SBQD At Your Service

Remember that gaffe Obama made a while back about the Post Office vs. UPS and FedEx? It was a blooper that everyone promptly buried, especially the man himself.

Not Jesse Jackson, Jr, though. He thought it sounded great and now goes after it whole hog:



"Look at it this way, Larry. There's Federal Express, there's UPS, and there's DHL. The public option is a stamp. It's email. And because of the email system, and because of the post office, it keeps DHL from charging $100 for an overnight letter. Or UPS from charging $100 for an overnight letter, because of the public option. Some of us don't have a problem buying a stamp, rather than going that route."

These guys are either crazies or drunk.

1) UPS and FedEx can't compete with the post office in letter delivery by law, so the comparison is useless unless you're trying to make the exact opposite point that Jackson is. 2) Since when was the internet a "public option email system" in answer to the outrageous corporate monsters at DHL and UPS? 3) It's pretty frightening, but the poor guy seems to think - I'm taking him at his word; sue me - that if the post office folded tomorrow, FedEx, DHL, and UPS would all charge $100 for letter delivery.

Nevermind that anyone with enough cash for a fleet of Cessnas and a few bicycles would wipe out FedEx by doing it for a buck. And then DHL would charge 98 cents. And then UPS would charge 94 cents. And then Sean Berry's Quickie Delivery would charge 75 cents. We'd trade prices until one of us goofed, charged too little, couldn't get out from under, and went bust. The other guys would find the market value - ie, what people are willing to pay before telling you to stick it - and settle into making decent profits while offering the odd special and concentrating on customer service and faster delivery time to draw customers away from the competition. Until yet another guy came along with a more efficient way of doing it and charged less, forcing the competition to either meet that price or start calling themselves "high end" and chasing the mail snobs.

See, that's how the market (I know, I know - it's a scary place, don't get caught there after sundown) operates. Unless it's providing them with boffo campaign donations, clowns like Jesse Jackson Jr don't have a clue. Or they're lying. Take your pick on which is worse.

The only place geniuses like this will run health care is straight into the ground.