The Billionaire Behind Efforts to Kill the U.S. Postal Service [pdf]

Re:The Billionaire Behind Efforts to Kill the U.S. Postal Se... by GlenTheMachine on Tuesday July 21, 2020 @07:33PM (#23912085)

I came here to say this. I grew up in an extremely rural area. It's still extremely rural, forty years after I move away. When I was a teenager there was one grocery store, no department stores, no electronics stores, no restaurants. Just the grocery store, the feed store, the auto parts and hunting goods store, and mile upon mile of pasture.

And the post office. The mail came every day. Sending a letter to anywhere cost $0.25, just like your were mailing it from New York City. It was, literally, a lifeline.

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Re:The Billionaire Behind Efforts to Kill the U.S. Postal Se... by binsh on Tuesday July 21, 2020 @08:04PM (#23912336)

This is the critical piece. It's provided as a government service to absolutely _everyone_, for a low price. Like you said, the fact that you can send a letter to any US state or territory for the same price, and it gets there in a few days, is a miracle, and arguably one of the remaining functioning bits of American government. What happens to people in small towns who rely on the mail for prescriptions? Or important paperwork? "Sorry, ma'am, but since the post office was privatized, we'll need an extra $30 to deliver your insulin. But if you subscribe to our Super Shipper Preferred program, you can save 10%..." Imagine losing all connection to the outside world because your city wasn't deemed profitable enough. That's some Gilded Age hell right there.

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