One week before the U.S. Postal Service is expected to increase rates by 5.4%, Great Britain ended Royal Mail’s 370-year monopoly and fully opened its postal market to private competition on January 1. Private enterprises now have the chance to compete for business-to-business and business-to-consumer mail.

Great Britain joins countries such as Germany, New Zealand, Sweden, Japan, South Africa, the Netherlands, the Philippines, and Jordan in moving toward the advantages of postal privatization. Other EU member states are charged will fully liberalizing their postal systems by 2009.

As American customers enviously gaze over the pond to the increased postal choice and price competition enjoyed by British postal consumers, chances of reforming the bloated and outdated USPS monopoly in 2006 look increasingly slim. A thorough overhaul of the postal service is needed now to avert a future taxpayer bailout, or the cost of our mail will reach far beyond the loose change we pay today for a stamp.