Editing 76-07-A1 (section)

=== Transcript ===
Not long after the November election, Postmaster General Benjamin Bailer announced that the United States Postal Service, after what seemed like generations of unbroken deficits, had finally found the light at the end of the tunnel and produced a surplus. About $15 million in all. At least for the Third Quarter of 1976. With a First Class stamp threatening to climb into the price class of imported caviar, any news such as this is good news. Of course, one cynic in the news media suggested that the Postmaster General timed the announcement to respond in a winning way to Jimmy Carter's statement that he would seek to have the job brought back into the Cabinet, subject to Presidential appointment (under the present system, it is not).

But, while the surprise Postal surplus was just sinking in at home, news came from abroad that the Chinese had gone us one better.

The Republic of China, on Taiwan, actually turned a profit on its postal system this year and, according to the report from Taipei, postal profits there are routine. They announced that, for the fiscal year ended this June, their system posted a profit the equivalent of $31.8 million! And this was a 73 percent increase over the previous year.

They reported that their business operations exceeded all projections. Now, they do handle such things as life insurance and savings program, so a direct comparison with the U. S. Postal Service isn't completely correct, but some comparisons are instructive:

U. S. postal officials often complain that the volume of mail is increasing at such a great rate that their automation program just can't keep up with it. The Taiwan postal system only handled a fraction of the volume of letters we did: 738 million versus more than 73 billion! But, the Chinese figure was 93 percent above what had been expected and, remember, they handled it at a profit.

The Chinese handled more than 7½ million parcels, about one percent of our volume of 801 million last year . But the most interesting comparison is in customer service -- the number of post offices. They have 9,443 of them all on the island of Taiwan. That's one post office for every 1,700 people. Our vast country, by comparison has only three times the number of post offices, or one for every 7,100 citizens.

The "bottom-line", as they say, is in the price of service to the customer. For the Chinese, a First Class letter is delivered for seven cents, compared with our 13 cents. Even their express letter and air mail rates are lower. About the only worrisome note struck by the Chinese postal report was their comment on automation. It seems that they are now going to go all out to automate. For their
sake, let's hope the bugs that have plagued the American system aren't contagious. 

This is Ronald Reagan.

Thanks for listening.

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