A very thorough article in Businessweek on the imminent collapse of the United States Postal Service.

“The postal service is already carrying more junk than first class,” says postal consultant Campbell. “Pretty soon it’s going to be a government-run advertising mail delivery service. Does that make any sense? It doesn’t make any sense.”

“Civilians call it junk mail,” Rice says, joking. “We don’t like that term. We call it job security.”

This just doesn’t seem even remotely tenable.

Every day (except Sunday) the USPS has 10’s of thousands of automobiles driving the same routes regardless of mail volume.

Every day (except Sunday) the USPS delivers reams of paper, in the form of junk mail, that people don’t even want.

This is not sustainable. It’s wasteful from both a economic and an environmental standpoint. This is a classic example of the government’s inability to repair itself, and for that matter it’s inability to diagnose itself.