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Insolvent US Postal Service Loses Whopping $5.2 Billion In Third Quarter, 70% Higher Than Year Ago
Update: USPS STILL EXPECTS TO RUN OUT OF CASH IN OCTOBER - well, this is the bailout request that Draghi was waiting for. All your ECB - get involved.
The epic collapse of one of the most bloated government institutions continues at a ridiculous pace. From Bloomberg:
- U.S. POSTAL SERVICE LOST $5.2 BILLION IN THIRD QUARTER
- POSTAL SERVICE LOSS Q3 COMPARES WITH $3.1 BILLION LOSS YEAR AGO
- POSTAL SERVICE 3Q REVENUE FALLS TO $15.6 BILLION FROM $15.8B
- POSTAL SERVICE `LIQUIDITY CHALLENGES' REMAIN IN 2013
- POSTAL SERVICE MAIL VOLUME FALLS 3.5 PERCENT IN THIRD QUARTER
- POSTAL SERVICE WILL CONTINUE TO PAY EMPLPOYEES, SUPPLIERS
And it gets better:
- POSTAL SERVICE LOSS INCLUDES SKIPPED PAYMENT TO TREASURY - in other words the taxpayer bailouts of the USPS have begun... and the loss would have been even bigger.
The punchline:
- POSTAL SERVICE WILL `NEVER' CEASE DELIVERING MAIL: MARSHALL
Of course: why ever stop doing something that is losing tons of OTHER PEOPLE'S MONEY. Not like that money is your own.
Finally:
- USPS has said it would run out of cash in Oct., assuming it wouldn’t make $11.6b in required payments to the U.S. Treasury for future retirees’ health-care costs
- Congress recessed this month without passing legislation Postal Service said it needs to survive
Perhaps it is time to consider a Solyndra-USPS merger: who wouldn't want to see solar powered stamps?
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Will give a whole new meaning to the term "going postal"
http://www.brotherjohnf.com/
Thats fucking postal!
Subsidize that Junk Mail, suckers!
The Postal Service post bail out will be re-named and re-branded, "Government Mail, the Other GM".
All letters will be open and read "for your safety!"
Sometimes one easily gets the sense that zero brained iFad dweebs, that didn't have too much to begin with, burned out their last lone strand of gray matter shopping their latest and greatest 4G iBling for dim wit, but not quite ready for prime time, but never clever, one liners, so de gang at ZH won't nitice their limp wristed blog-tyoing-style.
1) The United States Postal Service, (USPS), is the only federal function authorized and signed by the founders, in the original Constitution.
2) United Parcel Service's (UPS) lobbyists have been sending choir boys to the hats rooms of the house and senate with promises they'll find shiny quarters in the holed pocketed pin striped pantaloons worn by overpaid, yet perfectly corrupt, B list CSPAN character actors. Probably already loaded up de CSPAN crroners with bunches of UPS warrants too.
3) Since the USPS is hard coded into the original constitution, the kiddy lovers on da hill be storying up consent so da dull witt's chewing a wad of iCurd in the sheeple haircut coral tink da CSPAN fiolly Whores are counting dere pennies. Soon to be followed by mainstream 5th column queens, and th always manufactured surveys storying it up 24/7 on the hypno tube.
4) To top-off Marine gas tanks for one f*cking week in Afghanistan, costs more than the USPS's "reported" budget shortfall.
5) The only federal employees that give any of us a sense theat we are still Americas are those knee socked US Postal workers putting your "pad enhancement" meds in the mail box.
6) The "Cram me Hard" and "Think beyond the corner of da Spreadsheet" Crammer was schlepping consent for da little ruse underlying de thin dime a dozen paste up one-liner you be glowing about and almost raised the stiffy-worm enough for you to be a pitcher - A F*CKING YEAR AGO!
WHAT CRAMMER PREACHES IS NEW TESTAMENT FASCISM
Have you tried Harretz or Little Green Footballs? Dere be lotz more city park bathroom hookups dere dan here to slam ur rear!.
They would even pretend you be clever, as long as you play de pliant catcher and gotz a purse full-o-K-Y lover-boy-lubricant.
You be swooning through da teeth and over de gums into da tummy yummy yum yum all nite long!
UPS will open your mail because they not be bound by Federal Law. USPS cannot open mail with out a court order.
