To: LPS5 who wrote (8522 ) 10/10/2004 12:09:56 PM From: Sidney Reilly Respond to If Bill Gates uses his new wealth and creates a situation in the market where he is the only one who can provide an operating system to run a computer then he has stifled competition to the point of being a monopoly. Like JD Rockefeller who was so rich he could drop his frieght charges to practically nothing thereby ruining his competition, then buy up their railroads at a song and in the end he had all the railroads and could charge whatever he wanted. At some point he stopped being a businessman and becamse a monopolist, stifling competition. To keep competition alive there are laws against monopolies. Which is really laws against the rich elite. And the rich elite have influence to change laws and so it is today that the monopoly laws are weaker and weaker until they have become meaningless. there's no money in it!! The public squawks about 37 cent letter rates but if it was privatized it would be much higher very fast. No one who is not intimately familiar with the postal system knows the sheer magnitude of the task of delivering all the letters and magazines every day except Sunday. It's a colossal feat and the Postal Service does it every day. It cannot be privatized because nobody wants it. It cannot be duplicated either because the investment to start up would be too high. And really just too many problems to discuss here. Just consider this. A mail route is much smaller than a UPS truck territory. Imagine if that UPS truck had to stop at every house. How far would he get in a day? Not far. There would have to be tens of thousands more trucks and driver, and all making more than a mail carrier makes now. Bet you didn't know that. There would be mail disruptions, the security of the mail would be at risk, and you can forget Saturday delivery if privatized. And that would mean two extra days of mail would be piled high for Monday delivery instead of just one extra day as it is now, Sunday. Because the sorting facilities don't stop on Sunday and they would not on Saturday. They can't. They have to keep up. And clerks to sort the mail, sorting facilities. It's a mammoth task, every day. And I have barely scratched the surface.
