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US Postal Service Bailout Imminent?
It has long been known that the United States Postal Service, in its current money-losing format, is unsustainable. The media has reported in the past that in order for this bloated government anachronism to be remotely competitive in the age of email and FedEx, it would need to cut hundreds of thousands of its workers. Even the USPS, via its largest union, the National Association of Letter Carriers, has admitted that the organization will need to undergo "tough sacrifices" although as the WSJ noted, "It didn't specify what concessions it would seek from members." And this is where it gets fun: because "just the tip", or even just talking about the tip, apparently is more than labor unions in this country can stomach. Enter Ron Bloom, Lazard, and the very same crew that ended up getting a taxpayer funded bailout for GM. From the WSJ: "The Postal Service's proposal to close thousands of post offices and cut back on the number of days that mail is delivered "won't work" and would accelerate the agency's decline, according to the six-page report by Ron Bloom, President Barack Obama's former auto czar, and investment bank Lazard Ltd., LAZ who were hired by the union in October." That's right: after all the huffing and puffing about "sacrifice" and austerity, the labor union took one long look at the only option... and asked what other option is there.
"Instead, the report says, the agency should raise its stamp prices, which are among the lowest in the world, and find new ways to profit more from its built-in advantage as the only entity to reach every American home every day." Well that... And the internet. "It should also replace its multi-layered governance system with a corporate- style board of directors whose members have entrepreneurial experience." Translation - let's just continue doing what we do, but kill demand for our services even more, because it is not the massively bloated expense side of the ledger that is the issue, it is how much the USPS charges. And apparently in mailman econo-logic, increasing prices leads to increasing demand, all else equal. At least this bailout plan came in 6 pages, as opposed to the 3-page one penned by Hank Paulson. Yet the kicker is that the "other option" is well-known: taxpayers get to fund another wholesale bailout of yet another worthless, ineffective government organization. But hey: there are hundreds of thousands of labor union votes, pardon, jobs to be saved. And with elections just 6 months ahead, is there any doubt what will happen?
More from the WSJ:
The proposals are the opening salvo in what is expected to be a long series of negotiations as pressure mounts on Congress to approve legislation to restructure the Postal Service, which has said it is in danger of becoming insolvent without changes to its business model.
The union's plan is one of several competing proposals—including the Postal Service's and bills in Congress—that are promoting rescue ideas, and it illustrates the deepening divide over how to remake the 236-year-old institution for modern times.
And the shocker:
Labor groups, for instance, generally oppose cuts to service. The mailing industry opposes higher postage fees. Many legislators say the Postal Service needs to close facilities—but not in their district. And a Republican-led bill set to be heard by the full House looks askance at any proposal that would allow the Postal Service to compete with private industry. That bill's backers say the agency should act like a business—to a point. "Reducing excess capacity and adapting delivery to America's changing use of mail is exactly what any business would do as technology changes the market," said Ali Ahmad, a spokesman for the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee.
In other words, "fix it", just don't make me lose anything in the process... or work harder of course. In the meantime...
The Postal Service is facing historic losses—more than $5 billion in its most recent fiscal year—that it attributes to a shift in communication habits in the digital age and to an unusual requirement imposed by Congress in 2006 that it fund retiree benefits decades ahead.
Ironically Ron Bloom is spot on. It is unclear however, if his statement was tongue in cheek:
The union concedes that some "shrinkage" in the system is necessary, Mr. Bloom said, but he added that the Postal Service's cuts will result in more revenue losses than savings.
He compared the Postal Service's strategy to General Motors Co. before its restructuring. "Their strategy was to lose slowly, to shrink to survive," he said.
Where Ron stopped short is that going from before to after restructuring involved billions in taxpayer cash. Yet unlike a just as bloated Chevy Volt post-reorg maker (not yet retrofitted with excess inventory Solyndra solar panels), at least the USPS can not stuff excess mail inventory in mail boxes. What it certainly can, however, is demand billions from taxpayers. Because, you know, if we just hope enough, things will change.
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Apartment dwellers are not be able to put up a separate mailbox for UPS and Fed Ex. This would make free market delivery of first class mail impossible for tens of millions of Americans and would deny UPS and Fed Ex the ability to guarantee delivery to anyone sending mail. If you want to justify the government monopoly on my privately purchased mailbox you'll have to try harder.
So you live in an apartment and you purchased a mailbox?
I live in a house and I paid for the mailbox when I purchased the house. But what does my personal situation have to do with market opportunities for businesses which might like to compete with the USPS for first class mail delivery opportunities?
If you're implying that apartment dwellers don't pay for their own mailboxes and therefore have no right to how they are utilized then you obviously have no concept as to how income generating businesses operate. Costs, such as those associated with the purchase, installation and maintenance of equipment such as mailboxes are passed on to the consumer.
So what was your point?
I thought you were making the point!
