The Public Market Place has been at the epicenter of our civilizations. I suggest a Sunday Flea Market be brought to all Post Offices, come Sunday, that have room for them. Some of our Post Offices are being sold to land speculators. Because an Article of the United states Constitution established the Postal Service, I believe it is vital that that those Democratic Institutions remain in the hands of the people who have long supported it by all those Americans, rich and poor, who purchased a stamp so that they may communicated with their fellow Americans. It was establishing roads of communication, that our Founding Fathers were most interested in, so that the Democratic Process can operate. This is not Socialism!

The Postal Service can be titled a Secular Institution, and is just as important as the protection of Religious expression. If We the People can not be heard, because of the distances that lie between us, then we can be read. That the Constitution supports the advancement of Science, in the same breath as the formation of Post Offices, tells me these offices are Road Marks for our collective Liberty, and should remain in the public domain for multiple use of, and, by, and for the People of the United States.

“Congress may establish uniform laws relating to naturalization and bankruptcy. It may also coin money, regulate the value of American or foreign currency and punish counterfeiters. Congress may fix the standards of weights and measures. Furthermore, Congress may establish post offices and post roads(the roads, however, need not be exclusively for the conveyance of mail). Congress may promote the progress of science and useful arts by granting copyrights and patentsof limited duration.”

Big business wants us to be separated and alone. They do not want us in a public square, speaking in a public forum, that markets have been since the dawn of civilization. Big business, and bank, want us to stay at home, be afraid, turn on our television to alive our loneliness, and list to their inane commercials over, and over, and over again, so when we go out to have some contact with our fellow hiuman being, fellow citizens, we will go into one of their mega-stores – and charge, charge, charge! They don’t want is to socialize, but, be in debt to them so they can control us even more then they do!

As I sat with my neighbor, Sandy, discussing the way things used to be in America, it was she who came up with “Trading Post”. I gave her a high five for this genius of a Branding idea.

Come Sunday, after church, we Americans could have a place to go, a place to see how our neighbors are faring in these troubled times. We can exchange information and ideas, directly. We can give assistance to those who need it without going through a beurocracy. We can reassure each other as we barter and sell our wares, that our system works, that we can have government and capitalism at the same time. As long as We the People are together, then we shall persevere!

Jon Presco

Copyright 2011

The United States Postal Service (also known as USPS, the Post Office or U.S. Mail) is an independent agency of the United States government responsible for providing postal service in the United States. It is one of the few government agencies explicitly authorized by the United States Constitution.
The USPS traces its roots to 1775 during the Second Continental Congress, where Benjamin Franklin was appointed the first postmaster general. The cabinet-level Post Office Department was created in 1792 from Franklin’s operation and transformed into its current form in 1971 under the Postal Reorganization Act.
The USPS has not directly received taxpayer-dollars since the early 1980s with the minor exception of subsidies for costs associated with the disabled and overseas voters. Revenue has been in freefall due to declining mail volume.[3] The postal service has attempted to look to other sources of revenue while cutting costs to reduce its budget deficit.[4]
The USPS employs over 574,000 workers and operates over 218,000 vehicles. It is the second-largest employer in the United States after Wal-Mart, and the operator of the largest vehicle fleet in the world.[5] The USPS is legally obligated to serve all Americans, regardless of geography, at uniform price and quality. The USPS has exclusive access to letter boxes marked “U.S. Mail” and personal letterboxes in the United States, but still competes against private package delivery services, such as UPS and FedEx.

The first postal service in America arose in February 1692, when a grant from King William & Queen Mary empowered Thomas Neale “to erect, settle and establish within the chief parts of their majesties’ colonies and plantations in America, an office or offices for the receiving and dispatching letters and pacquets, and to receive, send and deliver the same under such rates and sums of money as the planters shall agree to give, and to hold and enjoy the same for the term of twenty-one years.”[6]
The United States Post Office (USPO) was created in Philadelphia under Benjamin Franklin on Wednesday, July 26, 1775, by decree of the Second Continental Congress. Based on the Postal Clause in Article One of the United States Constitution, empowering Congress “To establish post offices and post roads”, it became the Post Office Department (USPOD) in 1792. Until 1971, it was part of the Presidential cabinet and the Postmaster General was the last person in the United States presidential line of succession.
The Post Office Department was enlarged during the tenure of President Andrew Jackson. As the Post Office expanded, difficulties were experienced due to a lack of employees and transportation. The Post Office’s employees at that time were still subject to the so-called “spoils” system, where faithful political supporters of the executive branch were appointed to positions in the post office and other government corporations as a reward for their patronage. These appointees rarely had prior experience in postal service and mail delivery. This system of political patronage was replaced in 1883, after passage of the Pendleton Civil Service Reform Act.[7]
Ten years before waterways were declared post roads in 1823, the Post Office used steamboats to carry mail between post towns where no roads existed.[citation needed] Once it became clear that the postal system in the United States needed to expand across the entire country, the use of the railroad to transport the mail was instituted in 1832, on one line in Pennsylvania.[8] All railroads in the United States were designated as post routes, after passage of the Act of July 7, 1838. Mail service by railroad increased rapidly thereafter.[9]

