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Andrew Tobias

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Andrew Tobias
Andrew Tobias

Money and Other Subjects

Kill the One-Cent Stamp

August 3, 2000January 27, 2017

Monday, I wondered how the Post Office expects us to know to add 11 cents extra for square envelopes.

One of my previous beefs with the USPS was the lunacy of the 1-cent stamp. Why make everyone deal with this when the rate rises?

If people want to horde 32-cent stamps to beat the Postal Service out of a penny when the rate goes to 33 cents — wonderful! Let them buy a year’s supply! Or five! They save 3% or so – but the USPS gets use of their money, in effect “borrowing” it at a very modest rate.

On which subject at a miniscule rate of interest. John Docherty writes: “Personally, I think that the USPS should print stamps with ‘1st’ on them rather than ’32c’ or ’33c’ or whatever next year’s price is. The stamp would be good for first-class mail delivery for the life of the USPS. The transition to each new rate would be easier all-round. No pointless trips for consumers to the Post Office to buy sheets of 1c stamps, no retooling of printing presses to change “32” to “33”, no storage unnecessarily taken up by millions of sheets of 1c stamps.”

No licking, no pasting . . . no angry confrontations with the postman. Yes! John has nailed it!

If you like this idea, click here and cut-paste-send it straight to the United States Postal Service itself. You never know.

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