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Broke US Postal Service Cuts Saturday Delivery
The completely bankrupt US Postal Service, employer of some 500,000 government workers, which for the past two quarters has been surviving on liquidity fumes even as it posted it biggest ever loss in Fiscal 2012, and which recently announced its latest stamp price hike (which bought it two extra weeks of time), has just disclosed what was long anticipated: the end of Saturday mail delivery - a crushing blow to shippers of junk mail everywhere.
From The AP:
The financially struggling U.S. Postal Service says it plans to stop delivering mail on Saturdays, but continue delivering packages six days a week.
In an announcement scheduled for later Wednesday, the service is expected to say the cut, beginning in August, would mean a cost saving of about $2 billion annually.
The move accentuates one of the agency's strong points — package delivery has increased by 14 percent since 2010. The delivery of letters and other mail has declined with the increasing use of email and other Internet use.
Considering the USPS loss last year was $16 billion, all the postal office needs to do to return to profitability is cut delivery on 7 more days in the week and all shall be fixed. Sadly, we are confident some government worker just read this and a lightbulb went over their head. And no: taxing Americans $0.45 per email sent will not be a popular measure.
Of course, the inevitable outcome is that the USPS itself will have to be bailed out. In the meantime, the USPS can spend what little money it does not have on TV ads on channels such as CNBC whose viewers are certainly unaware of the services provided by this most bloated of legacy government entities.
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With these salaries, I would point the finger at Congress too
http://php.app.com/usps/search.php
As the largest shipper in my little zip code, I find daily that my Postmaster is either surfing the web or chatting on the phone when I come in to drop off my packages.
Exactly! Congress is just trying to head off people knowing that the public pension system isn't sustainable. If they let the PO operate like governments and not fund the pensions, the citizenry would see immediately that tax dollars need to be diverted to fund them. The mandate was just another can kicking excercise.
Question begging. Why are the required payments so large in the first place? Congressional mandates aside, they represent the accumulation of years' worth of cave-ins to union demands on benefits. Now the bill comes due, and everyone's crying poor mouth. Maybe the payments could have been better timed, but the bill is still huge relative to the business generated no matter how it's timed. As for the pension/benefits pool being perhaps another Congressional honey pot to be raided, that's certainly possible, but given its size in the grand scheme of things, it's really just dryer lint to those theives.
The quantity of services demanded (not to mention the quality) has been declining for years. Why have costs not been falling apace? The letter carrier who mentioned bloated management bureaucracy is on to at least part of the answer. The Service looks like one big fat sinecure for those seeking security over responsibility.
Because they went from funding 10 years ahead to funding 70 years ahead and it's hell making up that much ground in a short time. It's exactly what they're screaming about with PA state pensions now. Deadbeat government didn't pay in for 12 years and now is shocked, shocked I tell you, that catching up is going to be more expensive that if they'd paid their fucking obligations all along. Since everybody likes that household budget analogy so much, imagine if you kept charging stuff (TV subscriptions, iPhones, plane tickets, fancy dinners, etc) but stopped paying your VISA bill and then 5 years later decided to check up on your balance.
Exactly. They fund the Civil Service Pension Fund that "retired" Congressional members draw from. I doubt Alan Simpson wants to cut that milk cow. He owns a teat.
Post Office to by bought out; taken private; cash bagged; and then taken public. Next is Chapter 11 and Gov't Bailout.
"in fact these payments have accounted for more than 80% of the PO's losses..."
what accounts for the other 20% of losses? showing up for work???
"in fact these payments have accounted for more than 80% of the PO's losses..."
what accounts for the other 20% of losses? showing up for work???
Privatize it. Done. Fixed. Move on.
Agreed. Now, which crony/campaign donor to sell it to at a giveaway price?
Close more like full contract it out to UPS and Fed-Ex. They already do job a bit of the delivery to them now as is.
