[Superman]

Glen, I appreciate your thoughtful and specific concerns and observations. Government is imperfect and so are the people administering them. Nature of the beast. Private companies are no different, except for the systemic dysfunction that stems from the political (legislative) part. Politicians score points by taking shots at government. Cutting funding, or declining to adequately fund it, is a favorite play among those of the anti-government ilk. This makes government operate disappintingly, which they also love. It makes government an even better target next time. Government differs from private industry in several important ways and this is one of them. A private business can, by itself, fund whatever efforts it deems appropriate. Like customer service. Government executives are 100% powerless in funding. Legislatures are empowered to do that. Government executives and managers are not. Governments can make tactical resource decisions but not strategic ones. The current Postmaster General is a conservative, appointed by the last administration, and with a background in freight. He apparently has just enough money to run the functional part of his agency. Moving and delivering mail. If he had the financial resources to improve customer service, then he would do that.

The last ten times I was frustrated with customer service, the organization was not a government entity. Try getting Comcast on the phone.

Nobody wants to handle first class mail. Certainly not for sixty cents per piece. With an envelope and sixty cents you can send me 3.5 oz of stuff and it will probably arrive in two days. Three at the outside. UPS won't do that. FedEx won't do that. USPS will. USPS does not control the price of a stamp.

The post office closest to me typically has long lines, but the one downtown is reliable a short wait or none at all. Unlike at Jeff's house, my mail is delivered very reliably to my mailbox.

When I send parcels, I use USPS. In my experience, the cost is lower and the service and reliabilty are higher.

Before I made assumptions about the new Oklahoma roof decking code, I would want to look into that rule-making file. When governments make chances to regulations, they are required to follow a very transparent and public process, which creates a LOT of documentation about why the new regulation is being proposed and what input was received and considered during the process. My guess is that owning stock in some plywood company had nothing to do with it whatsoever. My guess is that roofs were flying off during wind events BECAUSE the contractor failed to replace the sheets or ensure they are re-fastened after they were damaged in the last wind event. That's just a wild guess but I know you guys have wind down there sometimes and that governments are invariably forced to explain regulatory decisions to stakeholders whose costs are affected. That file would be interesting, if you were curious about the reason for this regulation. In fact, you might even find the regulation does not exactly say what you think it says. If you heard about it through the grapevine.

As I say, i appreciate your thoughtful observations and concerns. And I suspect there is more to the story than we know right now, if we have not seen the OK rule-making file and if we have not been tracking congressional drama around the USPS and also delivery and performance statistics. Which, by the way, would be available from USPS and probably not available from UPS or FedEx.