Do we need a (government run) post office?

I went to the post office to mail a birthday card the other day, and the line was so long it wrapped around the outside of the office. This was the third post office I encountered with such a problem that day. Surely there must be a reasonable explanation for this outrageous occurrence?

Well, there was an explanation, but I wouldn’t call it reasonable. A few postal employees decided no to show up because they felt they needed a four-day weekend. On top of that, the managers feel that they do not need to respond to the demand by opening another counter and instead keep “supervising”. Why? The reason may shock you. It’s because they are employees of the US government. The US Postal Service is a government monopoly, therefore, it is subsidized by the US taxpayer, along with the rates it charges for shipping. What makes is more interesting is that the employees can not be fired for such irresponsible actions.

In an article in the Washington Post, the Postmaster General recently announced that the USPS “anticipates steeper drops in mail volume and revenue over the next 10 years, and mounting labor costs only complicate the agency's path to firm fiscal footing.” One can only guess why this is the case.

To top it all off, some of the solutions included “cutting Saturday deliveries, longer delivery times for letters and packages, higher postage-stamp prices that exceed the rate of inflation…”

Yet it seems that the USPS has never seen, and may never see profits. I wonder why that is? Maybe it has something to do with the fact that no one can compete with them. Therefore, they have no incentive to improve, and they end up continuing these inefficient practices .

Well a solution would be to introduce competition. It works in Australia, well enough that there is no government run post office. Just as delivery companies such as FedEx, UPS, DHL and others can find your home or office without the help of the government, they would be able to deliver mail. So the question is, do we really need a (government run) post office?