Turn off the Olympics and tink, me little 4-G queen bato! The whores on the hill are starving Americans and their Postal Service for black-bribe-bags full-o-fiats, insider scoops on de next bestest profits-o-genocide play and wide eyed preschoolers with soft hands.
So - yu still be tinking you be da clever one-liner troll de-jour? Well, do ya, punk?
Merged, and delivered via Chevy Volts.....
Through rain and snow, debt and insolvency, the mail man will always deliver.
Newman : Work ? It’s raining .
George : Soooooo
Newman : I called in sick . I don’t work in the rain .
Nah. Everyone expects mail service and the Federal Government loses $5B in the cushions of the couch when they sit down. The inverse "Midas touch", gotta' love Government.
As a retired postal worker I'll tell you the reasons the USPS is going down the crapper.
1) Electronic mail
2) Bloat (people demand mail delivery across the US to every address)
3) Regardless of actual cost of delivery i.e. fuel, maintenance, taxes, rents.
4) .46 cent delivery of letter anywhere in the country and U.S. possessions around the world. Congress sets rates instead of the market.
5) One of the cheapest mail service providers in the world.
6) Convenience of cell phones.
Don't get me wrong, there are major structural problems that need addressing but try to remember the last postal strike.
Congress controls the purse strings and therefore controls capital expenditures. Granted, managers are paid to manage but when you work for a quasi-governmental agency without the ability to set rates, as per market demands, you'll have a system that is especially vulnerable to congress edits that have more to do with lobby persuasion than actual supply and demand pricing.
In 1996 I saw the potential of the parcel market expanding due to a new online auction site: eBay.
Well, trying to convince management of the potential was beyond frustrating (bloat) but once they realized UPS and FedEx were making inroads into their parcel business they got on board.
In the end, nimble entrepreneurs will fill the voids and charge what the market will bear. Unfortunately, that birthday card from grandma might cost $2.00 bucks, but hey, how many birthdays does one celebrate with how many siblings, aunts, and grandparents?
Personally, it is a dieing part of our history. Relegated to telegraph, cross-country passenger railroad, or carbon paper and spools for typewriters.
In the end, if you don't have a pot piss in then you learn to piss outside.
Hey El Oregonian, I don't know why one person would give you a thumbs down. You're absolutely right. The thing is a don't think a lot of people understand the Postal Service a quasi-gov't agency, it's not like the dept. of education or your state's DMV, and people think it is. It's a private entity whose rules are governed by congress but makes it owns profits and that's how it operates, right? Correct me if I'm wrong. The US Postal Service is the best in the world and people may think mail is a thing of the past but it isn't. You can have anything delivered via the PS. I used to run an eBay business and if I used FedEx or UPS by costs would've doubled. The PS never once messed up a single order and there were thousands. Go figure, UPS was much slower. I lost stars cause of it. And those stars are the equivalent of gold on eBay and determine if people buy off you or someone else. And since I sold all my goods two cents lower than everyone else, and at first, at half price, in order to crush competition, without the PS, my biz woulda failed.
The rub is.....
Wait for it....
Aging pensioners and the fucking healthcare costs.
My wifes family hellcare plan is $18,000 a year.
No one can afford that shit. Hospitals like the hilton, granniy's hip replacement, poison pharma which is marked up to the fucking moon.
Simple math at work.
Is there a Postal Whale?
You didn't build that business the US government did.....see what a bang up job they did!
Time to shut it down. $100 per taxpaying taxpayer (ie. the 50% that actually pays federal taxes) is not worth it for 3 months of service.
hmm... sounds like I need to use the shit out of it if it's costing me that much to prop this bitch up.
Hey idiot partisan show me the numbers that the right kind of people who actually pay federal taxes, fuck you by the way, pay $100 per...month, year, lifetime, per what? You have the Web equivelent of foot-in-mouth disease. Post comment insert ass, by that I mean your face. Also, how do we replace it? with what? Yeah let's pay $20 to deliver an envelope via UPS. Great! Go suck some CEOs dick, since your already on your knees. SLAVE. That's you. The PS is a private agency that generates its own money. You people, by that I mean republican partisans and your ilk on the other side who defend obscene union wages, i.e Democrat parisans, are the PROBLEM. Every single one of you on both sides. Now, Ron Paul is gone and his son is obviously not the same--at all.
This is the dumbest, most off-topic, most needlessly and baselessly rude, most inane and insane comment I've seen in quite some time, and I read AnAnonymous religiously.
Are you an employee of the USPS or do you shill for fun?
