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<DIV class=timestamp>October 1, 2011</DIV>
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<H1><NYT_HEADLINE version="1.0" type=" ">Reading the Writing on the
Envelope</NYT_HEADLINE></H1><NYT_BYLINE>
<H6 class=byline>By RANDALL STROSS</H6></NYT_BYLINE><NYT_TEXT>
<DIV id=articleBody><NYT_CORRECTION_TOP></NYT_CORRECTION_TOP>
<P>THE Pony Express was famous for moving mail at astounding speed. Missouri to
California in only 10 days! A triumph. </P>
<P>It was also short-lived. Established in 1860, it lasted only as long as the
territory it covered lacked the telegraph. Humans and horses could not match the
speed of electrical signals. So when the transcontinental telegraph was
completed in 1861, the company’s three investors reacted swiftly. It was shut
down after only 18 months. </P>
<P>Now, 150 years later, the United States Postal Service is engaged in another
race with technology, one it can’t possibly win. But because the service is a
quasi-independent government agency, it continues to maintain the huge human and
mechanical infrastructure that was assembled for a pre-Internet age. </P>
<P>The<A title="Postal Service information."
href="http://about.usps.com/who-we-are/postal-facts/welcome.htm"> Postal Service
proudly proclaims</A> just how big it is. It has 574,000 employees, making it
the nation’s second-largest civilian employer, after Wal-Mart. The service runs
215,625 vehicles, the world’s largest civilian fleet. Those vehicles traverse
1.25 billion miles annually and consume 399 million gallons of fuel. Its
carriers serve 151 million homes, businesses and post office boxes. </P>
<P>And the Postal Service can’t resist a tacit little boast at the end of that
long list of big numbers: It receives zero tax dollars for its efforts. </P>
<P>Bravo! But one could point out that this is the same Postal Service that
posted multibillion-dollar deficits in the 2007, 2008, 2009 and 2010 fiscal
years; another is expected to be reported for the 2011 fiscal year, which ended
Friday. It is curious that 2006, the year before this dismal run of losses,
happened to be the very year when total mail volume peaked. In 2006, some 213.1
billion pieces were processed. In 2010, the total was just 171 billion. </P>
<P>Stamped mail is the category that has declined most steeply in the last
decade — 47 percent since 2001. “Standard” mail, the official euphemism for junk
mail that until 1996 was called third class, dropped only 8 percent over the
same period. </P>
<P>The decline in mail volume has been accompanied by widening losses: $8.5
billion for 2010, and a projection of nearly $10 billion for 2011. </P>
<P>The Postal Service, to its credit, acknowledges that it faces what <A
title="Postal Service press release on the postmaster general’s comments."
href="http://about.usps.com/news/national-releases/2011/pr11_107.htm">Patrick R.
Donahoe, the postmaster general, calls a new reality</A>. In <A
title="Postal Service press release on quarterly results."
href="http://about.usps.com/news/national-releases/2011/pr11_094.htm">releasing
results for the quarter</A> ended June 30, the service described how “electronic
diversion continues to cause reductions in first-class mail.” Revenue from
first-class mail declined 8.7 percent from the period a year earlier. </P>
<P>The postal unions avert their eyes. They say that the service ran into
trouble solely because Congress has required huge payments for future retirees’
health care costs. Silly me: I thought funding benefits fully was a good thing.
</P>
<P>On its <A
title="Issues comparison from the American Postal Workers Union (PDF)."
href="http://www.apwu.org/issues_fact-fiction/fact-fiction100127.pdf">Web site,
the American Postal Workers Union</A> disputes the notion that “hard-copy
mail is destined to be replaced by electronic messages.” Mail volume was down,
it says, because its principal component — advertising — had fallen in the
recession. “As the nation and the world emerge from economic stagnation,
hard-copy mail volume will expand,” it asserts. But that, of course, ignores the
rise of the Internet, and its ever-growing use for checking bills or sending
payments — with no need for that army of 500,000. </P>
<P>The Internet can’t be used to tele-transport packages, of course, and our use
of package delivery services, including the Postal Service’s, has grown with
e-commerce. But the Postal Service is running large deficits, bumping up against
the $15 billion limit it is permitted to borrow, and is on the brink of default
unless Congress comes to the rescue. </P>
<P>Is this where the Postal Service wants to make its stand, as a package
delivery service, one among several providers? Does anyone really care whether
the Postal Service or U.P.S. drops the package at the doorstep? </P>
<P><A title="Biographical information on Professor Fritschler."
href="http://policy.gmu.edu/tabid/86/default.aspx?uid=24">A. Lee Fritschler</A>,
a professor of public policy at George Mason University and a former chairman of
the <A title="The commission’s Web site."
href="http://www.prc.gov/prc-pages/default.aspx">Postal Regulatory
Commission</A>, says our Postal Service should be viewed not as a communications
medium but as a broadcasting medium, spraying identical messages, in the form of
“standard” mail, far and wide. If Congress had to bail out the Postal Service,
it would effectively be subsidizing the private interests that use the service
to distribute advertising cheaply. “Why on earth should our government be
subsidizing a broadcast medium?” Professor Fritschler asks. </P>
<P>Some say subsidies are perfectly defensible if the service fulfills a noble
civic function. Richard R. John, a historian at the Columbia University Graduate
School of Journalism, points out that the post office ran a deficit during most
years between the 1830s and the 1960s. But today, when junk mail is predominant,
“postal management is unable to articulate a compelling vision of the public
good,” he says. </P>
<P>In 1861, it was easy to decommission the Pony Express, a technologically
obsolete, privately owned delivery service. A century and a half later, we have
a delivery service whose raison d’être is rapidly vanishing before our eyes.
This one is owned by all of us, however, and we are paralyzed, unable to decide
what to do. </P><NYT_AUTHOR_ID>
<DIV class=authorIdentification>
<P>Randall Stross is an author based in Silicon Valley and a professor of
business at San Jose State University. E-mail:
stross@nytimes.com.</P></DIV></NYT_AUTHOR_ID><NYT_CORRECTION_BOTTOM>
<DIV
class=articleCorrection></DIV></NYT_CORRECTION_BOTTOM><NYT_UPDATE_BOTTOM></NYT_UPDATE_BOTTOM></DIV></NYT_TEXT><BR>
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<DIV><FONT size=2 face=Verdana>Wayne A. Fox<BR><A
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