Posted on 05/07/2012 4:04:55 AM PDT by Kaslin
Meandering through the articles in the New York Times can occasionally be instructive as opposed to the normal of being infuriating. The thing is that they are oblivious to how they have educated you. In this case, it was their article about bipartisan support for a bill to allow the Postal Service to expand to other services for the purpose of bringing in new revenues. This idea is clearly the worst idea ever.
The proposed legislation doesn’t identify what those new services would be. Apparently the postal workers union has hired a Wall Street investment firm to advise them on what might be good avenues to pursue. Talk about sheep getting fleeced – and it’s the American taxpayer who would end up footing the bill.
Let’s explore just one proposal. The article mentions that the Postal Service would like to be able to ship beer and wine. The present alcohol-related restrictions are an anachronism that has motivated UPS and FedEx to step in and handle the business, servicing (among others) many small wineries in California and other states (and also microbreweries) that now work exclusively from mailing lists. But here’s the problem: If the USPS steps in to compete with the established delivery companies, they will have to do it on price – which they might well be able to do because if they lose money, there are no consequences. They can just run to Congress and get some more. UPS and FedEx can’t do the same.
After reading about this preposterous proposal, my eyes were enticed to read an article written by my friends at the New York Times about the disastrous situation in Venezuela. The economic conditions under Hugo Chavez should make people like Sean Penn – who proudly hobnobbed with this murderous thug – want to spend the rest of his life in purgatory. And this was a report from the New York Times. Can you imagine how bad the situation really is?
People have to line up just for the possibility of purchasing a chicken or a roll of toilet paper. In what was once a prosperous country, there are virtually no basic goods on the shelves. The oil wealth is going somewhere (but obviously not to the general population); and, as usual, the people getting the short end of the stick are the ones who put this guy in office – the poor. They were told that he would deliver manna from heaven, but all he’s given them is lies and starvation. One man, when asked where to find some milk, told the reporter to go to Chavez’s mansion. Of course, Chavez was out giving a three-hour speech somewhere, haranguing the “profiteers”.
Back to the scene of our proposed crime. Here’s how this would go: The USPS would propose to get into a new line of business, supposedly leveraging the existing assets of the postal service (which by any measure, are comprised only of real estate). They would initially grab market share by using the tools of a monopoly – undercutting the price – which would only demolish competitors in the private sector, whose prices are market-driven and who aren’t protected or underwritten by Congress. Once established, it would then become a vital national service to which every American is entitled, and Congressmen and Senators would start lobbying for new distribution centers in their districts. And, of course, the inevitable conclusion: welfare pimps like Sheila Jackson Lee and Maxine Waters demanding that their constituents receive this service for free because without it, they are disenfranchised and “unequal.” Here’s a great idea – why don’t we put the USPS in charge of the Internet? They’d do a bang-up job there.
Unfortunately even some smart members of Congress have not figured out what needs to be done. I spoke to one recently and he was against the idea that we cut rural deliveries down to three days a week. He almost sounded like Lyndon Johnson in defending the right to rural Americans getting six day a week mail no matter the cost.
My friends, let’s face reality. The USPS is not now and will never be what it once was. Refusing to face these facts is no different than Kodak trying to convince us that we need another moment. We need to sell off the vast majority of the post offices, and open kiosks in Wal-Mart, Safeway, and Walgreens. The USPS needs to adjust their labor force to the fact they will never again deliver the volume necessary to sustain its current cost structure. They need to terminate Saturday delivery in those business districts with little weekend activity, or eliminate the delivery day altogether. It’s no longer a right to receive mail delivery every day, and in fact, in the Internet age, it’s no longer a vital service. And if something is so critical that it needs to be delivered immediately, the sender – not the American taxpayer – should pick up the tab.
I want to thank the New York Times for putting these two articles so close to each other. They demonstrate where we’re headed if we don’t start facing the realities of the current economic environment. They showed what life is like in a government-controlled monopoly, and what our future holds if we don’t begin to confront the waste in our own society.
USPS – no more services for you. You can’t handle the ones you have now.
The postal service is the WORST example of just how convoluted a business can get in regards to absolute mismanagement.
Rates increase and service decreases. Yeah, that’s good professional management and with each increase they lose more and more customers. As a matter of fact, their service is so poor that they opened the door for a private business (UPS and FEDEX) to thrive.
If you ever have the opportunity to watch the simple act of delivering a package by the postal service, compare it with a delivery by UPS or FEDEX.
With the private services the delivery man arrives, parks out front, jumps out of the truck, delivers the package and goes back to the truck. An act that takes less than a minute.
Watch the postal delivery service deliver the same package.
He arrives at your location, sits in the truck for at least 5 minutes punching out something on his 50% automated hand-held device. Once he does his paperwork and whatever automated work he has to do, he delivers the package. When the package is delivered he has to actually punch more information into the hand-held device including your name and other information. He finally goes back to the truck and then starts to do some more punching into the device.