Oh my heavens, gosh gee willigers, did I offend thee? Oh, I do truly apologie my kind sir as i thought I was on a Web site called Zerohedge where the owner himself uses a pseduonym, Tyler Durden, of a movie called Fight Club, ya know, they pummeld each other for fun. My mistake. Apparenlty rudeness is not tolerated on this here board, maybe the moderator should remove my comment so no one else's little feelings get hurt. BTW, I truly am sorry that your panties got in such a bunch, must be hard with all that sand in your vagina. Oh wait, am I allowed to point out that you are the proud owner of a vagina? But I must disagree. How is posting about the post office off-topic on a post aboput the...wait for it...post office. Great ad hominem attacks miss, but please, refute my arguments. point by point. Or is it reputiate, as your Queen says. BTW, how many corporate scum bags and union mebers does it take to change a light bulb. Answer: none. They get someone else to do it for two bucks per hour and no bathroom breaks while they do nothing productive. Oh yeah, fuck you partisan scum. THIS IS SPARTA! Now go bake some cookies and get fucked. How dare i post a post about the post office on an article about the post office.
PS: The original comment said it costs $100 per (?????) for actual tax payers for three months of service. The post office generates its own income from its profits and thats what it uses for operating costs. I think it is pretty awesome for less than 50 cents I can send a letter to a friend in Cali. And yes some of us still wirte letters and I'm 30. Then there are Christmas cards. Birthday cards. Notices that must be mailed by law,. How do you replace it without putting more hidden taxes on the middle class. EXPLAIN HOW? Call me all kinds of names I dont care unlike you, I just want an explanation on what happens when you fucks shutter the USPS, as it sounds like thats what you want.
When will you turkeys learn? Despite all evidence to the contrary, you cling to your absolutes and formulas in attempts of rationalizing civilization. Being broke is only a state of mind.
Hey, Ben, is that you?
Ben & Obama would love for QE3 to invlove a $25,000 refundable credit for every man woman and child in the US, legally or not.
Just file a return and claim your 'Freedom Money Refund'
Can I get that with a side of Freedom Fries?
well it won't be waffle fries from chi-fil-a lol but i don't think anyone should eat there fro one quasi political reason: fast food is tasty and like anything that creates a dopamine rush comes with drawbacks, in this case, healthcare costs related to obesity and more eating like type II diabetes. The guy can donate to all the groups he wants but maybe he should create healthier food...maybe his is more healthy than say mickey dees, but that's not saying much. I just think he should keep his politics to himself...its good business
When will you turkeys learn? Despite all evidence to the contrary, you cling to your absolutes and formulas in attempts of rationalizing civilization. Being a forum poster is only a state of mind.
The Cunts in CONgress were too busy naming post offices.....
The last straw is giving access to the public's mailboxes to UPS and Fed Ex.
These boobs at the USPS have a monopoly on them - and they lose money.
A bright and shining example of why GOVERNMENT SUCKS!
Come on Max and MDB..explain this to us...give us your big government shit reasons......
let me try, because once they raise taxes on ebay/amazon sales it will boost buisness... er.. wait let me rethinkit.
mail delivery man is a good example of wage differences between say the US, Mexico and China.. be it in terms of gold based on the exchange rate and then question why one get a far higher salary than the other?
higher productivity was one legitimate answer..
as we continue to enter the world of that "giant sucking sound" and our wages go down as theirs go up until we reach an equlibrium. Well said Ross Perot in 1992.
Yep. That is the only 'funnymental'
I hired a full time admin staff today. Female 20 years old. Diploma. Last job was a legal eagle. She joined for $70 a month + bonus.
Unfortunately, efficiency has not touched the most inefficient part of mail delivery - the last mile. The US post office has made huge innovations in sorting and processing, and even their in-office kiosks. But they still have people physically carrying armloads of mail, on foot, door to door to door. Until they can give that up 100%, or close to it, they are stuck in the efficiency department.
It is interesting this article was posted just below another article about disinformation. Does revenue down from 15.8 to 15.6 billion sound all that bad?
Think for yourself.
It really doesn't matter how much they're 'down' - wheather it be 200M or 200B - the simple matter is they're fucking broke and can't run a profitable monopoly.
Disinfo, indeed.
I think some of this data was mis-interpreted, but no source is given and I haven't been able to find it on my own. USPS only has second quarter financials posted. Does anyone know where this data comes from?
Thanks for the compelling argument dipshit.
