The Postal Service wants to Break Your Windows
State lawmakers in Colorado are considering a bill to establish a do-not-mail list. The Denver Channel reports:
Rep. Sara Gagliardi (D-Arvada) said her measure would allow fines against companies that send mail to people on the list. She and other supporters said the list could help cut down on identity theft and help the environment.
“The statistics are just overwhleming. Ninety-million pounds of junk mail a year. It costs somewhere between $2 and $4 million to clean it up,” Gagliardi said.
Even without a state law, there are some things you can do to reduce the amount of junk mail you receive. However, nothing is so encompassing as a law that would actually fine companies. Of course, the Postal Service opposes the law:
Postal Service spokesman Al DeSarro said half of the mail his agency handles is direct marketing mail, and reducing its volume could cost thousands of Postal Service jobs.
In 1850, Frédéric Bastiat wrote of a little boy who breaks a shopkeeper’s window. Observers point out that the shopkeeper will now buy a new window from the glazier, who will use the money to buy bread from the baker, who will use the money to buy shoes, and so on. Thus, they say the little boy has actually done a good thing for the economy. What they forget is that the shopkeeper himself may have used that money in other ways – perhaps to replace his own old shoes or to buy a new book for his library. This is known as the broken window fallacy.
The point is that purposely creating problems to cause economic activity is not a net benefit – you’re just moving money around rather than creating new wealth. And although we can’t blame the Postal Service as the cause of all our junk mail, we can definitely call them out on invoking a well-known 150-year-old economic fallacy to try to sustain pointless jobs. As a friend of mine pointed out, you can follow that same line of reasoning to justify the creation of an agency to dig holes in people’s yards and then another agency to solve the problem of yard holes.
We don’t need to pay taxes to support pointless USPS jobs delivering wads of paper that go right in the garbage and then pay more taxes so the city can dispose of all the extra trash. Efficiency is good, and a Postal Service with thousands fewer employees would be a huge improvement, not to mention less of my time wasted and less garbage. Nice try, Postal Service.
Next we’ll be hearing that spam filters are having a horrible effect on the e-spam economy and costing thousands of jobs.
If the postal service wants, they can still hire people to walk around carrying junk. I just don’t want it in my mailbox.
While I’m not a fan of junk mail and agree that having laws in place preventing unwanted mail, I must point out an error in your article. The USPS uses no tax dollars to provide their services. All of the USPS operating budget paid for through the purchase of their service. I for one would be willing to pay more for a stamp to mail my cards and letters in order to offset the loss in revenue from junk mail. I bet the rest of America would unfortunately disagree though.
Speaking of junk, has anyone used “Opt-Out”?
Forgive me if you don’t find this relevant but given the article I thought it worth mentioning >> The Opt-Out Program
Truly, there’s nothing more that p****s me off than to receive 10+ pre-approved credit card offers in the mail…sometimes DAILY!
Bill: Junk mail is one of my pet peeves. I can’t say enough good things about my experience with GreenDimes.
For the sake of discussion… remember your post about the Light Bulb Laws. I’m curious how we balance the reach of government with rules? Should there be one standard for business and another when it applies to our personal freedom of choice? It’s a tricky topic in my opinion.
Great post as usual!
Thanks for the comments!
Sue: True enough, we don’t directly support the USPS with taxes. However, the USPS can borrow money from the US Treasury, and its workers pensions are guaranteed with taxpayer money. Not to mention, it pays no property tax on its many properties, no income tax, and is exempt from gasoline taxes and vehicle license fees. So it’s at least fair to say that the second-largest employer in the country isn’t paying its share of taxes, and taxpayer backing protects it from bankruptcy and other consequences that encourage good management at private carriers.
Nina: As a libertarian, I usually draw a line based on property rights. The basic principle is that an individual should be able to do what he wants with his own property, on his own property, so long as he does not infringe on the property of others in so doing. As applied to my Light Bulb Laws post, this means that if I’m not polluting with my incandescent bulbs, I should be able to use them. This was the also underlying principle for my argument that power generation should have cleanup costs built-in, because otherwise the pollution is a violation of property rights regardless of what kind of light bulb you’re using. If we all had to pay for our pollution in the first place, it would not only encourage use of CFLs, but it would make clean power more economically viable. That’s why I see the CFL laws as short-sighted and ultimately rather pointless – they do nothing about the million other ways to waste power, while restricting individual choice.
When you’re dumping paper on my property that I then have to deal with, if there’s no way for me to make you stop I consider that a violation of my property. This issue is, admittedly, a little trickier than the pollution problem because the line is a little fuzzy. There is certain paper that I do need dumped on my property, so it becomes a question of how to distinguish between the two. Still, I think with some thought we could come up with a decent definition of junk mail and allow people to not have that paper dumped on them if they don’t want it.
My partner works in direct-mail (for that same Maine outdoor retailer/behemoth I used to work for). She’s shared with me that USPS is apparently seriously considering stopping all Saturday deliveries because they just can’t afford it.
Me, I’d be okay with only receiving mail 4-5 times a week if it meant that it was only quality mail.
The broken window parable has more to do with spending for investment versus consumption. If I spend money on my business via earnings plowback or my own savings I expect a return over and above what I invested. This return is generated not from zero-sum economic activity, but what economist call “bargain surplus”. In other words, you are willing to pay me $15 for bread which I value at $10. You obviously value your time + my bread more than you value that $15. If I am forced to consume that $10 in effecting repairs to my business, there is no bargain surplus to be had, the glazier has me captive as I must replace the window or suffer further loss. I simply spend $10 to generate a return of something less than $10 (in this case a negative number). Yes, the glazier might have some bargain surplus, but it’s from my consumption, not my investment.
So if the postal service wants to employ people it can choose to enter new businesses, make existing ones more profitable, or (and pardon me while I get queasy) use it’s position as an entrenched and powerful interest group to rent-seek! Which is easier? Hell, which is cheaper to legislators and maybe even taxpayers considering the cushy retirement benefits postal service workers enjoy?
By the way, this post completely ignores the point that corporations and other businesses should have the same free speech rights as politicians and private individuals. They should have an equal opportuinity to compete for your mail-sorting-time attention as anyone!