The Imminent Death of the U.S. Postal Service?

Re:The Imminent Death of the U.S. Postal Service? by yummyfajitas on Saturday April 18, 2009 @12:17PM (#568440)

Postal communication between citizens is a classical private good. It is both rivalrous (my letter takes up space in the mail carrier's bag which your letter can not occupy) and excludible (if you don't pay, they don't deliver).

A public good is not just a good you want the government to provide, the term actually has a meaning.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_good

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Re:The Imminent Death of the U.S. Postal Service? by sachinag on Saturday April 18, 2009 @02:49PM (#568586)

You're only looking at it from the shipper's perspective, not the receiver's. The postman is a romantic figure because of the recipient, not the sender.

And, frankly, the idea that my letter excludes your letter from the carrier's mailbag is laughable. No, they cannot fit in the same physical space, but there's room for more than one letter in the bag/carrier/truck.

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Re:The Imminent Death of the U.S. Postal Service? by yummyfajitas on Sunday April 19, 2009 @12:34AM (#569104)

Carrying letters is rivalrous. As more people send letters, the bag will fill up and more mail carriers will be needed.

Compare this to a real public good, e.g. national defense. National defense is non-rivalrous because me enjoying living in a non-communist country does not hinder you enjoying the same thing.

As for the postman being a romantic figure, not sure how that fits into the question of whether mail delivery is a public good or not.

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Re:The Imminent Death of the U.S. Postal Service? by bokonist on Saturday April 18, 2009 @03:08PM (#568607)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rivalry_(economics)

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