Easy tiger--I just wanted to see the data because it doesn't match the trend of the USPS losses. They have been losing around 2 to 3 billion a year, and this article makes it sound like one quarter. I think they have included all the pre-pay hocus-pocus even though they say they didn't.
Rather than join in the two-minute hate I am trying to get informed--tough to do without the data.
Just a note, that 200m decrease in the USPS's Q3 is only one quarter, therefore if that happened every quarter they'd have an 800m decrease in revenue.
I think that's pretty significant.
I'm not saying business is booming, but with revenue of 60 billion a 800 million decrease in revenue could be a manageable decline. I know they shed around 30k employees every year, so that reduces the expenses quite a bit.
Think for yourself. The herd mentality at ZH masquerades as independence- disinformation on an organic level.
The PS must make these giant balloon payments into a HEALTH CARE FUND. Huh? What about ObamaCare? What about insurance companys?
Then, the PS has been required, by the same politicians who work for Wall Street, to give up its profitable delivery and stamp monopolies to UPS FedEx and Pitney Bowes. Huh?
I think the PS is being set up to fail, then said carcass to be picked over by Wall Street.
Truth is, if you want privacy, MAIL A LETTER. Got sdomething sensitive to say, and you dont want anyone but your intended recipient to receive the message? SEND A LETTER.
Funny, the Postal Service did fine as a gov't agency, right up until the 70's. Something MADE it unworkable. Congress and its Wall Street handlers.
Or you could encrypt
The NSA's computers can crack that shit now.
"Funny, the Postal Service did fine as a gov't agency, right up until the 70's. Something MADE it unworkable. Congress and its Wall Street handlers."
By the mid 70s FedEx was founded, and UPS went nation wide. Fast forward 2 decades and email was ubiquitous, this is why USPS is failing, because insulated from market forces they've become dinasours.
The heavily unionised labour force doesn't help but it's not like USPS has been setup to fail, it's just that nothing else can be expected with government running a business.
Just two years after JFK was gone...
Coinage act of 1965.
http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=27108
Ended 172 years of dollar being defined as a weight and measure of silver.
Read the book in my profile.
Kennedy knew what he was talking about.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FnkdfFAqsHA
You make no sense. And you are wrong, to boot.
http://www.lewrockwell.com/orig4/spooner3.1.1.html
Read it or don't, I care not. "Think for yourself".
The US Post Office was one of the first seats of government established in the United States.
People need to think of how the Post Office functioned during the civil war, for selective service, how important mail delivery is. Service of process, etc.
So, its run like a private corporation until they have to make decisions that effect politicians future. They need to file for bankruptcy. Void all contracts. Increase worker health premiums, stop paying premiums for them after they retire, reduce pay and benefits, and fire X amount because their business model has changed. Then they could stay in business, and with the proper cuts and management, be profitable. Lets face it guys, we can adjust to no delivery on Saturday, Canada has been doing it for years. And yes rural Post Office's would have to close and yes it would be a hardship on the elderly in small towns who have nowhere to go, but it is fact. PO is broke. But no, we will not do anything before the election. Cannot upset voters until After November.
On and on it goes.
Actually the transition has started. New hires make less than half of legacy postal workers with no benefits. They will have to figure out a way to screw the old union workers out of the retirement benefits they were promised, but that should be easy given the current situation.
Do they conitune to overfund their retirement fund? It's funny that the same tools( originally had fools) who voted for overfunding the postal workers' retirement are the same ones who do not want to close their rural post offices.
You just fixed it in 30 seconds..it is that easy....cut expenses..labor costs..pensions...healthcare....some services...but it gets er done..
I bet they gave out millions in raises this year though....can´t stop that ya know...wink wink...
You nailed it. Trash the unions, disolve the pensions and fire the dead weight. We need a solvent post office because if all shipping were to be handled by UPS and Fedex, most retailers would go out of business due to the costs. They need to quit trying to be everything to everybody while at the same time being handcuffed by the union.
You nailed it. Trash the unions, disolve the pensions and fire the dead weight. We need a solvent post office because if all shipping were to be handled by UPS and Fedex, most retailers would go out of business due to the costs. They need to quit trying to be everything to everybody while at the same time being handcuffed by the union.
junk mail delivery service mostly
When I get junk mail with a return postage envelope enclosed I send it back with nothing inside, as a way to help out the USPS and cost the purveyors of junk, and give myself a chuckle too.
me too...but i fill the envelope with other junk mail to make it heavier.