I did make the point that UPS and Fed Ex are barred from entry into the realm of first class mail delivery because Federal laws which declare an individual's mailbox to be Federal property make it impossible for private business to ensure delivery to millions of adressess. By not allowing private entities to guarantee delivery to all addresses the Post Office maintains a monopoly on first class mail service throughout the country.
Follow?
They already do, just not directly. They ship it to your local PO and the letter carrier sticks it in your box. I've gotten several small packages from Amazon that way.
Gotta love the efficiency there, no?
that is right. Basically the other courier services have contracts with the USPS for delivery.
Will they still only come by when they have something I want? Please!
I come back to check my mail twice a year.....I usually get 3 big boxes of mail...99% of it is junk mail.....
I check mine about twice a week. On the other hand I still have to check the yard to pick up the mail that the mailman drops carelessly as he walks across the grass. Why do I have a sidewalk again?
Because someone put a gun to your head and said, build it, or else you'll get no building permit.
Interesting for I never heard of them holding mail that long. Maybe the Postmaster is working with you for some of them do work well with people. ;-)
Privatization of the postal service could work, e.g. Deutsche Bundespost...
Not for $.60 a letter from East of Nowhere, ME to BumFuck, MT. (or Boston to LA for thath matter)
The wall street journal reports the postage rate in Germany is 75 cents. Since the USPS only needs to get one more penny per letter to close the budget gap, I don't think the Bundespost has anything to be bragging about.
This article is full of rhetoric and not much else. The post office is in trouble because of the poison pension pill where they are required to fund all pensions 75 years in advance for employees that aren't even born yet. They have to pay out 5.5 billion in advance every year and that's why they are "bloated government anachronism" or whatever nonsense you want to call them.
They are profitable without this payment. Fed Ex and UPS have been lobbying for years and want to get rid of their competition so they can charge you 10X as much as they do now for less service. Don't be a sucker for this crony capitalism BS brought to you by W. It's got rip off scam written all over it.
The USPS is exempt from sales tax.
They are exempt from property tax.
They are exempty from vehicle tax.
They are exempt from payroll tax.
They have a federally-enforced monopoly on the use of residential mailboxes.
They have a monopoly on standard letter carry.
They have a monopoly on bulk mail services.
The fact that they have trouble with these advantages is an incredible testament to the incompetence and unsustainability of this government program.
Couple that with the fact that their nearly-one-million employees are NOT counted on the federal balance sheets, nor is their outstanding pension obligation.
Their market for products is SHRINKING and their retiree pool is GROWING... And you think that they *shouldn't* be required to fund the NPV of their pension program?
You're putting words in my mouth. "And you think that they *shouldn't* be required to fund the NPV of their pension program?" Didn't say that. Why should they be required to pay 75 years in advance instead of pay as you go? See the difference.
And why should we have to pay sales tax at the post office? All those taxes you mention, are you FOR them?
Would you prefer rural mail service to go away or reduced to once in a blue moon? That's what will happen.
I know a lot of true believers want to privatize everything, but this is a clear cash grab akin to what Enron did to California after they "privatized" the utilities. There's some stuff the government can actually do better.
Paying NPV is not the same as paying in advance.
I know the difference.
PAYGO doesn't make sense for USPS because their market is *SHRINKING* and their pension obligations are *GROWING*.
PAYGO can only work when your gross is increasing.
Also, I never suggested eliminating the USPS. But, there is no reason for them to have all of these federal monopolies.
Support them as a cabinet-level agency and put their liabilities on book.... As we have it now we are deliberately obfuscating the cost of running the USPS and *pretending* that they aren't taxpayer supported when they absolutely are.
I'm not sure how a federal agency "pretends" not to be taxpayer supported exactly. And while we're on the topic, many PRIVATE industries pretend not to be taxpayer supported while they take supertankers full of money from the govt.
Hey, while we're on the topic of taxpayer support, how about that Price-Anderson Act? TARP? No? At least with the USPS, every single taxpayer can benefit from its services.
You know as well as I do that this move was about breaking the union and privatizing the mail. Lower wages and higher prices is the goal. But the government has a competitive advantage, and they use it to provide a less expensive service than the private sector can deliver. And don't believe for a second that corporate bureaucracy is any more nimble than the govs. Once they reach a certain size, they're all carrying massive dead weight. I've worked several Boeing jobs and I can tell you first hand they are more bloated and wastefull than the gov (and that's their corporate side-not the machinists).
I'd bet you're also aware that it doesn't matter how much the post office puts away for pensions, that money won't be there. It will be Corzined just like social security and everybody elses pension.
The fundamental problem, bullshit aside, seems to be the evil of money being "spread around" communist-like through the organization, rather than the modern patriotic "free market" capitalism that we have so proudly achieved. The money--every last penny--out to go to investors, otherwise it just ain't right. I can hardly sleep at night just knowing it's happening, what are these fuckers doing to my Liberty?