~ Benjamin Franklin ~ George Washington ~
The First U.S. Postage Stamps
Issued 1847
The first stamp issues were authorized by an act of Congress and approved on March 3, 1847.[10] The earliest known use of the Franklin 5c is July 7, 1847, while the earliest known use of the Washington 10c is July 2, 1847. Remaining in postal circulation for only a few years, these issues were declared invalid for Postage on July 1, 1851.[11]
An Act of Congress provided for the issuance of stamps on March 3, 1847, and the Postmaster General immediately let a contract to the New York City engraving firm of Rawdon, Wright, Hatch, and Edson. The first stamp issue of the U.S. was offered for sale on July 1, 1847, in NYC, with Boston receiving stamps the following day and other cities thereafter. The 5 cent stamp paid for a letter weighing less than 1 oz (28 g) and travelling less than 300 miles, the 10 cent stamp for deliveries to locations greater than 300 miles, or twice the weight deliverable for the 5 cent stamp.

For those of you who might be confused about how you can profit from owning a leased U.S. Post Office property, let us try to give you a simple view of how it works.

As with investing in any piece of real estate there are advantages not found in other types of investments, namely:
Owning something tangible, a building and land, not some paper that can become worthless, something that will always have some sort of value and be of use for someone;
The tax advantage of being able to keep your profits (and not pay capital gains taxes on them) from the sale of real estate provided you re-invest that money into other ‘like-kind’ real estate within a certain period of time;
Most likely a solid real estate investment will appreciate over time;
The ability to collect rental income from a tenant that should cover your mortgage costs, insurance and maintenance upkeep (essentially someone else is paying off your investment).
Owning a US Postal Service property has several other advantages not seen in most commercial real estate investments. Many people who have invested in real estate for years never knew that most US Postal Service occupied buildings were not owned by the government but leased to them by owners/investors. Most, but not all, post offices have been designed for use by the postal service.
When the US Postal Service decides they need a post office building but there is no suitable existing space they send a site person to the area and that person then takes an option to buy the land. Then through a bidding process a contractor, who has been approved by the postal service, makes a bid by filling in a blank USPS lease form with their proposed rental rates, terms and conditions. The USPS then chooses one of the builders to build the facility to the USPS specifications. The successful contractor/bidder then has to buy the land under the terms of the USPS option to purchase the site. The base, or initial, term of the lease is generally 10, 15 or 20 years with a series of 5 year options. The lease can have various riders and amendments and these affect the value of the investment.
The main advantage of buying a post office is that you are buying the property ‘fee simple’, meaning that you own the land and the building but you are also buying the rights as the landlord to take over the lease with the US Postal Service being the tenant. The USPS has what are called leasehold rights and as they are the ones that have drawn up the leases they tend to favor the postal service in as many ways as they can figure out to give them the advantage. However, having them as a tenant means the rent is US Government backed and guaranteed as the USPS budgets, even if in the negative, as supplemented by the Federal Government.
Just so you understand exactly how the US Postal Service has come to be what it is today I have decided, after so many conversations with people who do not understand the USPS make-up, to give everyone a little history.
The USPS is the successor to what used to be a full-fledged government department—namely, the Post Office Department, founded in 1792. So much a part of government was it that its rationale is mentioned in the Constitution, and the Postmaster General was in the line of succession to the Presidency—last in line, yes, but in line all the same. So things remained until President Richard M. Nixon’s Administration reorganized the Post Office Department in 1970 in response to a debilitating strike by postal workers, establishing the newly branded USPS as a “corporation-like” independent agency. What did, and does, this mean?