British officials on Monday greenlit a £3.6 billion takeover of Royal Mail, the UK’s equivalent to the United States Postal Service, by Czech billionaire Daniel Kretinsky’s EP Group after receiving assurances that the privatized system would continue to honor the obligation to deliver letters six days per week, Monday to Saturday, and packages Monday to Friday, the BBC reports.

The 500 year-old British postal system was privatized in 2011 and shares were listed on London’s stock exchange, leaving the Royal Mail “brand” is a subsidiary of another company called International Distribution Services, which also a highly profitable European shipping business whose £300 million gross profit in 2023 offset losses by Royal Mail. The British letter carrier union’s chief endorsed the takeover, saying it was the “best opportunity” to save the future of Royal Mail, with members getting a 10 percent share of dividend payouts to Kretinsky, though there’s no agreement on planned service reductions such as cutting second-class deliveries to every other day.

Maybe it’ll work out. After all, Royal Mail has been 90 percent privatized for more than a decade now, and despite being a money pit it hangs on under the same roof as a more profitable package shipping business. Of course if it weren’t already obvious to readers, we’re picking this up given that it comes just two days after the Washington Post reported that convicted felon President-Elect Trump and his minions are looking at privatizing the similarly unprofitable US Postal Service – and this buy-up of the UK’s by a foreigner involved in the Russian energy export business sure sounds like it’ll be cited as a “See libs? The Limeys still get their mail delivered every day. It’s fine.”

What we’re not quite getting here is why it’s the mail system that has to turn a profit for its government. Last time we checked the US Marines, the DEA, the Coast Guard, and so on and so forth weren’t required to make more than they spend on day-to-day operations. Probably the only government agency that consistently turns a profit is the IRS. The USPS obviously charges people for postage to fund some of its own operations but why is the burden to be self-sufficient as if they were an entirely private business like FedEx or UPS on them? Is the Border Patrol going to be required to seize enough cash from drug smugglers to make its payroll every month too?