Here's the most recent description I've seen of the right way for things to be done:
http://www.villagevoice.com/2012-04-18/news/Mitt-Romney-american-parasite/
Sorry that it focuses on a republican. IMO, they're just doing the heavy lifting for the dimocrats who pretend to be the opposition.
Yet I have to pay for the damn mailbox, and it isn't even my property!
So go rent a safety deposit box at the bank for $120 a year and have your mail delivered at a UPS store for $150 a year.
Stop whining ya bitchez
right on!
They have an unconstrained call on the full faith and credit of the United States ... what would be the point? Better from a present-value standpoint to simply throw them into the mix with all the other unfunded liabilities rather than to have them collect actual cash from customers to feather their own nests.
Little confused there eh? Lets not forget GE , a Private enterprise the public subsidized to the tune of 180B by guaranteeing their shitty loans. They don't pay taxes, they get refunds. The CEO loses 38B in one year and because the Govt is there to "make it go away", he keeps his job AND becomes USA job czar because, American companies need to learn more about outsourcing and job creation in other countries, and if ever there was a great example of that, GE stands out, plus they'll finance the move ( Tax Payer Guaranteed loan too) and they get tax benefits for doing it.
Privatize, just another way of saying more and more for less and less until all of it is in the hands of one.
Now that is a good argument.
$18 to send a bulky envelope by UPS, $1.80 USPS.
Of course privatization solves all problems, e.g. CXW & GEO.
You left out a whole bunch of other variables there, Willy.
BTW, you are correct in the idea that privatization is a scam (crony wealth distribution system). But the real problem is that it never should've been a government enterprise to begin with. Privatization is an examole of "two wrongs don't make a right." It took force of arms for the government to get the mail monopoly (google "Lysander Spooner" if you aren't aware of the history).
When they call it a public private partnership you'll know your getting screwed.
Indeed, esp when one of the so-called partners gets to brandish a gun. Where I come from that's called rape.
You laugh, but the postal service of at least one European country charges additional amounts for non-standard sizes. I tried mailing a US-sized Christmas card and was told it would cost EUR 7 to send it to the US. Without batting an eye, the bureaucrat offered me a pair of scissors to cut it down to the EUR 3.50 size. You should be grateful the USPS is still so tolerant of abberant behavior.
I agree. This is one of the few areas the govt was supposed to serve. Defence, protection of property, and the mail.
All union controlled companies are doing badly. It is the union, stupid, why should we bail them out.
Such insight you offer.
Sad but true. Absolute power corrupts absolutely.
6% of jobs are union "Stupid". Reagan started the war on unions. So the duopoly of T & VZ are in the crapper because they're union?
You're one of those voters, aren't you?
Oh, and going around telling us all how the actions of puppets mean something? That isn't going to get you very far here.
Not true ... Unions are Union run, and they seem to be doing quite well for themselves.
Unions are as corrupt as the people they bargain with. At one time they kept the overlords in check. They lost all clout when Ronnie RayGun was in ofice & fired PATCO. Corporations/gubbmint have em by the short & curleys. Had a great uncle that went to CA during the depression & organized CWA. You would not believe the experiences that he had.
Too bad, my "mail carrier" is a 40ish Hispanic lady with great tan legs and a nice rack. She fills out the uniform well. What if she gets shit-canned? The FedEx guy is not a viable substitute.
Old people need their junk mail! It is their only friend :(
Harry Reid said it, so it must be true!
Wait a minute, they front-loaded their retirement fund, to the tune of decades?
Boy they're gonna be pissed when JPM gets a hold of that money.
NA,
JPM may be a secondary concern, little Timmay has devoloped the habit of stopping contributions to the G-fund accounts.
He pulled that stunt in the face of the budget approval fiasco of last year, then again in January.
My wife and several of her friends took out loans for buying PM's, and CC repayment, but the vast majority refuse to even discuss the subject. Most of these people will suffer the same as retirees from other branches of Gov't., and SS recipients... poof!... and it's gone.
It's just a matter of time.
You nailed it Clay Hill !!! :) The FERS G Fund has been tapped twice and employees still believe that because they get their statement showing numbers on the paper that it is still and will be there. As these Government employees were led to believe at the time of setting up the destination of their retirement funds that it was the most secure funding source. I stopped "grazing" and woke up right before the first government tap the G fund. I pulled it ..paid my taxes for early withdrawl and now can go squat if I like. Trying to explain the numbers on paper that they are holding was hopeless. They will learn the hard way. :(
VC,
My wife still works for USPS, and I hope she will until retirement, but it doesn't look likely.
I couldn't stand the thought of her money being attacked on the front end through inflation, and then legislated away for "patriotic" reasons, or defaulted on before she went to withdraw.
Once I found out that her TSP allowed her to withdraw her own money, and repay herself at something like 2.6%, it was easy to see that it was a better deal than paying CC debt on a monthly basis averaging any percentage higher than that.