This can't be fucking right...netflix is up 5000% and according to their stock price should be delivering 259 billion movies a day...USPS should be turning a fucking profit.
I don't want to say with 100% certainty but I think of netflix deliveries are done digitally or when involving physical media like dvds, vending kiosks like you see in front of 7-11's these days.
This is run by the same group that now runs your healthcare. Time to end this madness America!
Every other day should be good enough. Let a few of them sort the shit out on off days. Should be able to cut thousands of sand bags loose.
"...but continue delivering packages six days a week."
So they can continue to steal packages sent to me six days a week.
I'd give that lady a 'delivery' anyday of the week...
Well let's see.......my postmaster in my small hodunk town has one of the areas nicest homes and brand new cadillac parked behind the small postal office and is talking about how she doesn't care about her job.
It is awfully bloated and im sure the people that do the bulk of the hard work are the ones who's fault it will be. A lot of the carriers are now contractors anyhow.
I'm sure the right thing to do vs. what will be done is going to be another totally fucked up gov't intervention and break the broke tax payer even more to save something more fucked up than even GM.
Hate tablet typing btw
Why does if only cost $.65 for china to send a delivery confirmed packet when it costs me 5.15 to send it to the same address in my own state?
China's merchantilist policy heavily subsidizes shipping to the US. It's really hurting small eBay sellers who can't buy wholesale cheaper than the Chinese can steal from the factory and ship for damned near free.
BINGO!
BTW if my mail carrier looked like the bitch in this article presentation I would make sure I had something to mail everyday and wouldn't mind paying $1.00 per stamp.
Why is it that most post offices are closed when we need them the most? If I were running things they would be open from 5 a.m. till 9 a.m., then open again at 5 p.m. and close at 9 p.m. Weekends? Expanded hours.
Bad for individual ebay sellers (vs. the more prevalent ebay store sellers) who have real jobs and ship an item or two on Saturdays.
USPS can join the club and cut. Maybe they can stop sponsoring athletes at the Tour de France too. WTF are they advertising? They have a monopoly.
No they do not have a monopoly. They compete with FEDEX, UPS, and others. They even get paid to do "last mile" carry for FEDEX and UPS to rural areas that FEDEX and UPS do not travel to.
"If it fits it ships" is marketing to compete with UPS/FEDEX which congress heretofor would not allow them to compete with...
Do Misean posters claim layoff of 500,000 people from full time public sector jobs having health and pension benefits is a good model for strengthening the economy?
I am just asking.
If you have gangrene in your foot .... do you cut it off ? If a coyote has his foot caught in a trap .... does he chew it off ! I don't blame Miseans for everything .... especially the social rot they have have argued against ! I accuse you of Chris Hedge "studied stupidness" !
They should not have been there in the first place, it will happen whether it is planned or not! When a intruble company can't make payroll due to the banker not extending the credit, the same thing happens.
The private sector is getting ready to lay off that many people, so why does not the public sector get to experience the same thing?
You might as well keep the nigger bloated circus going .... the tax payer will pay as much or more .... to maintain them in leisure .... plus the crime they'll create .... in DC .... around their administrative center ! Cradle to grave, Bitchez !
Looks like Fedx and UPS are a little closer to thier goal. I can't wait to pay 2.95 to mail mail a 1oz letter.
You are blaming the lean .... for the kidney failure of the fat .... I don't follow your Chris Hedgian .... faux logic !
FYI - some states have decriminalized pot for amounts UNDER 1oz. make sure you don't go over.
I predict that before the day is out that some Congressman somewhere will rail about elderly people not being able to get their mail order prescriptions on Saturday and will call for Congressional action on this. Congress has blocked the elimination of Saturday delivery many times for this reason. I don't think this is a done deal yet.
Can't wait til they auction off postal vehicles.
I mean, right-hand drive is so much more efficient for drive-by shootings.
Viva Chicago!
Obama's/Barry's home town area can put them to use. The Gangs have plent of room, plus they can trick them out.