Every time you have USPS carry your return stamped junk mail you're increasing the loss they make by forcing them to carry out an underpriced and inefficient service, thanks for hastening the decline of this dinosaur.
Die junkmail.. die... and don't forget the looming MASS ARRESTS, the dissolution of the FED, and the coming restoration of the Constitution... http://tinyurl.com/cd5cyjo/
WTF is it with TinyURL posters? Why not just paste the original link so's folks know where it goes (thus, increasing the likelyhood that someone will actually click on it)?
I type the TinyURL in by hand... the YouTube link is a mile long and gives away the surprise.
YouTube has its own link shortener. http://y2u.be/
Going into a Post Office isn't a pleasant experience, they need to do something about that.
Why they don't just increase the price of a stamp to something reasonable?? I just don't get it....and I don't get why postal workers get paid so much above minimum wage..its crazy...is the job really that much harder than flipping burgers at McDonalds?
http://govttrader.blogspot.com/
McJobs for all!
?
Finally:
They will be delivering mail even if they don't exist, without pay or pension. Thats dedication! Need to add that to the motto.. "Neither lack of pension or pay shall stay the postman from his appointed rounds"
the problem is in the required payments.
http://expose2.wordpress.com/2011/11/20/a-voice-from-the-dark/
Tyler-
For you
Treasury's Secretive $2.4 Trillion Fund GuaranteeBy John Carney | CNBC – 1 hour 13 minutes ago
Details about a secretive government program to bail out money-market mutual funds are finally coming to light.
Acting without any explicit Congressional authority, the U.S. Treasury guaranteed in excess of $2.4 trillion of money market funds after the giant Reserve Primary Fund "broke the buck" following the bankruptcy of Lehman Brothers. The program, which ended on Sept. 18, 2009, seems to have successfully prevented a panicked run by money-market fund investors.
But until now the Treasury has kept the identities of the funds that received government backing and the amounts guaranteed secret. It was not clear how many funds obtained backing or for how much taxpayers were on the hook during the program's duration.
Linus Wilson, an assistant professor of finance at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette, recently obtained data about the program from the Treasury, through a Freedom of Information Act request.
…and there will be no consequences for us, only for you!
Joint Peuro bonds, or even Europ bonds. Sounds good, looks right, and Goldie issues CD Swaps that guarantee all pensions into 2050. Been done.
I'd like to cancel my mail - YouTube
no more junk mail..that may be a good thing..
somewhere Lysander Spooner is laughing
So much money can be raised from killing all the pension claims of non-union workers at USPS, Mr Geithner?
And I get 2-3 pieces of fundraising mail a day for the 2012 political race from one candidate.
Clearly the USPS is undercharging for bulk mail.
What scares me is we actually know about this and look at how bad this is. How bad is the stuff they are not telling us about.
Go to a law library a pull out some of the Statutes at Large books and start reading. You will be in for a big surprise.
I think if you read them long enough you might go completely mad.
It's not like they hide it.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cAXV2134M5U
If you want an idea of how convoluted the laws are, watch this series of videos.
http://www.youtube.com/user/NOdiscloseSSN
Literally sets the businesses against the people and vice versa. A nation divided against itself.
PS. The post office is one of the Seats of the US Government.
Look behind the house speaker next time you are watching C-Span. See those two symbols on either side of the flag? Might want to find out what those mean. They weren't always there.
The solution is to make the USPS a bank and thus TBTF. A contraction of delivery days, including Saturday, cut out the junk mail, make each US Post Office a "certifed" print center (send/upload your doces to your local Post Office to "date/stamp/certify" and print at the receiving Post Office, and force the use of PO Boxes would cut costs 90%. Of course, that's what a private company would do, and you can't build that yourself.
How about you need a stamp for email?
How about a .usps email for every physical address, that costs 1/2 the price of a stamp?
Lower the price of a stamp back to $.25 and cut the other shipping rates 20% and the Post Office might survive.
Any company that thinks increasing prices to combat falling revenue is the answer, will be bankrupt in short order.
Read about Andrew Mellon and his economic theory. Then you'll see why FDR tries to use the power of the federal government to destroy him.
POSTAL SERVICE WILL `NEVER' CEASE DELIVERING MAIL: MARSHALL
That's probably true given the recent shit-show at
AmtrakForget about the fancy book learnin' kids.
Do whatever it takes to get a government job.