I caught a little heat over the way her PM's dropped in nominal value since purchasing them, but they still weigh, and they still shine.
That fat b@stard in the photo sure looks suspiciously like Jim Cramer.
I assume that the United States Postal Service is aware that Bigmouth is moonlighting as some sort of financial guru on CNBC?
(Ahhemmm.... nice socks Jim...)
I've always wondered why environmental fanantics don't come out against junk mail...I can't imagine how many trees are destroyed from mail that literally goes right into the trash.
I don't think hundreds of thousands of "postal" workers will go quietly into the night. Get ready for some mayhem.
yep. They could go postal.
They may reconsider if they realize that nobody gives a shit about their scam.
I don't even check my mail anymore. If someone else in the family does, fine. Otherwise the junk mail will still be there tomorrow.
Re-nationalize email. 1 cent will do. Some of my colleagues
out of work, less spam. Or more ? .gov spam delivered priority mail with your latest searches attached on the automated confirmation response...
This access thing to each customer has some merits, like roads for the Romans made sense as a means to deploy your power. Whored as a marketing tool, forget it.
That postal worker sure was an agent delivering an endless stream of .gov threat letters, but who is to take his place ? Private goons ? I could life with no mail to my remote location but my dog greeting some private mailperson ?
Leave my email alone! It's fucked up enough as it is already.
Cockpit trouble or union?
That's actually a good idea, instead of sending the letter USPS could scan it and send an email.
/jk
Sorry junkers, sarc tag is in the mail.
So let me get this straight, if we disband the USPS and turn what they do over to the "more efficent" Fed Ex and UPS, then a birthday card form Miami to Seattle will cost $3 (or more) instead of $.60. But if the USPS raises their price to say $2 that would be proof of how horribly inefficient they are!
Wha?
I see you don't know what "efficient" means. Fed Ex and UPS don't have a magic checkbook. They actually have to pay their bills.
The USPS meanwhile, only exists today because of subsidies. If they had to pay their bills, your birthday card would cost far more to mail than Fed Ex and UPS.
I know I'm going to get junked for this.two months ago,my wife mailed my credentialing package within the same cith ,by UPS.They lost it.No apologies.Nothing.Very efficint.Caused me a great deal of inconvenience.USPS has not lost my packages so far.
I sympathize, but I get other peoples mail every week. I get important mail that's been opened, which I've never had happen with Fedex/UPS...; I'm sure it happens but it hasn't happened to me yet.
Really? Let's give the USPS all the revenue they would have had if they had been able to charge Fed Ex/UPS rates the last 20 years. They would be swimming in cash.
Fact is every time the USPS raised rates even $.02 it's on the evening news and they get hammered in the court of public opinion. UPS and FED EX raise their rates every year. I've negotiated contracts with them, IN THE PRIVATE SECTOR, for decades. You, my freind do not understand the ecomonics of shipping in America.
If they could just use the shadow stats measure of inflation, and dump their pension fund and their pensioners on to Social Security, they'd be fine.
just food for thought....other than the USPS...what other agency has registered mail service? At what cost would it be for delivery by the private couriers? Good luck on getting your PM's. Sounds bullish for Brinks.
thye 1st thing you do to help an addict is stop supporting them. so stop handing out free money. make usps pay its own way, if it cant go bankrupt and die, the fat fucks working there can all sit around crying with no pay. once its all gone.
I would love to see them cut mail delivery to once a week. Maybe then they could stay off the grass. Most of what they deliver is junk that I don't want and don't read except enough to be sure it's junk.
Trying to visualize the 23 pound bag of advertisements, circulars and junk mail being crammed into everybody's mail boxes on "mail day" each week.
Ah, but the setup time for disposing of the junk would go down by a factor of 6.
It is just another welfare to work program after all, and a BIG one at that. The Govt realizes this or else they would have shut it down a long time ago.
It is just another welfare to work program after all, and a BIG one at that. The Govt realizes this or else they would have shut it down a long time ago.
Bullshit. Try shutting it down and see what the corporate overloards have to say, douche bag.
If it fits...
They need to raise revenue and cut also...The postal service offers something the others don't "universality"..God forbid the corporations have to pay more in postage to send me my fucking bills and junk mail...
Considering many elderly on fixed incomes get their maintenance drugs thru the USPS, the cost of Fedex/UPS would drive their costs up substantially.
If government subsidized every economic activity under the sun then the some people could pay little or nothing for everything they consume at the expense of others until the bubble bursts. So that would obviously be the moral and compassionate thing to do.
At least the post office is a socialist bureaucracy that actually has a constitutional mandate to exist. We should keep bailing it out if nothing more than as a warning to others.
Since when is any government subsidiary supposed to be profitable.