Seems Chicago drive-bys are VERY successful now. Don't wait, change vocations now if you can't get it done, tennquist. JMO.
Chicago, my first experience there was lost in a semi truck late at night in South Chicago/Holland. Got out of that one with my hide intact. I have been back a few times on business, but just in and out. It gives me the hebie jebies, especially at night. I get really bad vibe while there.
Love your comment j. tennquist, sick humor is sooooo good lately.!
i'm sure the union will seek advise for the baker's union. A strike now would certainly stimulate demand,right? no such think as bad publicity i guess.
yes i feel bad for anyone lossing their job, but sadly too many people jumped on the wagon of easy money gov't job. But $50k to drive door to door PLUS gov't benifits and early retirement IS too good to last. the smart one's will immediately try to get the few jobs available in private shipping companies. we all lose on this one thought. the postal service needs to go, or be structure (ax pensions, reduced salaries etc). more unemplolyed.
this economy gets much worse before it gets better (if it gets better)
What about all my forever stamps I bought right before I cut up my credit cards ?
You bought a inflation-protected (at-best) zero-coupon perpetual... must be a sophisticated investor.
They are still good...
The slow, steady decline of the US continues. I'd have to be an a-hole to keep my family in the multi-culti US. Goyim need to realize it doesn't get any better going forward, at least not in our lifetimes.
This should have happened 5 years ago.
They have a broke and spend-riff sugar-daddy they can go to for more money.
Bernanke the Fed counterfeiters can print out a few billion more to bail them out.
Look fuckers, the two Govt orgs that produce for you, individually produce for YOU, turn a "profit" you can feel, are USPS via personal mail delivery, and Armed Forces, via $2.50-$3 savings in gas per gal at the tank. USPS is being robbed by congress, thus eating profits, by having to buy/being FORCED to buy, for their pensioners, many T-bills per anum to fund their retirement. Look it up. Disclosure: no, I'm not a USPS worker.
The US will need to get out of overseas bases. It can't afford them anymore.
Corruption is all throughout the system.
It's become the Soviet Union of the 1980's. You know what happened with them. The US is now eating it's seed corn.
The US will need to get out of overseas bases. It can't afford them anymore.
You may not think we can afford them but those that benifit from them; OIL, Industrail Mil Compx, slave labor pool, swear we can afford it.
Fuck we got the oil, legalize industrial hemp.
fuck you fucker. the military horseshit has a WAY BIGGER hidden costs. and doesnt "save" us shit. military jackboot licking sonofabitch. fuck you!
fucking ignorant asshole
I think you need to read, Nostrafagboy.
Big Companies (think JCPennys, Eddie Bauer, Sears, etc) and small businesses (think Amazon, Ebay, etc) that rely on mail order 'stuff' are going to have an uphill climb in an already tough environment. The recent rate increases are bankrupting many smaller places sooner rather then later ...the bigger ones will take longer to die.
This will result in more unemployment of some of the more productive people in our society (think hard working, self-supporting, non-gov, small businessmen).
"Yes we can !"
My mail lady is 100 years old and delivers mail in a Tonka Truck
no delivery bitchez.
NO!!! If you are cutting service then cut the price of stamps. You are diminishing service but not the fees you charge. Americans and future Americans should NOT have to pay for your poor management practices. The reason you have to so this is to pay for the ridiculous pension and benefit programs you established in the past. GO BANKRUPT like a company should, clear out your previous mistakes and THEN cut service and the fees you charge if needed. DO NOT expect others to continually pay for YOUR mistakes. I hope a competent lawyer gets a hold of this and institutes a Class Action Law Suit against charging for services you're not providing just to cover your previous mismanagement.
No more forgetting to get the mail on saturday so it sits in the box until sunday!! WOOOOOT!!
