[ubernostrum]

It always amazes me that the "efficient", market-driven private package-delivery companies in the US... actually use the government-run postal service as an integral part of their system.

It also always amazes me that people outside the US, or people who've only looked at models of other countries, think we could have universal delivery from a profit-driven private entity (hint: the US does not have the population distribution or density of European nations).

[philwelch]

In a sense, it's lovely that people living in the middle of nowhere in Alaska who require bush planes to fly hundreds of miles to deliver anything to them can get a letter for only 40-something cents courtesy of the US Postal Service. The American system of government is all about enabling people's selfish choices to live in the wilderness by forcing everyone else to subsidize their infrastructure, and that's a truly wonderful thing. Can we please find a better way of doing so than stuffing trash in my mailbox every week?