Afghan War bailout imminent? It has long been known that the fiasco in Afghanistan is a total failure and is unsustainable. But, when the country is run by psycopaths.....The postal service is a HUGE benefit to older people and small business. It was created by the originators precisely because it was a way to preserve active and pluralistic communication among the populace.....But, Sociopaths are only interested in money and the 'public interest' is too 'inefficient' according to the bloodsucking zombies from the U. of Chicago and Stanford.....Only wars of brutal aggression should be supported and subsidized, oh and TBTF farms, banks, WMD manufacturers, and Drug manufacturers, Nuclear Power generating public utilities.....selective in your judgements? Are we closer to the Sociopaths than we want to admit, boys and girls?
If a person truly believes that competitive economic activity enables the greatest amount of goods and services to be provided at the lowest cost does that make that person a sociopath in your opinion? Isn't it more akin to sociopathy to promote a reduction in productivity through government intervention which decreases the amount of goods available to consumers while increasing costs? Why do you believe that less efficiency and fewer goods makes for a moral society?
War and other forms of compulsion by force are defining aspects of government. If you want a government post office you necessarily support those who create conflict. Can the hundreds of millions killed by governments over the past century be outweighed by any of the activities of government which you might classify as being good? How many innocent people should be permitted to die at the hands of the real sociopaths -- those in government -- in order for you to receive what you consider to be low cost subsidized services?
First step would be a thorough audit. What part of the USPS costs the most, returns the most?
Unions, government, analysts are just guessin'/pleading their own cases.
USPS loses money but nothing like the Defense Department.
Banking industry loses money, if it doesn't continually borrow (from itself) it goes out of business: it lends to government which turns around and finances finance. Neat trick, huh?
The entire American Way is a gigantic money pit. It's all a dead loss that requires tens of trillions not only to pay for the pit but to service loans taken on in the past to dig the pit in the first place. Why pick on the Post Office?
Why finance anything? If an activity doesn't pay its own way don't finance it. Ipso facto: any activity that pays its own way does not require financing!
Auditing the mafia? LOL
NO
The reasont the postal service is in trouble is that some years back the R House of Repersentives put a clause in their business modle that they PREFUND the next 60 years of retiree health care, just to make the PO look bad to Head Line News.
That way when they go out of business or reduce staff we won't have to bail them out?
You got that right, my friend. Good job.
Are you suggesting that actually being able to pay promised pension benefits to retired workers is a bad thing?
Been to your local post office lately and see what great efficient service they provide? :-)
They need about half the number of buildings and people they have right now. If not for politics, it would be so. This is why reducing the size of government is nearly impossible and will lead to our economic destruction.
sschu
I went last week to buy a single stamp to mail a letter. I walk up to the stamp machine, and where it used to be, there's this giant computerized self-serve mailing center, scale included. IT DID NOT ACCEPT MONEY!!! Only credit/debit cards.
So I took my handful of change and had to stand in line, just to buy a single stamp.
In other news, two POs in small towns near me are going to close. I had no idea either one existed. One of them was left in a town that moved up out of a river valley in the early 1800s after a flood. Meanwhile, the new town built another PO.
The kicker? They aren't more than a mile apart.
Did you consider making an investment in the future and buying more than one stamp?
Hell, then you can start the super efficient "Line Waiters" . "That's right, for a small fee of $12.00 per item , we will wait in line for you at the USPS or , hey, you can pay $25.00 and wait and wank at UPS or FED-Ex.
Shouldn't the government just provide such services for "free?"
A 1000% increase in my anual postage fees would cost me like $15. Whatever.
For someone who spends s whole $1.50 a year on postage, that's saying something!
How can they lose money with service like this?: I receive a small envelope with .90 in postage on it containing a $4 item that turns out to be wrong. I check rates online and it's a $1.10 to return it but it's $2.95 for confirmation so the sender can't say I didn't return it but it's a $4 item so forget that. I put 3 'Forever' stamps on it, value about $1.32, and re-address it and drop it in the mail. I get it back 6 days later, all the postage is cancelled and it's stamped 'Postage Due: .60'. I call the local PO, ask if using the Forever stamps in this manner is OK(like with those oversize card envelopes) and am told 'Yes.'. Kicker is that the cancellation marks were from the PO at the destination. So they shipped it all the way there, cancelled the postage, and shipped it all the way back. Ingenious way to make a buck! Wankers...
I can think of a hundred ways in which the USPS could become viable and a valuable resource to the nation. It could jump into the electronic age and provide a permanent email account for every American. You could always reach someone this way. It could set up a trusted signature system and drop box for documents, document transfers, and document deliveries. The USPS could use the trust it has built up through two centuries of honest work to parlay a valuable future that only a US government agency could do. Of all government agencies it is still the most trusted. Or ... it could just wither away and die like the buggy whip manufacturers. Isn't it a microcosm of our government as an institution?
Not sure if serious...
A little.
ZH boys couldn't have picked a more sympathetic (pathetic) photo to represent a Postal worker could they!
...i'm in tears ;...))
