Pearl River Every once in a while, it’s hard to deny that the world has moved on and I’m still sitting in the back of the class in the old school. I still write checks by hand, both personally and for the organization, when called to do so. I’m getting the feeling that I might be part of a dying breed, but still, I lick the envelopes and stick on the stamps.
Admittedly, not because it’s fun in any way, but I have an abiding distrust of banks that has persisted a lifetime. They value business over regular consumers. They cut corners on account security, along with others. The news regularly reports that millions and millions of people have all of their information and coordinates hacked and offered up on the dark web. They apologize and haughtily take little responsibility other than advising all of us sad sacks to change our passwords.
I also believe, perhaps rationalizing, that checking the balances and writing the checks allows continued and close attention to cashflow. A lifetime of managing personal and professional accounts that can sometimes rise and fall at the margins makes me wary of turning over the controls to automatic payments for this or that utility, landlord, or insurance company, when it may mean not making payroll for our people. If you’ve ever bounced a check, you know where I live, and where I continue to visit from time to time.
Nonetheless, I fear that I could live to send my last letter, and, if not me, then certainly our children will find such correspondence either a piece of nostalgia or the province of the truly rich as governments offload this public service. A simple US postage stamp now costs 78 cents. The US Postal Service is the largest in the world and with Canada accounts for 37% of global revenue, but is losing north of $9 billion a year. It’s not hard to image that within a decade every time I lick a stamp, I could be putting one-dollar on the outside of an envelope. The penny is now on its way out, how long can stamps survive as well as our giant workforce of great postal workers?
Reading The Economist was a wakeup call for me. Denmark, after 400 years, is ending the delivery and collection of letters full stop. In 25 years, their volume on letter delivery has gone from almost 1.5 billion pieces to hardly 100 million. Their postage stamps were the equivalent of $4.50 per stamp. Germany privatized profitably. The UK partially privatized unprofitably. Italy, Portugal, and Malta all went largely private, but may be surviving by introducing other services like postal banking, which ACORN has advocated in Canada as a competitor to payday lending outfits.
Like the proliferation of access to porn, we know the internet is responsible. The more online a country and its population are, the more they will likely wonder why they are still subsidizing postal delivery as a public service. There’s no contest in comparing the ease, quickness, and cost of sending an email compared to a letter typed and printed, licked and sticked, and dropped off or put outside in the mailbox with a hope and a prayer that the sender will find the letter’s recipient. Denmark won’t outlaw mail, but it has some of the same effect since those who want to send and receive letters will have to deal with a private company called DAO and go to their branch.
I’ll hang on as long as it’s allowed until the cheapness in my DNA forbids it. I bought my last pack of cigarettes almost 40 years ago when I ran out in San Franciso and couldn’t bear to pay $2 for a pack. I’m incredulous when I see that a pack now can sometimes go for up to $10. For me, it’s not just knowing that people are risking their health by doing so, but pure amazement that anyone can still afford to smoke. At the point that stamps cost one-dollar, I don’t know that I will be able to countenance the notion of a crisp green bill being glued to the outside of a letter to some dunning company as opposed to colorful small rectangular stamps. I’m probably done then except for special treats, but I can’t help now feeling that we’re seeing something moving into a death spiral, whether we like it or not.