The question is not, if we should, but how, we should transition the Post Office to the free enterprise system. The demand is there and corporations can do the job. Haley2024 proposes the standard transition to free enterprise. I will reiterate here and give some specific post office issues. |
The post office has many assets. Planes, trucks, equipment, buildings, land, intellectual property, personal among many others. All the assets will be divided up in to hundreds of for-profit publicly traded corporations. There should be much debate and studies on how asset are divided and the size of each. |
Once divided all the corporations would need to work together to make the system work. The Federal government would own all the stocks of every corporation. All legislators would have a percentage of voting rights for stocks held by the Federal government. By law, the stocks of all the hundreds of corporations would need to be sold off to the public at a one percent a month, thus less than 9 years, they would be totally owned by individuals. |
Legislators would be need to go through Corporate Proxy Groups to insulate them from too much control and possible corruption. Individuals would likely use the Corporate Proxy Groups as well. The revenue of selling the stocks would first go to unfunded liabilities of the post office such as retirement. The rest would be used to pay down the debt. |
The universal stamp would likely still be used, however this would likely be for the bare bones of service and that stamp price would be reduced. Many business models would develop. People could pay extra to get home delivery and even more if you wanted 6 days a week service. To keep the price down, some people would opt for a once a week service, while others see value in daily. |
Some people would save money by opting to pick up mail at ‘cluster boxes’ or likely there would be small strip mall stores with P.O. Boxes for regular mail. Many models would emerge to save money or people would pay for extra services. Advertising mail would likely try out many models, and even have a service where people could opt out of all or certain types of advertisement. |
New contracts would be drawn up. New competition would emerge. All laws regarding the US post office monopoly would be repealed. UPS, FED EX among others would likely be players within the system. With emails and more efficient ways of delivering information to people, the mail has seen large declines and free enterprise deals with restructure much better than politicians and bureaucrats. |
In conclusion the bill to transition to privatization needs to be very short and allow the free enterprise system to handle the details. Competitive Regulatory Agencies and the Rating System would be implemented. There might be need to have a temporary floor on ratings of cooperation, however it would most likely not be needed. |