Looks better than my mailman.
it's the same garbage here in Europe ...Britain, France, Germany, Spain, Italy etc all have postal services that make the last days of the USSR look like management training for the very best Western Postal Services
I particuarly enjoy getting a ticket to stand in a cue and wait like a cow about to be slaughtered for your number to come up and then after a tedious f'ing 20 minute wait being told by some brain dead person behind the counter i've picked the wrong colour ticket and to go back and stand in another cue
Big Govt (and Big Banks/Corpse) love people standing in cues, makes em feel important. Then when you get to the counter there's 16 rules just to post a recorded letter just in case you're a terrorist of course
shutter the fuking lot of them
Trust me UPS and FED-EX make you stand in line as they cut benefits for their underpaid workers to zero. Of course when someone asks for the Price) difference between ground and air, you can expect more private enterprise zippy answers like one flies up high and fast and one goes by a slow truck that consums shit piles full of GASOLINE.
"Hell it's gotten so bad , we use the Post Offices gear...oops, I wasn't supposed to say that was I?"
Dumb Fuckers.
Yeah, I'll take a different path here. The Postal Service was set upon by the 'Privatize the World' crowd in the Republican Party requiring the P.S. to pay for medical insurance up front of possible usage date. Don't wail about unions and being bloated and it being an anachronism. That's B.S. bigtime. The Republicans' insurance demands cost the postal service each year just about what it loses each year. Hmmmmm, what a coincidence. What the crumb bums in the repugnocrat party want to do is break up the P.S. and sell off its most profitable elements to their buddies at UPS and FEDEX and walk with more of our billions. The P.S. is old, but remains a valuable bit of infrastructure in the USA and by taking it down, what, pray tell, are we going to pur in the vacant lots, another mall? Fraud, greed, more B.S. and loss of revenue for the American people.
There's nothing valuable about a parasite, other than it's ability to leech (the essence of government monopoly). So, if it's killed properly, there's simply nothing left to steal.
"taxpayers get to fund another wholesale bailout of yet another worthless, ineffective government organization."
as someone who frequently uses usps to ship small packages, i totally disagree with calling the usps "worthless".
while they have major problems with how they are run, they do still provide a lot of value, and in my experience have been incredibly reliable in delivering packages, anywhere in the us, for a low cost (perhaps too low).
"perhaps too low cost" compared to what?
the entire problem with State run organiations (clown shows) is they are bloated with inefficiency, Unionisation and riddled with so many rules and political footballs you've long since mislaid any idea of what a letter should cost to travel 100 miles
any decent private enterprise could quarter the cost of delivery within 18 months of taking over i'd bet.
Just hope when these postal jokes go tits up we don't do a Margaret Thatcher and turn a State monopoly into a private monopoly as she did to trains, buses, telecoms, eneergy and water utilities etc because these private monopolies have been almost as bloody awful as the State shambles
Really, try taking your letter and $.60 to UPS or Fed Ex and tell us how many miles it gets you.
Try eliminating barriers to private entry into first class mail delivery before assuming that there is an equal playing field.
compared to competitors ups and fedex.
$2-$3 for first class package usps vs. $5-$6 ups/fedex. ship several hundred packages a week and it adds up.
if you were paying attention, i specifically mentioned smaller pacakges (1st class). when you get to larger heavier packages that don't fit in a usps flat rate box, ups/fedex become a better deal, especially to a commercial address.
When I receive a package UPS usually rings my bell or places the package inside my door. The Post Office drops my packages in plain view and drives away. It takes a special kind of lazy to avoiding pushing a doorbell.
The Postal Service needs to become synonymous with email. They could provide a method to confirm delivery (email tracking ?). They could provide a national email directory (of sorts). Perhaps that feature would be opt-in (they tell you someone wants your address). They could provide perpetual archiving of both sent and received emails. It shouldn't be that hard for them to differentiate themselves and if need be they could be annointed with special powers (in a manner somewhat like they have now).
If there was a true value add perhaps they could get away with a penny an email charge or something.
Just some random thoughts...
Why do people keep saying this?
Government is the most organized form of crime. It's like you people cannot exist without desiring even more big-brother control of your lives.
NO good or service should be provided at the barrel of a gun. Do you honestly think this services can't be offered by someone with say some... integrity?
Random indeed ... bordering on insane.
Does anyone seriously "need" mail delivered more than three times a week?
Maybe there are some people.....what percentage of the public are they? .00001%? Wouldn't it be cheaper to address that .00001% that, somehow, truly need daily delivery than to WASTE BILLIONS delivering utterly non-urgent mail six days a week?
Even before the internet eliminated vast amounts of important first class mail for consumers I only got an average of one or two "important" pieces of mail a week. Even then, it didn't matter if they came one week or another.
The Post Office no longer serves its original purpose; timely delivery of key, widespread, written communication. Its mission now is, 99% of the time, delivery of pieces of minimal interest and minimal urgency. All the crap about the pre-funding of pension costs is besides the point. The post office is no longer meaningful 99% of the time.