Well,. that is a start. Now we just need to:
1. Cut pensions by 20%.
2. Let them pay for their own medical after retirement. Why should I pay for another persons medical expenses with my tax dollars when I have to pay my own from my worthless dollars?
3. Close thousands of useless post office locations. We have 2 in our valley and 2 in the town next to us. They were going to close 50% but the voices of No Reason were heard. It would be too hard to travel an extra 3 miles to the next one. Absurd. So they are still open.
4. And sorry, but we need to cut their pay. The losses cannot sustain their pay and perks. Sad but true.
And on my wish list. How about a "do not mail junk mail" just like "do not call" provision. Would that not be nice. Get only the mail you want. But of course that would just be too logical. Not gonna happen.
And when you think about it, the Post Office is just like the VCR, dial up phone, and 78 RPM records. It is all changed, so you change with it. You do not take money from honest citizens for a broken model. Deal with it.
1) they already pay for their own pensions.
2) they have to continue to pay monthly premiums after retirement.
3) they have proposed cutting offices and congressional oversight says NO.
4) they are paid for the services they provide, their salaries are not part of the federal budget.
That Ben Franklin was an idiot to think regular mail service was necessary to build nad maintain a national economy.
That Ben Franklin was an idiot to think regular mail service was necessary to build nad maintain a national economy.
The Postal Service's losses are largely the product of a congressional mandate imposed on no other public or private enterprise in America. Since 2006, Congress has forced the Postal Service to fund FORWARD 75 years worth of pensions.
ANY business required to do this would be bankrupt.
The Post Office provides a Public Service. 50% of the citizens of the US do not have computers. How will these folks communicate with the outside world?
Privatization will do NOTHING but CREATE MORE EXPENSIVE mail service, enrich a small group of executives that go into the mail business AND Deteriorate Service.
Is there an echo in here?
Thanks Mick, glad somebody here get's it...
The graphic that goes with this post is awesome. I'd love for my letter carrier to be that hot! Wow
Cutting Saturday mail but Not packages is going to save money?
Still have to pay people, gas the fleet, sort, etc.
I used to care until I realized the only thing that will end this heaping pile of sh!t is to take the foot off the brakes and let the maniacs go pedal to the metal. Don't cut the USPS....double it. Don't fix Obamacare...crash the private insurer-based system and go straight-up single payer. Don't complain about welfare and unemployment insurance...conspire to get fired and milk it. Don't end globo-cop...increase the presence of the legions across the globe; instead of 140+ overseas military locations, go for 300. A drone for every police department. A B2 for every DHS agent to call in airstrikes. An aircraft carrier in every port. Pay KBR triple the rates they received from Bush to run the toilets and kitchens of the Empire. More useless administrators and senior-executive service "civil servants" earning high six-figures in every department at the federal and state levels! Don't cut the Dep of Education...we need SES civil servants to be assigned to each classroom as political morality officers to ensure the teachers are properly educating the proles..errrr, citizens. Triple the number of HR staffs, quadruple the number of equal opportunity officers in every department, and duplicate by attaching liaison offices at the state level. Order a trillion rounds of .40 S&W HP bullets for DHS...and gold plated weapons too! Build 80-story super-jails in every city and staff with federal GS-14s to hold all those evil domestic "terrorists" who we know will eventually commit a terrorist act. Lower Social Security eligibility to 35 years old and increase the tax rate to a more fair 90%. Nationalize all private businesses and make all the current minimum-wage employees federal civil servants paid at a minimum level of GS-9! The Stimulus acts to this point have been insufficient...quadruple them! Solyndra wasn't a failure...we need 100x more government funding of such exemplar companies in the alternative energy arena! More more more more more!!!
Only then will this slow ride to totalitarionism crash and allow the possibility of sanity to return as the world finally drops the dollar standard. Just make sure to set up plenty of caches of metal things that go "boom" and plenty of ammo. And don't get sick or it's Logan's Run for you.
The Postal Service is a kind of welfare / Keynesian "make-work" program.
