(no subject)

I was attempting to respond to a fellow about libertarianism and private versus government financing of various programs. I was attempting to respond to his assertion that the US postal service is not heavily subsidized by the US government. While I don't think I succeeded, I feel like I did a bit of interesting research on the way, so I figured I repost it in case anybody cared.

His assertions, which are pretty spot-on, were that the postal service has yearly revenues of around $72 billion, and claim a yearly profit of around $900 million.

Also, please don't take anything behind the cut as if it were meant to be a cogent argument. I just couldn't get enough evidence to support either my point or his, so it's frustratingly inconclusive. I just think there's some interesting data on the way to that non-conclusion :-)

( Random attempted postal research, poorly organized, follows )