You obviously have a life and probably a job. There are people in this world who need a daily trip to the mailbox to validate their existence.
Perhaps those people could visit the bird bath or lawn jockey instead?
Duplicate post
OK, look, I pay $60 ayear for a PO Box at the local post office.
The mail man doesn't drive to my door. He doesn't knock on my door if I have a package. I go to the post office, usually once a week, and get my mail.
Am I saving the USPS time, gas money, vehicle wear and tear?
Why am I paying &60/yr in order to save the USPS money?
Why are they not paying me $60./yr?
Interesting. I have never heard of charging a customer for a PO Box with no possiblility of delivery. So do you live in an area that does not have mail delivery or have you opted personally for the box for whatever reason but could have mail delivery?
The US goverment involvement in business has a perfect record of failure. This is excatly the record needed to gtake over 1/7th of the US economy with a national heathcare sytem.
USPS employees have a defined benefit pension, "no layoff" protection and decent healthcare. Small wonder, then, that capitalism cannot sustain the USPS.
As we all know,capitalism requires low pay, no benefit jobs to be "economic" and "competitive".
It's capitalism bitchez ;-)
Why are you asking me to pay extra so the postal worker gets defined benefit pension, no layoff protection and decent healthcare? I do not get any of these now and never have in my 30+ years of work, except for a short time before 401Ks when I got a defined bennie pension..
Why should someone who has never recieved these things be forced to pay for someone who does get them?
sschu
Because.
Just because, okay?
Refuse to use the postal system . Ok? DB?
Refusing to use the postal system does not insure not having to pay for the postal system.
sschu
Its an ineteresting point but clearly you are overlooking the obvious answer - you should seek a job with the government - we should all be government employees.
Like Brusca.
I mean duhhhhh
Maybe the USPS could try to think outside the box and raise demand some other way. If all the people funding their retirements ( playing the lottery) at the 7 eleven today were any indication the masses might send more letters and cards if there was some infintesimally small odd that they could win millions.
Why a postal lottery would solve everything.
/sarc
How can you think outside the box when you are trying to figure out how much you should be charging for selling the box and how much to charge for sending it?
There is another postal scandle that may be going on not mentioned in this article. The post office has building huge facilities in places where there is no population to support it. I know of at least three centers in the rural areas of Florida that are 2000+ sq feet for a large area that has a few ranchers and a lot of cows. These centers are fully staffed, the workers have nothing to do all day, and the lots are always empty.
Who makes the decision to build in there areas? Who makes the money on the land and construction? IS this a Local payola scheme or a natoinwide scam?
Hs anyone else noticed this in their rural areas? Is this just maybe a Florida thing?
SNAP by another name. Be grateful, since TPTB think this will keep potential rioters off the streets. Note to TPTB: See Greece.
I too had noticed with some surprise that a FL postal office (after moving here) was especially large and quite nice -- and the county's population is quite small. It could be the facility was purchased/leased back when the population was booming -- there are far fewer people in this county now and not much in the way of prospects left for jobs. Surely a much smaller and efficient operation would be the ideal.
could have been a lease agreement and they at one time were for 10 years. If leased the owner of the property would have to comply with the standards for compliance...thus the 10 year lease.
Helloooo Newman...(for we old Seinfeld fans) -
Well something has to be done to trim down the USPS and make it run more efficiently - WE NEED the old fashion letter delivery because with the goobermint will soon be monitoring all of our electronic communications...
Governments were monitoring mail centuries before they monitored electronic communications for the obvious temporal reasons.
isnt it a fact that ea letter sent cost more money than it takes in, so increasing mail is actually losing more money? a lottery would have to be cash flow positive, so maybe add $1 to the cost of a letter
and print a 6 number ticket onto the stamp lol,. where its delivered can claim the prize!
The staff could use some purging to be sure.
There are some excellent postal folks out there but there are a whole lot of extreme stinkers. There are a few I could've pulled across the counter and slapped 'em. Plus - not all - but many are soooo slow. There is absolutely no sense of urgency in some of these folks. I guess with all of the job guarantees - there's a lack of motivation.
Declining industry - check.
Outdated business model - check.
Bloated management - check.
Lazy employees - check.
Unionized - check.
Has the taxpayers checkbook so is never forced to rationalize expenses or innovate - check.
I wouldn't care if they disappeared tomorrow and a private, efficient enterprise took them over.
BULLSHIT !!
It the Congress that passed the Postal Accountability Enhancement Act (PAEA) in 2006, that RUINED the USPS.
In this the USPS had to guarantee full health benefits for FUTURE retirees. That's right, for people that are not even retired or working at the the USPS or even BORN YET!
http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/misc/R40983.pdf
Gee... how could that happen?? No one could've seen that coming!?
