I scream foul! Why has the USPS made a special deal with Amazon to do Sunday deliveries in two cities? This is wrong on several counts. The first and biggest reason is that the USPS is an extension of the US Government and a money losing one at that. Another problem is this hurts all the smaller mom and pop businesses and brick and mortar stores in a community. This makes government an alliance to a company built on exploiting those who provide jobs to us on the most basic level. Before government decides to embark on such a mission a debate should occur as to the values we hold dear.
Amazon has used every trick of self promotion to propel itself forward. Few details have been made available on this "special deal" but this small development and non game changer once again gave the illusion that Amazon was rolling forward with the full blessing of the American government and a mandate of society. This is not the case, Amazon for years has used a money losing USPS as the final leg of many of their rural deliveries while at the same time gaining from an unlevel playing field resulting from not charging sales tax in many areas. Note, Amazon is not a big job creator, it is a job"shifter" and often it is shifting people into low paying and uninteresting jobs where they will someday be replaced by robots.
While this arrangement may add revenue to the postal service it still is not the job of the government to compete with private delivery companies such as UPS and Fed-X. Claims that the USPS makes money on these deliveries offsetting other loses does not justify such intrusion by government into the private sector. This is more proof that President Obama does not understand business and basic economics. Attacking other parts of the economy cannot fix a USPS that cannot even drop something as unnecessary as Saturday delivery. We should be fixing the imbalances within the post office by cutting wasteful services and adjusting prices rather then by expanding into the private sector.
Do not be surprised if some type of legal action is taken to roll back this kind of government subsidized competition. In the city where I live with some 250,000 other people city government in their wisdom has leased out some surplus office space for a fraction of current rates. I recently saw a tenant move from one of my buildings to this city subsidized space, this means I lose income while my property taxes have increased to pay their rent. This is not the way to help an economy grow and remain healthy, again do not think of this as a victory for freedom and commerce, if it were the USPS would not be involved.
Footnote; Other related articles may be
found in my blog archive, thanks for reading, your comments are
encouraged. Below are links to tho other articles related to this subject,
http://brucewilds.blogspot.com/2013/01/amazon-is-not-our-friend.html
http://www.marketwatch.com/story/10-things-amazon-wont-tell-you-2012-06-26
http://brucewilds.blogspot.com/2012/04/gutless-senate-avoids-postal-service.html
I quite agree!
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