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Originally Posted by randolph
This is like comparing apples and oranges. The post office delivers millions of letters to anywhere every day. FedEx delivers packages in far fewer numbers and is wildly inefficient. A package sent from San Diego to Los Angeles is flown to Atlanta and back to LA, this is nuts from an energy standpoint.
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Well, in terms of "how" the operation worked, that was more true of the OLD days when Fed Ex was getting itself up-and-running and still in the process of creating more package separation depots. That's back in the days when Atlanta was practically their sole package hub, which is no longer true. For example -- now that Fed Ex has become a larger scale, more successful operation -- it DOES run routes directly between LA and San Diego. But it took a bit of time to develop the profitability to establish that, which again goes to my core point. As a PRIVATE business they had to figure out ways to do things that made economic, cost-saving sense unlike a government operation which simply says "Ah, we'll just throw more taxpayer money at it. Who cares what it costs?"
And keep something in mind. Even in the old days, while it may have seemed nuts from an energy standpoint, it actually made sense economically to transport packages that way. Simply because you have to break it down as a cost analysis and realize the FAR GREATER number of packages that you're collecting in San Diego or LA are THEN going eastward to other parts of the country versus to each other. So, it actually did make sense to fly everything out of LA and San Diego...get them to Atlanta or Dallas...and then sort whatever few packages you had (for each other) right back to them instead of having the high cost of having to operate and maintain several planes (not to mention the support personnel that you'd also need) just to send mail back and forth between those two cities.
Quote:
Originally Posted by randolph
Granted the Post office is innefficient but it keeps a lot of people employed at good salaries, isnt that the American way?
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LMAO! Well, that's not exactly a ringing endorsement, now is it? So let me get this straight. You're saying that even though we KNOW something is inefficient and not working right, we should keep it going just to keep some people employed? Congratulations -- you just summed up why companies like GM became bloated and ultimately imploded on themselves economically, not to mention you just gave the perfect definition of everything that's wrong with government work.
We don't do it because it works or it's too expensive!
We do it because it created a paycheck for someone!
Sorry, but in these troubled economic times THOSE DAYS need to be over...