So... again the gullable american public buys the lie that a state run postal service (which has a monopoly) cannot be efficiënt. Because it was.
Who benefits? The BANKS of course. http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/03/28/us-banks-mail-idUSBRE82R0GQ201...
And, consider this: How could any citizen send another citizen a letter in private, without 100% chance it's going to be intercepted by the NSA? That's right... with an old fashioned letter.
YOU ARE BEING FOOLED, REDUCED TO A 3rd WORLD NATION. Next your landline phone system will be on the rocks.. oh it is. Sorry...
Free market? Right now? Don't make me laugh. It's not 1875. WTF do you want? 304992 different postal services running throughout a huge country like the USA? Until after 20 years one emerges as "the best"?
Some things work better organised. There are SOME things goverment could be useful for. This is one. And I don't see corporations competing AND working together at the same time. And because of geographical reality, that will be needed.
If anyone has a better plan, send me a letter, ok? No UPS or FedEx please, they tend to lose things.
edit: sorry I missed 0ppenheimer's post the first time. he said something simular.
Thank you.
When I clicked on the ZH article, I thought I got redirected to some freeper drivel.
Why is Bush's pension poison pill for the USPS so hard for ZH'ers to understand?
Because they, we love market forces and freedom of trade.
Some things are just not what they seem. USPS is one. It's a relic of a more civilised age.
A developed country needs a postal service. Is there going to be one after Washington DC and the banks are done sabotaging it?
No.
suckerrrrrrrrrrrsssssssss
Would you suggest that no other government agencies have ever monitored the postal mail of individuals?
There is nothing the government can do better. Profit motivates. Don't give me the bullshit about the USPS being profitable years ago. Take away the monopoly status and they die. Try running a business with the postal workers in my town and you will be bankrupt in a week. Government postal service goes away and real business will provide a necessary function.
Any decent society has a reliable daily mail service. USPS does a fine job but gets unending criticism from the same idiots who shrug as $700B is squandered on $120 hammers and $400 toilet seats for the military industrial complex.
Can you document statements of individuals who have complained about USPS inefficiency and have also expressed a purposeful disregard of other, even more flagrant examples of government waste?
$40 an hour, then retire after 20 years for $20 an hour to sit home.
Columbian hookers don't make $20 an hour.
From what I heard, Columbian hookers don't get paid at all.
$40 an hour? What for a management job in the USPS? Surely not the clerk, mailhandler, or carrier wage.
How about not forcing USPS to fully fund its pension for the next 75 years immediately, as the Rep. Asshats have forced? Hope you are loooking forward to the $25.00 1st class mail their dontaing buddies at Fedex, UPS, etc aregoing to offer us. Get a fudking clue areound here, you Ann Randian, Ron Paul asslickers.
Are you suggesting that the ghost of Ayn Rand is more concerned about government workers having access to real rather than imaginary pension funds than those who profess to be progressives in search of fairness and social justice? It's amazing how statists can twist themselves up in knots in order to justify their all too obvious insanity. I'd bet that you were in favor of ensuring adequate pension funds for retired government employees before you were against it.
Crap post full of bullshit. The 5.25 Billion is not to fund future retirees, it's to fund the deficit of congress, but they call it FUNDING FUTURE HEALTH Care needs of workers not born yet . Right now they are 75 years in the future. Strangely enough any losses for the past few years have been solely due to funding health care requirements imposed by a desperate congress who apparently don't have enough places left to steal earmark money to secure their own re-elections. Let's see if any corporations out there anywhere have funded health care for unborn employees much less have a fully funded pension plan.
Lets cut down the post offices and workers who spend money that is legitimate profit on the local economies and let's get them unemployment benefits and eventually food stamps, because we know exactly what that will do to the deficit.
Hell, I don't give a shit. I live in Indianapolis. This is a GOP state. It won't have any crucial post-offices cut.
Better you than me anyway. But when a poster here throws up garbage like that, straight from the Koch Bothers world of Bullshit Talking Points R Us, expect to be called on it Douche-Muffin.
..
I love this "love affair" everyone seems to have with UPS and Fed Ex. I've worked in the Logistics Industry for 30 years. Negotiated PRIVATE SECTOR contracts with UPS and Fed Ex for 20 years. Do you realize there is an entire INDUSTRY, dozens of companies, who only business is to secure refunds from UPS and FED Ex, for shippers, when UPS and Fed Ex DO NOT MEET THEIR PUBLISHED DELIVERY SCHEDULES. If you think UPS and Fed Ex don't fail on customer service EVERYDAY, then you are in dreamland.
USPS has been a ZILLION times better for my business than UPS and Fedex combined.
The "champions of the free market" are rude, ALWAYS sloppy, or just plain stupid (consistently sending expensive research equipment to some unrelated hole in the ground).
Worse, they want to take over TNT post in the Netherlands, obviously to get their hands on the strong network and China contracts.
oh wait... http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-17426527
we're fucked