Why the Post Office Does It

"For one dollar, you can send a birthday card to your uncle in Alaska (3,370 miles from Philadelphia) and an anniversary card to your aunt in Hawaii (4,910 miles away), and the post office will give you back 12 cents change," writes Philadelphia Inquirer reporter Daniel Deagler.

He goes on to pen, "How on earth can the U.S. Postal Service make a profit on this transaction? It can't. But profit is not the mission of the post office. Its mission is to get your letter delivered in a timely fashion.

"Although it may appear as if the U.S. Postal Service and its private-sector competitors are providing the same service - moving some physical object from point A to point B - the private competitors do it to make money. If they can't make money doing it, they don't do it."

According to Dan, "The Postal Service, on the other hand, does it out of a commitment to universal delivery. If you have a letter with a stamp and a valid address, it's going. So the critical difference between the Postal Service and its private-sector competitors is not what they do, but why they do it."

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