Weekend Economists Ring in the Old, Wring Out the New: Dec. 30, 2011 to Jan. 2, 2012

[bread_and_roses]

130. A point totally absent in the national conversation - and another

point - in neighborhoods and small towns, it's part of the "community" I think - it's demise part of the "barreness" in the textured real world noted in the post above. People see their neighbors at the post office. The clerks get to know them. This sounds like a small and insignificant thing, but it's not.

And of course, the poor often have no internet, or if they do, no credit cards and often no bank account - they do not pay their bills online. Same with the elderly. For them, longer delivery times and fewer delivery days are not minor changes.

There are values other than "efficiency." Besides, one has to question an "efficiency" that in this age - for just one example here in my town - now leaves a huge building nearly empty so our mail can be trucked 60 miles every day to be sorted, and then trucked back 60 miles to be delivered to get a letter across town.