Beautiful William and right on.
My postal workers don't bother to deliver the mail to the correct homes any longer. Six times in the past four months I have received my neighbors mail, once twice in the same day (delivered the wrong mail, came back and delivered another bundle of the wrong mail- including bank and brokerage statements!).
but but i thought obama was gonna save everything? this cant be . he doesnt renig on promises does he? well. at least he cleaned up wall street like he said he would
I just checked with my local fire department. They haven't turned a profit in years. It turns out that when they show up to places to put out the flames, they haven't been billing the lazy idiots whose houses catch on fire. Outrageous! What a bunch of socialists. I found out that the fire department gets government funding without a cent of profit. Can we start a huge campaign about this at ZH?
I've also recently gotten a tip that the stop lights in all the intersections of my town turn absolutely zero profit. I haven't yet proposed a pay-per-use stop light system, but i think perhaps a coin slot can be installed or a credit card swipe system will suffice. The perfect market will keep the stop lights running.
Gosh golly, you're so witty and intelligent. Fucking dipshit.
speaking of witty and intelligent, you called me a dipshit earlier in the thread. Come up with a new put-down Mr. Value-added comment.
What, you thought ZH wouldn't notice your implied comparisons of importance? Two can save people's lives. The other delivers junk paper to your house. Yeah, those are the same, all right. -_-
Junk email constitutes the majority of email, but I wouldn't propose abolishing the email infrastructure. Instead we have developed filters and other reforms to enhance the system.
I propose we do things to reduce junk mail in the postal service rather than abolishing the postal infrastructure.
This discussion quickly gets to the root of the anarchist vs civilization squabble. Anarchists say that because the system is flawed it should be destroyed because there is no hope for it to function properly. Proponents of civilization would say that the system should be reformed.
There's a lot of bellyaching at ZH about out-of-control bankers, yet there's harsh criticism for any country that attempts to impose any kind of defensive capital/market controls.
Seriously, I'm glad we have this place and can have these discussions about stuff.
Stop lights (right turn on red cameras) in my town make HUGE profits.
Also, my bro-in-law works for RRD. He calls it "opportunity" mail
ok ok junk away but...
My understanding is that the postal service is being required to fund 100% of all future retiree liabilities and this is the 'hardship' pushing them over the brink.[ No other companies I know of are being required to do this]
Sure the mail has been changed by the advent of email,etc. Sure it could be more efficient. But the mail system is actually pretty amazing. My own dealings with the post office are always pretty good. My carrier is very nice and damn efficient in my town. The folks that get my care packages off to afghanistan do so very cheaply and it always gets there. (yeah, the military takes over but the PO is my store front) I can't imagine what would happen to business in this country without the postal service. There are a LOT of other govt waste things I can think of to eliminate before euthanising the USPS. {por ejemplo: Go ahead and eliminate the Dept of Energy. They are utterly f*ckin worthless} just sayin...
ayup...they have to fund 75 years' worth of retiree health benefits in 10 years' time. They've already paid in over $21 billion so far.
Social Security and Medicare are on a crash course, who in Congress got a bug up their ass about the USPS? The whole damn Ponzi is going down sometime soon, let's cut the lowly mailman a break.
It's a plan to force them to FedEx and UPS. Break then buy on the cheap.
FInally, somebody on here gets it. The Bush administration pushed that new pension funding rule to destroy the post office so that private interests who supported their campaigns could take over the business. The Founding Fathers gave us a "Peoples' Post" and we should do what we can to salvage it.
The best part is, depending on where you live, the cost to mail a letter could go from .45$ to like $450.00, particulary in Alaska or Hawaii, and many out of the way places in the lower 48.
And, I'm sure that UPS/FEDEX will eliminate coverage to some areas anyway because who watns to spend money on gas/overhead to get a single letter out to Eastbuttfuck, USA.
That is in Jersey.
Soon they are going to institute a email tax to re-coop some of the losses (ya'll think I'm fucking joking? NYT: The case for Taxing Email http://ideas.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/05/26/the-case-for-taxing-e-mail/).
I fear for my co-worker, whose husband is USPS. Our company sucks and underpays workers and skimps on helath insurance. For her and their two kids, they have the safety net of the husband's pension and of course, kick ass health insurance plans (ty, unions). If the type of USPS numbers continue, you can kiss this shit goodbye.
Let's keep in mind that the US Constitution provides for a post office. Nothing says the post office has to run at a profit.
