Posted on 07/26/2011 8:15:04 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
The problem with bloated central planning is that when austerity hits, the bloat goes away, and millions of government employees suddenly find themselves trying to enter the private sector, realizing they have absolutely no real competitive and marketable skills (more or less like investment bankers and hedge fund managers). And while America has yet to even remotely sniff austerity, the unemployment rate is already set to spike, after the USPS just announced it was preparing to close 3,653 out of its 32,000 total post office sites.
Per UPI: "The U.S. Postal Service is expected to announce a plan to close 3,653 post offices, mostly in small communities, in a cost-cutting measure, officials said. A USPS spokeswoman said the post offices were chosen because they get the "least amount of foot traffic and retail sales," The Wall Street Journal reported Monday." Trust the bureaucrats to try spinning this bad news as good: "They also were selected because there may be local businesses that could provide some postal services to the community, spokeswoman Sue Brennan said."
Well by that logic there are private businesses that cover every aspect of the government's "job" much better, and much more efficiently, up to and including that of the Fed (sorry, that already is private). Does that mean we should outsource every aspect of the bloated centrally planned economy that America has become? Of course the answer is yes, but that just does not jive with the current iteration of kleptofascist socialism.
More:
The list of the closures, amounting to about 11 percent of the USPS' post offices nationwide, will be made public Tuesday by Postmaster General Patrick Donahoe,
The Postal Regulatory Commission would have to approve the widespread closings, as the USPS prepares to file a request for a "national change of service," Brennan said.
Donahoe also will announce "a replacement strategy" involving third-party retailers, she said.
"If you're a community and there is a local convenience store, for example, we might be reaching out to these organizations to see if they would be interested in providing limited postal service for the community that might be affected," Brennan said.
So between corporate and now public sector layoffs, expect the unemployment rate to resume climbing steadily to double digits, hitting it some time in Q4, at which point QE3 will be inevitable, as Goldman predicted yesterday.
Get ready for more shootings as Postal workers get laid off. With no competitive skills, for most laid off postal workers, it is the end of the line. Gerald Celente summed it up well - “when you lose everything, you lose it”. Many of the potential nuts have been sheltered by the system because supervisors do not want to deal with it. Layoffs will push this issue to the forefront. Get ready for some laid off postal workers to show up and start shooting up the Post Office. The term “postal” is based on facts.
IO actually agree with you and the need to cut government. However, the red states are going to be slammed. Why not force retire all employees over 60 and then only hire new folks in extremely important functions. Remember all those folks over 60 are already retirement eligible and just hanging around for additional percentages. Actually make it everyone over 55 years old. You would not imagine the savings with just that step alone.
Oh so true and the other rd state won’t be saved. If I was a postal worker in a red state I would be nervous as heck and begin saving every penny.
I haven’t been to a post office in years!! Who goes there???
Talk about cruel and unusual punishement. oh the horror!
There would be cases where a local grandmother would run them free of charge in exchange for a place to sell her quilt blocks or whatever.
Prior to the unionization of the postal service, that's how most of the post offices in rural America were run. Business interests would actually compete with each other for the privilege of hosting the post office even though they made little money doing so. The extra traffic would generally result in extra sales where the businesses did make money.
My dad worked as a postal clerk for a while before he retired and he was always railing about how many "supervisors" they had on every shift. About 1 to 3 ratio it seemed he said. Absolutely ridiculous.
I live in a rural (boondocks) area. Talked with the local postmaster about this sometime back. He said part of the problem was the NIMBY effect. Whenever the USPS wanted to close distribution centers or post offices that were too near each other, local business interests screamed, as did their Congressman, to keep the facility open.
There is no street delivery here. Our post office/zip code handles five hamlets and if this one closes it will mean a 25-mile round trip to the closest one. Maybe I'm NIMBY here. :-)
My brother-in-law knows that all too well. USPS shut down their sorting and distribution operations in a city of 229,000 last month and moved their work to Shreveport, LA. Now at 62 yrs old this purple heart awarded retired Marine is gonna have a new battle on his hands to keep from having to sell his house.
Arnold Ziffel: US Mail pig
UPS and FedEx are miles better when it comes to package delivery. There is no way, however, that UPS and FedEx could pick up the daily mail delivery portion of what the USPS does.
ATM machines taking away jobs again!
So many transactions have been automated it is the reason you do not have to go to the PO much any more.
What folks do not realize is that the back end work at the post office is a pretty amazing display of automation. Back in the day, I used to spend a couple of hours a day sorting mail into the route boxes before going out to deliver.
Now, it arrives at the station pretty much sorted. Not 100%, but it took a couple of hours a day out of the process. Pretty interesting stuff.
Here are some pretty basic suggestions for cutting the PO budget:
Take out Saturday delivery.
In suburban areas move to boxes at the end of the street, or at least the end of the driveway—this would allow for nearly double the amount of mail delivered in the same time.
Cut 20% of management staff. The PO is both top heavy and middle heavy. Everyone wants to be a supervisor, manager, director. Cut out the “experts” and let the people who know how to do the work, do it.
Stop the BS politically correct programs.
Stop the BS customer service programs. They are not set up correctly and they are a joke.
And, as they are doing, close redundant post offices in cities and suburban areas.
Improve computer access, telephone access, and establish more online based services (buying postage, etc.)
With all of these things the average person would not see too much of a change in service, yet the expenses would stabilize.
Look at where they are losing business: Normal package delivery. Improve the quality of the experience, improve delivery times, and actually compete for the business. Since they have the infrastructure in place for EVERY address in the country, they should be able to do this for less money than Fed Ex or UPS. Get rid of the crap (increase the rates for Direct Mail advertisements) and focus on what could make money.
Except for the UNION contracts labor costs.........
Post offices in my area are 30-50 miles apart. I imagine they will close half of them if they make the decision the way they usually do.
Post offices in my area are 30-50 miles apart. I imagine they will close half of them if they make the decision the way they usually do.
Same thing in Green Bay. Guy took my items, weighed them, told me not to worry, he had the packaging and that was it. 5 minutes.
“Look at where they are losing business: Normal package delivery. Improve the quality of the experience, improve delivery times, and actually compete for the business. Since they have the infrastructure in place for EVERY address in the country, they should be able to do this for less money than Fed Ex or UPS. Get rid of the crap (increase the rates for Direct Mail advertisements) and focus on what could make money.”
how about don’t actually compete for business ... if the private sector can handle it, don’t do it.
mail is obsolete - email/fax/phone/voice/vid chat. we don’t need mail.
I’m pretty sure ours won’t be among those closed. It serves six townships clumped together, about midway between Cleveland and Akron. Guess we’ll find out later today though!
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