Postage

One of my goals for the summer was to write more letters. I've written a handful of authentic letters of the post-marked variety, just to keep the post office in business. I've written more email, and while I admit the aesthetic element is almost entirely lacking in electronic correspondence, I congratulate myself on maintaining connections with faraway friends by any means, fair or foul!

We hear a lot about the post office losing money because of email, but if the PO was really concerned about showing a profit, it could lower the price of postage and cut expenses. I don't have any proof to authenticate my theory, but I believe that the increase in postage rates must result from the expenses incurred by commissioning artists to design commemorative stamps. I enjoy selecting the perfect stamp to grace my correspondence, but a visit to the USPS website reveals the excess to which this institution is given!

If you want to demonstrate your opposition to higher postage rates, keep using email. Eventually, the government will probably find a way to stick its finger in the pie, taxing email usage by the word. In the meantime, the PO will keep raising the postage rates so it can hire better artists, giving us an ever wider selection of stamps to grace the correspondence we don't send.