Thought For the Day on Government Management
On that note, economist Justin Ross points out on his blog how, for 44 cents, you could mail a letter via USPS - or buy a kiwi fruit that had to be grown and watered in New Zealand, picked, carefully packaged, and shipped across the world to a store near you.
Richard:
Government mismanagement. And these are the people that want to run our health care.
August 18, 2009, 10:47 amMickey Langan:
This is not really fair. That kiwi didn't have to be address scanned and individually routed, with routes to every single address in America maintained.
August 18, 2009, 11:33 amLes:
As Langan said, the big problem with the USPS is it's in this weird half-in/half-out corporate/government service thing in that it has to try and operate under a regime where it makes back it's costs from it's users and yet is also mandated to provide service to EVERYONE, including people who no sane for-profit service would extend service to.
August 18, 2009, 8:15 pmJess:
Ok, let's make it "apples to apple" - a 1lb package from my office to my biggest customer FedEx ground (they pick it up & deliver) costs me $6.10 and arrives the next day.
August 19, 2009, 7:29 amThat same service for the same package is $10.41 USPS, and $6.21 UPS.
Guess which one I use?
Rick C:
Mickey Langan, it's not as if the vast majority of that database of routes and addresses changes on a daily basis, though.
August 19, 2009, 1:04 pmtomw:
Rick C:
August 20, 2009, 8:45 amYou perhaps should have mentioned that 1)UPS and FedEx also have the same number of routes and addresses to maintain and 2)USPS contracts with FedEx to air-ship their 'priority' packages, they don't run an air fleet, shipping nexus nor any of the fixed and long term costs that FedEx does...
tom