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 [3](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 [4]:
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.