Postal rates to keep rising
Lewis DiuguidAmerican consumers are feeling the Postal Service pinch again.
With little warning, the U.S. Postal Service announced Sunday that rates for first class letters would rise Monday from 45 cents to 46 cents, and postcards would go up a penny to 33 cents.
The postal service’s revenue stream is drying up like the rivers and creeks suffering from the Midwest drought. More people are turning to the Internet to communicate causing fewer people to buy stamps to mail cards, letters and bills.
The number of addresses in the U.S. have grown by 17 million, but the number of postal workers has dropped by more than 200,000, a Gannett news service reports.
Post offices are closing or reducing hours nationwide. The Associated Press has reported that the Postal Service has to reduce its costs by billions of dollars.
But to raise revenue it also has to tap consumers more. Stamps went up 2 cents in 2009 to 44 cents. They jumped again in 2011 to 45 cents.
The pattern is as consumers use less, the cost rises. We’ll likely see more of that in other industries.
Matt Henry
3 months, 3 weeks agoOkay, I have come to respect LWD as the least mouth-frothy from the gaggle of left-wing ideologues they call an editorial board at the Star (except when there is a good race-baiting that can be done), but this is just, well, nonsense. If the Post Office were subject to the same market pressures as the private industrial world they would have been out of business 20 years ago.
“The pattern is as consumers use less, the cost rises.” Okay, when it comes to a government-subsidized, heavily unionized monopoly with government mandated out-of-date job requirements so that they can’t make market-based adjustments, that makes sense. That’s why only a fool would base a company or industry around that model (cough OBAMACARE cough).
But “We’ll likely see more of that in other industries.” Yeah, like what? You mean in what isn’t also heavily government mandated, subsidized and union-controlled? See, in the real world industries have this little ol’ thing called the business cycle. Industries rise and fall. Businesses within industries rise and fall when they don’t adapt to changes. What has ever forced the Post Office to have to change? They still have a massive retiree and health care problem, they are still required by the gov’t to deliver to any US address for the same price, they still don’t have to worry about competitive pressures…. What “other industries” have this problem?
Get rid of the ‘first class’ rule. Let the market set the price for a letter to Hawaii. Let other companies deliver letters to mailboxes. Get rid of the subsidies. If the USPS allows unions and can stay market-viable, more power to them. In other words, let the free market work.