This country of the USA has evolved into something far different than those original Forefathers and patriots that came to this country envisioned and thought they were creating. Private property, competition, limited government were all well and good, until Greed, and the desire for Class warfare came about. It is sad what the price of Freedom has done to Americans.

MTECH COMPUTER

MTECH COMPUTER

[Mail delivery:
1) Will the \"market\" deliver my letters, with near-100% reliability, and at a uniform price, from my home in New England to Hawaii or Alaska or the bottom of the Grand Canyon?]

UPS and FedEx do this every day with packages. I can’t answer this for mail because there is no point of reference. This lack of point of reference is caused by a lack of competition, which creates an irrational situation in which you are necessarily right because the government protects the business for which you are arguing. I suspect UPS and FedEx would be able to deliver mail as well as the USPS.

[2) And will I be able to predict from one week to the next what it will cost to send a mailing of 5,000 postcards to a wide variety of addresses?]

Yes. UPS and FedEx have remarkable stable prices. Further, the USPS has raised its prices so often recently that they have had to issue a “forever” stamp so people will buy stamps in bulk.

[3) And how exactly am I to be certain of the rules that might apply to sending small packets of merchandise from New England to Japan or Belgium?]

How are you now? Do you know how Japan and Belgium handle mail? Further, UPS seems to be able to deliver packages there. You would simply choose an international company and that company would deliver your package to its destination.

[4) And remind me – is it a Federal offense to tamper with this shipment? or shall I, in the event of a misfortune, address myself to the small-claims courts of Missouri, Dubai, or Bermuda?]

Do you think a private business that made it a regular practice to tamper with its clients’ mail would be in business for long? Does the “Federal Offense” stop mail carriers from tampering with your mail or thieves from stealing from your unlocked mailbox. No.

[5) And may I hope that my letters/postcards/shipments will be received by well-paid professionals at a centrally-located office in my own home town, or will I be required to transact business with low-wage, short-term workers in some strip mall or industrial park?]

This point is so completely suspect that it shocks the mind. First, are postal workers actually “well-paid”? What is your definition of “well paid”? Why would you assume that workers for a private business would necessarily be “low-wage, short-term workers”? Is there a problem with going to a strip mall to transact business? Wow… just wow.

[I like government enterprises and regulated monopolies.]

I don’t. They have no accountability to their customers… at all. Their rates are set by fiat and they can decide to pay union workers irrational wages without consequence because they just need to go to the government and ask to raise rates. We consumers then have no choice to transact business with others and so it goes.

[I think mail, phones, utilities and airlines worked just fine in the 1960s. They needed a little adustment and tweaking in the 1970s, that\’s all, but they got much more than that and we\’re worse off because of it.]

You think the phone system worked just fine until it was deregulated. That’s a laugh. AT&T was slow and backward. It’s competition that brought us cell phones and high-speed internet access. Lower prices and better service is apparently a sign of being worse. Your entire argument is laughable. Further, just because you think it doesn’t make it true. Finding the truth requires logic, not feelings.

Eric