The US postal service is actually very efficient when you consider the
enormous volume of mail it handles. The USA has 320,000,000 people, far
more than ANY country in Europe. The reason it has financial problems is
because of political meddling by congress. Companies like UPS and FedEx
want the Postal Service to be shut down. They lobby (bribe) politicians to
do so, but the USPS is one of the very few institutions of government that
the constitution REQUIRES the government to operate. So, congress passes
laws requiring the USPS to do things that cost a lot of money, like
keeping far more money in their pension fund than they will actually need
to pay postal workers their pensions, while at the same time regulating
postal rates to make sure the USPS cannot generate the income needed to
fund this stuff.
Remember, also, that when you ship overseas, the USPS does not deliver it
to the final destination. They fly it to the other country and hand it to
that country's postal service to deliver.
--
Chris Crawford
Fine Art Photography
Fort Wayne, Indiana
260-437-8990
http://www.chriscrawfordphoto.com My portfolio
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On 9/20/13 6:26 PM, "Chris Trask" <christrask@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> Every so often, I sell used electronics technical and books on
>suitable email lists. The cost for shipping a single book in the US by
>way of Media Mail is usually less than $4. But, to mail one to Europe
>costs about $32, even if the book is tightly wrapped, about 2" by 8" by
>15" at most, and it can take more than two weeks to arrive.
>
> Today I received in the mail a used bicycle handlebar and stem from
>an eBay seller in France. According to the postage meter on the package,
>it cost 11.50 Euros to mail it, and it got here in just under ten days.
>The package is roughly 8" square and 18" long. Compare this to mailing a
>book having far less volume and similar weight from the US to Europe.
>
> I can't help but wonder why there is such a gargantuan difference in
>the cost of shipping merchandise from one direction to the other. I'm
>aware that the Irish government subsidises mail to the US by tossing
>everything on an air freighter in Dublin, delivering it to an air
>terminal in New Jersey, and then distributing it from there to the US
>destinations. Australia and New Zealand have something similar.
>
> Two thoughts come to mind: First, the European governments
>subsidise overseas mail in support of the citizens and commerce, which
>benefits society as a whole. Secondly, and maybe more important, their
>postal services are far more efficient, whereas ours is continually
>threatening to go under at any moment. I can think of a number of other
>issues where Europeans outsrtip their US counterparts.
>
> I blame society.
>
>
>
>
>Chris
>--
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>
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