If we went back to the original American School or System then we would have user fees, excise taxes and import tariffs to fund these basic functions and very small central government.
A core problem is that we should not have public sector unions, which distort the actual cost of running an efficient system by removing labor from market forces.
The Constitution ALLOWS the government to run a postal service, it does not COMMAND it.
Doesn't help that the 2006 law passed by Congress and signed by Bush forced the Post Office to fund 75 years' worth of retiree health benefits in only 10 years' time!!
I have absolutely no association with the USPS other than receiving mail via it, but you need to actually know why they have budget problems before calling them "bloated." While I agree that any former government institution may be personnel top heavy (i.e., too many "managers"), there are other major factors involved.
First, unlike Fedex and UPS, the USPS is required by law to deliver one ounce or less "parcels" to and from the most remote regions of the US for $0.45/oz. As first class mail use drops due to electronic mail, the unprofitable remote routes lose their subsidies. CONgress has been inflexible in allowing the USPS to adjust their business model to adapt to this. And over the years, when the USPS wanted to get into new businesses, it was often prevented from doing so by CONgress which also continues to tie its hands in a hundred different ways.
Second, unlike the USP and Fedex, the rate increases they can charge are capped by law to the official CPI and we all know what complete understated BS that is. Energy costs are not even included in the core CPI and energy use is obviously a major cost to anyone who ships anything!
Third, they deliver six days per week and not five like UPS and Fedex.
Finally, "its pension is overfunded to the tune of around $11 billion. It is also required by law to make an annual payment of nearly $5.5 billion to prepay for health benefits for future retirees, a mandate imposed on no other company — or government agency — in America. Simply ending that onerous prefunding requirement and reclaiming the excess pension money would go a long way toward shrinking the losses."
So, don't blame the USPS. Blame the usual perps, the bought and paid for idiots in CONgress.
Funny at the top is an article about Truth and so far you are the only one that has spoken the truth! People forget UPS,FEDEX, etc. will love to deliver for you and they will once they have (by CONgress) killed USPS raise the rates like you have never seen! Very few people realize USPS almost always delivers the last few miles for any packages not in a large city! Then what if you are not in a large city you get nothing just like the GOOD days? I am not a big fan of the USPS but they deliver my packages at a lower cost then any of the others! Where is the truth in the article? it's the truth but only the half truth just as most TROLLS use. Sorry Tyler to call you out but please this is just wrong and feeds the trolls.
"I am not a big fan of the USPS but they deliver my packages at a lower cost then any of the others!"
And they do it at a loss, which you pay for! Yaaaaaay!!!
You're expecting me to be shocked and appalled that mail delivery is a cartel system - in the USA. It is as if you cannot comprehend the existence of a competitive industry of mail delivery free of cartel protection simply because such has not existed in your lifetime and nation.
I've had it with this bullshit fawning over the goddamn USPS. If you love it so much, tell the government to take it public and end the monopoly, then go all-in on the IPO and give it all of your business for the rest of your life; If you want it, YOU pay for it. Oh wait, then it would be just another member of the cartel. Do you get it yet? Cartels and monopolies ruin everything. And you love it because it "seems" pretty good ... in the total absence of competitors with which to compare ....
Oh yeah?! Well, what about the US highway system, then? That's a huge money maker. I think.
Its the same for all post offices around the world. I am right now waiting for a package from China that will take 10 days door-to-door. The system is called EMS and its not FedEx or DHL or UPS. Its the post office. Its cheap and they MUST deliver to my address. (I live in Paradise btw). They must lose money along the way. My shipper even includes it in the price. Free delivery anywhere in the world. Compete with that.
The mark up is for your video picture.
Yep. I believe they call that 'death-by-bathtub-drowning'. Its a joke. One additional point: I have family that lives in rural areas, and at times when servicing certain areas, UPS and FedEx won't do it. It'll be shipped from them to the USPS, who is then obligated to deliver it. That's a nice deal for UPS/FedEx. Saves fuel, time, etc.
Conspiracy or not, I completely believe that the Private delivery lobby has been chiseling at the USPS for decades. Why would you force an organization to pay for 75 years worth of pensions? They're technically paying for employees who aren't even born yet...
Being a 'quasi' independent government agency is like being 'quasi' free - i.e. you ain't.
USPS management has proposed ending Saturday service and cutting some rural post offices and sorting centers - and congress once again proved how good they are at creating deficits.