The USPS are like the pony-express. They had their time and purpose, but time and technology have surpassed them.
Wrong Sir, the USPS workers are paid out of revenues from mail delivery charges. They are not part of the federal budget. Look it up...
One way USPS could become profitable is to stop subsidizing mail delivery to all the Podunk places in US. Let UPS and FeEX pick up the slack. LOL.
Get ready to jump into your F-150 and drive 50 miles to pick up your mail.
Snippets from the GAO: USPS borrows money from the U.S. Treasury via the Federal Financing Bank and has relied increasingly on this debt to fund its operations. Over the last 5 years, its net borrowing has increased by nearly $12 billion, and federal statute limits USPS’s total borrowing to $15 billion. (39 U.S.C. § 2005(a)). The 2006 Postal Accountability and Enhancement Act required USPS to prefund its retiree health benefit obligations with annual payments through 2016 to the Postal Service Retiree Health Benefits Fund. Pub. L. No. 109-435 (Dec. 20, 2006). Deferring some prefunding of these benefits would serve as short-term fiscal relief. However, deferrals also increase the risk that USPS will not be able to make future payments as its core business declines. USPS has reported that about 80 percent of its postal retail facilities do not generate sufficient revenue to cover their costs, yet this network of about 32,000 post offices has remained largely unchanged.
Congress goes apeshit every time a facility is proposed to close so it doesn't (oink oink oink). Borrow and burrow is not a strategy for continued existence. And I give no fucks about bloated government pensions or the jackass recipients to whom they are paid. Hope and change bitchez! All yours!
"4. And sorry, but we need to cut their pay. The losses cannot sustain their pay and perks. Sad but true."
How much do you make and what do you do for a living?
How much of a pay cut do you volunteer to take?
Everyone blames the USPS for their problems, but, as usual, it's the fucktards in CONgress that caused the problem:
"what has been lost in the political debate over the Post Office is why it is losing this money. Major media coverage points to the rise of email or Internet services and the inefficiency of the post model as the major culprits. While these factors may cause some fiscal pain, almost all of the postal service’s losses over the last four years can be traced back to a single, artificial restriction forced onto the Post Office by the Republican-led Congress in 2006.
At the very end of that year, Congress passed the Postal Accountability and Enhancement Act of 2006 (PAEA). Under PAEA, USPS was forced to “prefund its future health care benefit payments to retirees for the next 75 years in an astonishing ten-year time span” — meaning that it had to put aside billions of dollars to pay for the health benefits of employees it hasn’t even hired yet, something “that no other government or private corporation is required to do.”
As consumer advocate Ralph Nader noted, if PAEA was never enacted, USPS would actually be facing a $1.5 billion surplus today"
So because we know Congress has corrupt tendencies, there must be a payoff somewhere.
UPS or FedEx benefiting from such shinanigans?
Obv. there's money to be made by going private.
Yes, the Post Office is an easy target for their inefficiencies, but consider the alternative. With the USPS out of the picture, how much do you think one would pay to mail a letter via an alternative private delivery service? Do you think any private entity is going to make deliveries to the farm belt and outlying communites off the main road without a huge surcharge. Many businesses depend upon mail delivery service at a reasonable cost.
The PO lost about 10 Billion last year (16 billion loss less 5.5 billion excessive overpayment into retirement). Although this is a big number, the DOD spends about 2 B per day, so by comparison the PO is a piker. Considering private alternatives, a subsidy to the USPS of about 3-5 B a year, would not be unreasonable. However, to achieve these numbers, they will need to take a machete to their bloated management overhead. So far, all the PO has done is to pay minimal wages to new workers and subcontractors - time to cut the fat. Is Chainsaw Al (Dunlap) still around? - the PO needs you.
PS - A little customer service, by manning the windows when lines are long would go a long ways in garnering public support for a subsidy.
If they cut service down to one day per week, they can start making payments to the mail workers' pension fund.