Chaos in the mail

 As the year winds down, the dreaded inauguration of our next president draws nearer.  In about a month, Donald Trump will return to the White House, and this despicable, defective human being will be the chief executive of the country for four long, long years.  While I disagree with nearly everything he says or does, one subject of particular interest to me has recently arisen.  Trump has been making statements about his intention to destroy the US Postal System in multiple different ways.  The first particularly laughable one was his desire to cancel the ongoing upgrades of USPS delivery vehicles. The new vehicles are a tremendous upgrade to the current aged design from the 1980s.  These new vehicles are safer, more comfortable for the carriers, and are better suited to the shift to package delivery seen by the USPS, which is an especially profitable part of their business.  Trump's sole concern seems to be that many of the vehicles are electric.  Mail delivery, with its short distances, slow speeds, and frequent stop-and-go operation is particularly well suited to the characteristics of electrical motors.  Never mind that these vehicles are liked by mail carriers, are a great improvement on the obsolete vehicles in use, and are manufactured by an American company.  They would also benefit the environment, and that seems to be something Trump can't abide.  It is an odd characteristic of Trump and his Republican cult followers that caring for the environment is seen as a weakness or character flaw.  Whether or not Trump follows through on this threat, or indeed any of his frequent, rambling, nonsensical statements remains to be seen.

The statement more recent and more troubling is his idea to privatize the USPS.  On the face of it, this is a ridiculous idea that surfaces periodically.  There can be no advantage to such a move, and would in no way improve current service or prices.  In fact, such a move would likely bring a decrease in services and price hikes even larger than what has been seen the past few years.  Just ask Great Britain.  After the UK government privatized the Royal Mail, the service has spiraled into inefficiency, unreliability, and astonishing price hikes.  This is a valuable example for those who would consider such a move for the USPS, the largest postal system in the world.  The idea that the government "should be run like a business" is a fallacy that should be discarded.  Especially when the "business" would be run by a robber-baron with a long history of bankruptcies.   There are some things a government should do and services it should provide for the national benefit where profit margin is not the primary motive.  Just like having a functional transportation system where air travel and rail travel receive government subsidies, a postal system needs to be functional, serve all addresses across the country, and be reliable.  None of that would be guaranteed with a privatized system.  And if the government has to provide some funds, as it does with a military, education system, and law enforcement which do not create a profit, that is the pure role of a government.  The privatization idea is at best a cop-out idea, concocted by tiny minds who have no business running anything more than a hot-dog stand.