The whole delivery takes about 10 minutes verses 1 minute for private companies.
Go to the post office and watch how many man-hours are wasted stamping paperwork and boxes with rubber stamps when they are mailed. It drives me wild to see that since efficiency is my “cup of tea” (since I am a business owner) and clearly see the absolute waste of time due to paperwork and regulatory compliance that totally makes the postal service nothing more than a “make work” process for government employees.
My tagline is ABSOLUTE TRUTH!
Then it never was.
dump ‘rm!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
-—People have to line up just for the possibility of purchasing a chicken or a roll of toilet paper. In what was once a prosperous country (Venezuela), there are virtually no basic goods on the shelves——
Who would have guessed?
When Communist Cuba is your guide, what does anyone expect ?
The answer is for the USPS to contract out 90% of its operations to UPS, Fedex and another provider or two. Make sure there’s always real competition for the contracts, but stop with the insanity of the federal government owning all means to daily universal delivery.
Oh, and stop with the monopoly ownership of the mails. Thus the USPS can become an option that really just puts its name on what people would and should otherwise simply buy directly.
Why not just do away with USPS altogether? They've had plenty of time to get their act together and can't.
If you watch the simple act of UPS versus USPS delivering a package, you’re making an incorrect comparison.
They deliver ONE package, and they are gone.
USPS has to deliver one package, letters, magazines, EDDM flyer to every door, possibly an advo or redplum ad, and due to management decisions, the carrier may be working out of several piles at once, and must be careful to get all the mail for that particular address. AND the package.
There are procedures for certain types of deliveries. Consider the certified letter, or signature confirmation package. Scan the package, honk, or otherwise attempt to get the customer’s attention to get them to the car, if unable, shut vehicle off, curb wheel, set parking brake, dismount vehicle, knock on door, wait 30 seconds (this is if they aren’t home), return to vehicle to fill out a “sorry we missed you” form which must have customers name, address, date, type of article to be delivered, where they can expect to find the article (usually at post office), what time they can expect the article to be available at the post office, and the number off the scanned tag. This is all information the customer or the sender has paid for, and the carrier is required by regulation to do. THEN, you can start the car, return to the mailbox, and put what mail will fit in the box, and the package or certified must go back to the Post office. We get paid for 4 minutes to do all this. It usually doesn’t take more than that. Your postal carrier is on a salary, so it doesn’t matter how long it takes to deliver a package cost-wise. They get paid to deliver everything if it takes three seconds, one minute, or ten.
Meanwhile, the UPS guy scans the box, puts it by the door, and is done.
AS far as all the stuff the clerks do at the window, well, do you want delivery confirmation, or not? Do you want insurance, or not? We could simply allow the USPS to give all that service to every single package and speed up your time in line at the window, but it would raise the cost of every package, and you’d complain about it.
That has to be slowest most expensive waste of time that was ever dreamed up.
Put a central bank of mail boxes every few blocks, no closer than 1/4 mile apart, or make them pick it up at the post office.
Go to 3 days a week delivery and use part time drivers. The other 2 days of the week they could work in sorting rooms or something like that.
No more pensions, 401K with a match of up to 4% max.
Max of 2 weeks vacation and 5 holidays paid, anything beyond that would be unpaid.
If you don't like it?...tough turds, quit and get a job in the real world.
BTW...You can keep paying union dues if you want, but your final offer is in the above text....Don't like it? Refer to the tough turds in aforementioned text of final offer.
“This idea is clearly the worst idea ever.”
Dave Barry could make that hyperbole work but this guy can’t.
hate those ideas.
Just privatize the whole thing and let the market figure out what people prefer.
Because they somehow get a mention in the Constitution. I’m fine allowing private companies to compete fully with them (whereby they’d certainly win 90% of the business) and having the USPS outsource that last little bit to the private companies anyway.
Gotta make sure the deal doesn’t make for the usual fat-and-lazy government contractor, however, by keeping the bids competitive and split.
I agree with ending the walking door to door delivery. The rural carrier system is better. Have everyone put a box by the street to be served from the vehicle. Some areas make sense to put up a cluster box, but most people would probably prefer their own mailbox.
The interstate mAil is carried by privAte contractors I passedthree trailers yesterday on. I40
We are today picking up the Butterfield trail from Memphis to san Francis o. The Overland mail contract was let to John butterfield in 1857 to speed the mAil to the growing western populaatiion
That’s a start—I guess they’ve only about another 90% of the way to go on the outsourcing.
I”m sorry, I misunderstood. I thought you meant one of those 16 or 24 boxes in one case, each with a key type NDCBU’s.
I can easily tell that you are a USPS union goon.
No need trying to reason with you by explaining how horrible the postal service is when it comes to efficiency.
YOu say yes and pay for it and then when your product is clearly damaged, the PostMaster says, with a straight face, "We did not do that. It was put in that damaged box and shipped, better talk to the shipper."
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