Just to show how stupid a government can be.........

[LvR]

Our esteemed dimwits in the parliament have just promulgated the following law:

Any package under 1Kg - must - by law - from now on - only be handled by the government postal service, and can no longer be handled by couriers owned by private companies or individuals.

That, while the postal service has very ably demonstrated their ability to give new meaning to the term "snail-mail" every time they touch anything.

May the fleas of a thousand camels infest each and every-one of those bastards' armpits that were involved in this lame-brained attempt at keeping productivity as low as possible.

[High_Jumbllama]

Are they doing this because they are afraid of terrorism, losing money to other better services, or are they just plain stupid?

[Technoid]

all three

[KvHagedorn]

-- insert comment reeking of political incorrectness, that no European could possibly understand or relate to --

[Helevitia]

Originally posted by KvHagedorn
-- insert comment reeking of political incorrectness, that no European could possibly understand or relate to --

ROFL!

[LvR]

Are they doing this because they are afraid of terrorism, losing money to other better services, or are they just plain stupid?

Plain stupidity - there is simply no valid reason any person in the real-world conducting business should be dictated to as to which postal/courier service to use.

For example - a courier company was used by Matrox to get an item to my front door - it took the guys 2 days from Canada to my door. Locally, I reckon I have a better chance of falling pregnant as a man, than managing a reliable transfer of a package between 2 cities just 47 Km apart when using the government controlled postal service in under 3 days.

[Wombat]

Suddenly, all mail in South Africa will suddenly have a free brick enclosed.

[High_Jumbllama]

Originally posted by Wombat
Suddenly, all mail in South Africa will suddenly have a free brick enclosed.

:^D
LoL!

[dbdg]

I have a better chance of falling pregnant as a man, than managing a reliable transfer of a package between 2 cities just 47 Km apart when using the government controlled postal service in under 3 days. [/B]

ROFL!

[LvR]

Suddenly, all mail in South Africa will suddenly have a free brick enclosed.

Ahhhh - and the light goes on suddenly.

They are off course creating jobs in the brick-making industry and plans on making a killing on the brick export market to the North Pole.

[Umfriend]

-- insert comment reeking of political incorrectness, that no European could possibly understand or relate to --

What have the feminists done this time?

[Brian Ellis]

In fact, most countries in W. Europe, before the liberalisation of commerce, say 10 years ago, had similar laws (and a few still do). These applied ONLY to internal letter post (which includes small packets). For this reason, they often had a three tier-system, such as B post (cheap and long, usually used for invoices, publicity, and other non-urgent post); A-post (next day delivery at, say, 50% higher cost) and Express post with special handling and delivery at any time (very expensive). This system actually worked very well because of the monopoly situation allowed the volume to render the infrastructure viable. What really killed it was the cheap fax and then e-mail. The volume of letters has dropped so low that it is difficult to render postal services economic. Competition from courier services would aggravate the situation. The interesting thing is that, since the liberalisation, the postal services still carry 95% of the inland mail, the remaining 5% usually being very high-value items.

Of course, there is no restriction on courier services carrying > 1 kg items inland or < 1 kg in international traffic.

I'm therefore fairly sure that the reason behind this law is to ensure that the postal services are not too heavily subsidised by the government, i.e., the taxpayer and this will help your economy. Monopolies are not always bad, provided they are run in the interest of the people and not for profit (otherwise, things like public tax-collection agencies would sprout up!). The important thing is that you have a concomitant three-tier postal system.

[KvHagedorn]

Brian, the point is that their mail service is the polar opposite of efficiency. I grant that government-run monopolies are occasionally worthwhile, but only in a society where a dedication to proper standards and work ethics are maintained from top to bottom.

[LvR]

What the man KvH said there.

What they are trying to do is to effectively kill off a lot of small independent couriers that exists because of the original need to make things more productive - now that they have proved the job can be done better, they are told no, you have to start creating a whole new infrastructure to handle only those items we arseholes in the government don't want to handle.

As I said - I feel like falling pregnant real soon now.

[Brian Ellis]

KvH

Yes, but they may envisage making it more efficient by monopolising the market and economy of scale. At least, that is how I read it. I think that in all countries that have a denationalised and liberal postal service, the aim for profit has made the service less efficient, even though they still carry the bulk of mail.

The thing that amazes me is that so few countries have an efficient giro system run by the Post Office. This is extraordinarily profitable (much more so than carrying letters) and works a treat. It's like an efficient cost-free banking system specialising in rapid money transfers, even of tiny sums. See https://www.postfinance.ch/FinancePo...ory=payingpriv