I was operating under the assumption that a market that has tariffs on foreign goods [0] is not ‘truly free’ but perhaps you disagree.
[0] https://myhfa.org/tariff-relief-doesnt-apply-to-furniture-fr...
> USPS problem is a lack of competition
Do you expect a private company to service every single rural address that currently receives mail for the same or lower price? We can’t even get ISPs to wire the entire country.
But now you're just being pedantic. You could make the same argument about taxes, where some states have higher property taxes so factories there have a competitive disadvantage and so on. But then you can't even make the same claim of black markets because their illegality increases costs.
In practice what matters is not whether there is some kind of ideologically pure anarchist vision of freedom which requires no government to exist anywhere in the world, but rather whether there exists competition sufficient to keep margins thin and make companies responsive to customer demands. Which there is, for things like chairs. Some might even say for things like package delivery.
> Do you expect a private company to service every single rural address that currently receives mail for the same or lower price?
They would surely provide service to every address at a price which pays their costs and a market rate of return. Whether that's lower than the existing price in every single case whatsoever doesn't seem like a very strong argument to hinge the entire existence of the USPS on. Especially when there isn't any obvious reason why that subsidy should be a moral imperative, or if it somehow was why it couldn't be satisfied with an explicit subsidy rather than operating an entire national business as a monopoly just to create an implicit one.
> We can’t even get ISPs to wire the entire country.
The incumbents that have captured the regulators? Of course not. And they've had regulations put into place to keep anyone else from doing it either.
Meanwhile, Starlink.
I don't quite understand why that's something we need to do. Those that live in rural addresses that can't be efficiently delivered to can pick up their mail in town. Sure, it's less convenient but lack of conveniences is part of living in the country.
Are you kidding? They're all the markets nobody talks about because they're working.
Go to the store and buy a chair. There are a hundred different kinds. Any kind you like. The barrier to entry is low. There are many competitors.
> The Post Office actually makes money
The problem with the Post Office isn't that they don't make money (though having to be bailed out by the taxpayer is unacceptable for any reason, and the pension thing was at the behest of the USPS union rather than the Republicans). The problem with it is that they have a monopoly on carrying mail which prevents customers from enjoying the benefits of competition.