I can tell, that is not strictly accurate.  I do fine
something regulating "private carriage".  There are exceptions.
There's a whole scheme of fines and fees.  I don't actually see
anything saying "three times" anything else, but I've seen "twice" and
"six times" the First Class rate, depending on circumstance and which
document you're looking at it.  USPS Publication 542, "Understanding
the Private Express Statutes", has *some* of it.  The laws are
somewhat contradictory, e.g., Title 39, Section 404a, would appear to
prohibit the USPS from establishing rules which restrict competition.
I don't know how the lawyers and courts interpret this mess, but I
suspect you don't either.  :-)

  One thing in particular is that none of the laws I've found apply to
parcels/packages -- just letters.  The USPS does business in that
market as well.  They're quite popular on eBay, for example, because
of their flat rate service.  I don't know what the P/L is on that
segment of the USPS.

  I would certainly agree that the USPS should have to complete on its
own merits, and anything this confusing is likely a bad law in the
first place.  :)

-- Ben