May 03, 2006
Stamps
The Postal Service has come up with the interesting idea of selling a defined service instead of a piece of pseudo-money. The "forever stamp" will be good for a first class letter indefinitely, so when rates go up, you won't have to find and affix an extra two- or three-cent stamp. [Please note that I am not making the obvious joke about the name of this stamp actually referring to the time it will take to get your letter delivered. If you like that joke, you can make it yourself.]
I've now heard an NPR, and read two print media, stories on this and none of them explains what a great deal this is for the Postal Service, instead parroting their official line on customer value (of course, both can be true) and recounting worries from this and that opiner about whether the Postal Service might lose money on the deal.
Lose money? That would take some doing. What's not being mentioned is that a stamp is an interest- free loan from you to the Postal Service, rather like a traveler's check. They should sell all they can, rolls and rolls of them, and hope everyone stashes a lifetime supply in the drawer, as long as they have a place to put the revenue that earns more than rates will go up. If they do, they'll have enough to deliver your letter when you finally mail it, and money left over. As it happens, first-class postage has increased 29c since 1974, only about 3.125 percent per year, so interest rates would have to be historically low for this stamp not to be a bad financial bet for you and a good one for the Postal Service. Not to mention the stamps that will be eaten by the dog or just lost, which are all gravy.
Actually, I think this is a good idea on the whole, as long as one just buys a reasonable supply, purely to avoid the inconvenience of having to top them up when rates increase. But I wish our reporters would tell the story properly.
Weird. I thought that those denomination-free stamps labeled "First Class" already worked that way. I wonder if, in practice, they do. Do the postal workers canceling envelopes know that "First Class" with the flag is $0.37, and with the flower is $0.34? (Ah, here's a link: http://alphabetilately.com/G2.html)
Posted by: David Weigel at May 4, 2006 05:31 AMAlready the case in the UK - we've had stamps marked "1st" and "2nd" for years. I'm guessing it's probably the same in a bundle of other countries, although I haven't the time now to check.
Posted by: Jim Carr at May 4, 2006 06:13 AMHmm, how about just declaring a first class stamp *now* as a "forever stamp." When I buy it, it is good for one first class letter of standard weight forever. Why have two different kinds of first class stamps? Begin with the newest series and go. Perhaps limit the number a consumer can buy at one time to 100 stamps. I have to wonder how much producing 2 & 3 cent stamps costs, and how the elimination of that cost would affect the USPS budget.
Right now, I simply throw away my old stamps rather than hassle with going to the Post Office to buy the 2/3 cent extras. I just buy a new book of stamps when I'm at the grocery store. This means I toss three to five stamps every few months.
Posted by: faweisser at May 4, 2006 08:17 AM"What's not being mentioned is that a stamp is an interest- free loan from you to the Postal Service, rather like a traveler's check."
Or, more precisely, a gift certificate. But yeah, it sounds like a great deal for the USPS and a good deal for the consumer.
Posted by: Tom Hilton at May 4, 2006 09:25 AMIt just has to cost more for USPS to print those two-cent stamps and to junk all their existing printing plates than whatever they 'profit' on people who discard a few stamps. (If you have a brand-new $37 roll I'll bet you'll go buy the add-ons, I did.) Meanwhile, I've never seen a US stamp that said "First Class." only ones with specific denominations. (except when they printed "'B' postage" when they didn't know for sure what increase they'd be getting a few years ago.) And there is the problem of stamps for overweight/oversize postage. Somebody would need to crunch some serious numbers, but it certainly *sounds* like a good plan.
Posted by: Geoffrey Kimbrough at May 4, 2006 05:44 PMYour interest free loan argument only holds if people will stash away more forever stamps at any time than they already currently do with normal stamps. So you have to compare the number of incremental forever stamps purchased and held (per your interest free loan argument) relative to the lost payment from not charnging all forever stamp holders from a price increase. Regardless, the real savings will be in not having to deal with the logistics of managing 1,2,and 3 cent stamps - which I would guess is a big, costly pain.
Posted by: Dan Shapero at May 4, 2006 06:50 PMFrance also has ordinary letter stamps without a denomination.
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