What do you get when you cross the financial power of a
>business monopoly with the legal privileges of a government bureaucracy?
>The answer: the United States Postal Service. You can visit any small
>town branch of the U.S. Postal Service and witness one of history's
>greatest assaults on the free enterprise system -- a government-sponsored,
tax-exempted monopoly using its power to compete unfairly against private businesses.
>
> All of the classic components of big government are in
>place: government-mandated monopoly power; a series of unprofitable,
>government-subsidized products; and a free-wheeling bureaucracy with
>special legal powers. In fact, this is the most dangerous type of
>monopoly, because it is backed and favored by government sanction. It
>is immunized from the free market pressures private enterprise must
>confront daily.
>
> How did this happen? In the course of trying to transform
>the Postal Service into a leaner, more competitive enterprise, we
>allowed it to expand beyond traditional letter mail delivery
>services to compete with the likes of DHL, FedEx, and UPS, but we left
>in place the U.S. Postal Service's legal privileges as a
>government entity. As a result, the U.S. Postal Service uses its monopoly
>on first-class mail delivery service to reap large profits and subsidize
>its other operations, such as expedited delivery services and parcel
>post, all of which compete with private carriers. When we pay postage
>on a first-class letter, we are unwittingly funding the U.S.
>Postal Service's predatory activities. Private carriers cannot compete
>with government. The ultimate losers will be consumers.
>
> For example, consider that a business mailing a ten-pound
>package that travels thirty-five miles from Washington, D.C. to
>Baltimore via Express Mail is actually charged more than if it sent the
>package over 5,000 miles from San Francisco to London using
>the U.S. Postal Service's Global Package Link expedited
>service. Common sense tells us that the U.S. Postal Service is using its
>monopoly position to improve its competitive position against
>private businesses. The U.S. Postal Service has also been
>granted unprecedented authority to negotiate treaties with other
>countries, which allows it to enter sweetheart deals that lock
>private competitors out of these international markets.
>
> Perhaps even more troubling is that the U.S. Postal Service
>uses its power to keep a personal information computer database on the
>different types of mail you and millions of other Americans receive.
>According to the Postmaster General, "We know who skis, who fly-fishes,
>who goes to the movies." What do they do with this
>information? For that matter, is this proper government conduct, and who
>will protect our civil liberties?
>
> If the U.S. Postal Service were a private company, it would
>have to comply with state and federal antitrust and fair trade laws, pay
>taxes at the federal, state and local levels, and adhere
>to a score of licensing and regulatory requirements that govern private
>industry. The question must be asked, if the U.S. Postal Service and our
>government want to keep their own cozy monopoly going, why should the
>rest of us have to keep paying the postage?

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