The rise of email, UPS and FedEx require serious changes, which will not happen as long as there are US Congresspeople involved. Conclusion: we, the taxpayers, are fucked again by our incompetent, corrupt, dysfunctional congress.
Next topic please.
TAKE THAT MR TREASURY SECRETARY!
THe postal service is one of the good services the US has had and continues to have. Congress has fucked the USPS over, they are behind all of this. ALlow them to fund pensions as private compnaies do, allow them to adjust prices without asking for permission, allow them to adjust as they need to. They know what they need to do, it fucking congress that is the rpoblem. It ALWAYS IS.
+20, dude.
triple the rates on that spam bulk mail might help their bottom line or atleast clear out my mailbox
Make that 5 times the rates.
ThaT will stop the shit from flooding the mailbox.
good fucking riddance. those bastards have trouble doing something as simple as scanning a package; utter uselessness. i will piss on grave of the post office when it dies.
"Without Certified Mail Return receipts, the only alternative will be a digital signatures act." said Postmaster of the future; Linda Green.
The USPS is one of the best and reliable postal systems in the world.
Its present ‘budget problems’, are a result of much accounting gimmickry, fabricated by a (mostly financial) corporate sector, that drools at the prospect of profiting sweetly from any ‘privatization’ of the USPS.
Under the Postal Accountability and Enhancement Act of 2006 the USPS was forced to prefund its future health care benefit payments to retirees for the next 75 years in ten years, something no other government agency or private corporation is required to do.
The Postal Regulatory Commission noted that those payments “transformed what would have been considerable profits into significant losses.”
http://www.commondreams.org/view/2012/08/04-0
UPS - solvent
FedEx - solvent
DHS - solvent
RPS - solvent
Airborne Express - solvent
Now lets see, what do these private businesses have in common? I mean besides not having an exclusive State mandated charter and being coerced to subsidized the USPS. What is it... um...
Higher rates?
Is the answer they charge obscene prices and I can deliver a package anywhere in the USA for $4 when that same packae delivered by UPS to say Cali would cost me $50 bucks. Check out shipping prices on a product and notice the hiuge diffeence between the USPS and the private entities. I'm sure they haven't received one taxpayer dime ever thru subsidies and deductions. Yes, they ares o Ayn Rand and completely self-sufficent. By the way, the roads they use to deliver things, they built them right? You don't know what you have til its gone. Have fun getting fucked by the UPS. I'm sure they won't raise prices once the USPS goes the way of the dinosaur, which it isnt and shouldnt.
UPS and FedEx are licking their chops at the USPS failing. If the USPS goes down, have fun paying $3 for a fucking letter to send. As I said before, conspiracy or not, I think the private package delivering lobby has been chiseling at the USPS for decades, and I personally think they're the ones who got the money, booze and hookers for the Congress'men' to come up with that awful accountability act. Fuck those guys.
They all hand off unprofitable deliveries to the USPS, or simply refuse to deliver them?
Let us talk about why. The pension funding issue is real. But, I would suggest the management is the problem. A good example is the IG unit for Miami is housed in western Broward County. Let me see that makes it about a 2-3 hour drive one way during rush hour to get to the big sorting center just west of the MIA airport or downtown MIA. And the southern part of the County would take longer. Who let this happen? I will bet the guys in that office get to Miami once every six months, maybe. Guess that is why there is no law enforcement in Miami.
"... But many postal workers say the much-touted crisis facing the U.S. Postal Service is not what it seems. They argue the greatest volume of mail handled in the 236-year history of the postal service was 2006. They also point to a 2006 law that forced the USPS to become the only agency required to fund 75 years of retiree health benefits over just a 10-year span, and say the law’s requirements account for 100 percent of the service’s $20 billion in losses over the previous four years, without which the service would have turned a profit."
http://www.democracynow.org/2011/9/27/shock_doctrine_at_us_postal_service
Just dump the Funding and throw the retirees onto Social Security.
Rain, Snow, Hell, Highwater, Nuclear War etc won't stop the Post Office.
But DEBT will.
I have switched to fedex ground because it is cheaper.
Remember how slow the Post Office was selling money orders to customers with Airline cards ? they'd buy a 10K money order, cash it in, pay the credit card off and then do it again. Lots and lots of free miles, and how long did it that the Post Office to firgure this one out and how many bucks did they pay the credit card folks?
Come on, that's less than 0.5% of the federal deficit! /s