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Postal Service on path to be broke by October

USA_1 said:
Not if it generates billions of tax revenue from the private sector.
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What are you talking about? How can operating the post office at a loss add billions in tax revenue to the private sector?

Closing the post office is what would increase tax revenue. All those businesses that crop up to fill the niche that the post office is currently monopolizing will add tons of tax revenue.
 
Guy Incognito said:
What are you talking about? How can operating the post office at a loss add billions in tax revenue to the private sector?

Closing the post office is what would increase tax revenue. All those businesses that crop up to fill the niche that the post office is currently monopolizing will add tons of tax revenue.
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The post office adds millions of private sector jobs to the economy. They in turn generate tax revenue. I listed some of them above. Privatizing it would end up creating a monopoly since multiple companies could not provide the same service to every address in the country.
Does any other country have a private postal service? If so how is it working for them?

The jobs that create the 100 billion pieces of junkmail alone generate billions in tax revenue.
 
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USA_1 said:
The post office adds millions of private sector jobs to the economy. They in turn generate tax revenue. I listed some of them above.
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Nice cop out. If you did list them, I didn't see it the first time, nor did I see it when I reread the thread just now.

Fact is, the post office doesn't generate tax revenue, it is an expenditure of tax revenue.

USA_1 said:
Privatizing it would end up creating a monopoly since multiple companies could not provide the same service to every address in the country.
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No, the monopoly is the USPS, whose artificially low prices keep honest competition out of the market. If we got rid of the post office, it would open up competition to entrepreneurs to actually compete for our business in letter delivery. Imagine that! It might even lower the price of mail delivery. And we have anti-trust laws and market regulations to ensure a private monopoly doesn't develop, just like every other industry.

I'd take the slim risk of a private letter-carrier monopoly developing (along with the increased efficiency of a free market) over government monopoly any day.

USA_1 said:
The jobs that create the 100 billion pieces of junkmail alone generate billions in tax revenue.
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So essentially you are arguing for government subsidization of the junkmail industry. Ok, fine, then the burden of proof is on you to show that the junkmail industry brings enough to the US economy to justify spending taxpayer money on a bankrupt postal service. But in the very likely event that the post office costs the public more than the junk mail industry brings in, then you are just plain wrong

Regardless, I don't support corporate welfare arguments like this, they reek of fascism. The free market always has a better solution.
 
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Guy Incognito said:
Nice cop out. If you did list them, I didn't see it the first time, nor did I see it when I reread the thread just now.
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Q
uote Originally Posted by danarhea View Post
10) Finally back to junk mail - Think of all the trees that will be saved if the US Postal service dies.
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Wood pulp is a crop just like corn. The trees are planted just to make paper, like Christmas trees are a crop grown special for that purpose. They are renewable. Tree farming employs thousands of people. Eliminate paper and the trees would never be planted so none would be saved and lumber jack jobs would be lost. Not to mention the paper manufacturers, printers, designers, artists, ink makers, printing equipment manufacturers, and the envelope stuffers. Also the vehicle builders, post office builders, sorting machine builders, maintenance people, would be out of work.

Taxes from these people would be lost. I don't know how many people are employed directly and indirectly by having a postal service but that number must be in the millions. I would guess taxes from all those people would make up for the loss incurred by the post office.

Eliminating the post office would cost millions of private jobs outside of the government employees.
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The postal service does create private sector jobs. Just to create the 100 billion pieces of junk mail means millions of jobs and tax revenue.
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USA_1 said:
The postal service does create private sector jobs. Just to create the 100 billion pieces of junk mail means millions of jobs and tax revenue.
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Right, but which dollar amount is more, the tax revenue created by the government subsidy to the junk mail industry, or the amount that the post office is hemorrhaging to provide that junk mail industry subsidy? I need some numbers if I'm going to believe your argument, and the burden of proof is on you to show that the junk mail industry can possibly be worth it to the taxpayers to justify what is essentially a multi-billion dollar bailout of keeping the USPS on life support for their benefit.
 
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USA_1 said:
The postal service does create private sector jobs. Just to create the 100 billion pieces of junk mail means millions of jobs and tax revenue.
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But that's because those industries have built their business model around cheap postal service. If some other paradigm was in place (e.g. more expensive private postal services) then the business models would adapt accordingly.

People are always quick to point out all the jobs that will be lost when the old paradigm ceases to exist, but display little creativity for all the ways new jobs that could be created. Yes, the automobile put all the buggy whip manufacturers out of business...but it created lots of jobs in other sectors.
 
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DiAnna said:
Yeah, we get all of our bills and medical statements, etc., by mail. Still gotta have it, even if the price goes up. :(

Still, I love Tucker's idea. My husby gets so appoplectic over the sheer volume of junk in our mailbox. He bought a custom stamp that says, "Refused. Return to Sender." in bright red ink. He stacks up the junk on the kitchen table, gets this crazed look in his eyes, and wails madly away, cackling maniacally, then dashes back to dump them in the outgoing mail slot. *sigh* I know, I know. But it's the only orgasm the old guy gets any more, so what the hell.
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LMAO. How did we miss this?
 
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