The Demise of the USPS

CNS News ^ | 4-4-05 | Chuck Muth

[FlyLow]

Candle-makers were none too happy with the invention of the light bulb, for obvious reasons. Ditto blacksmiths with the invention of the automobile. So you can imagine how the post office must feel today about cheap, long-distance rates, faxes and email.

While candle-makers and blacksmiths still roam among us today, like the buffalo their numbers have greatly diminished since the country's founding years. I assume they fought the tide of progress tooth-and-nail, but in the end their fate was inevitable. So, too, is the fate of the once great United States Postal Service. Its demise is a foregone conclusion.

The only question is when and how the USPS as we know it today will be put out to pasture for good.

Last month, Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) and Sen. Tom Carper (D-Del.) introduced the latest version of a postal reform bill. This in response to recommendations made last year by the President's Commission on the United States Postal Service. And while there are a number of good things in the bill, it is a bill crafted in denial.

The bill's overall intent appears to be to return the USPS to its glory days, ignoring the fact that its time has come -- and gone.

The Magic City Morning Star, a local paper in Collins' Maine, covered the introduction of the bill in some detail. It characterized the purpose of the legislation as an effort "to preserve the jobs of more than 750,000 career USPS employees."

Um, if the intent of postal reform is simply to provide employment for these folks, maybe we can retrain them to become candle-makers and blacksmiths? Talk about back to the future.

[martin_fierro]

The USPS won't go without a fight.

[wideawake]

Well, what would happen if 750,000 people went postal simultaneously?

[2banana]

"to preserve the jobs of more than 750,000 career USPS

That is mostly 750,000 unionized jobs...

[sarah_f]

That stamp is outrageous; I haven't seen a white mailman in years.

[TXBSAFH]

What does it mean when the flag is at half mast at a post office?

They are hiring.

[Inspectorette]

The whole place has been going downhill ever since Cliff Clavin and Newman retired...

[camas]

ours are all white and mostly female.

[appeal2]

I always thought that the only thing that stood between me and a terrorist bomb placed in my mailbox was that darned monopoly law and now he tells me it doesn't work. What is the world coming to. I guess I will have to trade my horse in for a car one of these days.

[brewcrew]

They do quite a business with Priority and Express Mail (3D packages as opposed to paper).

[martin_fierro]

Chuck Muth's article makes sense, but, um, he writes like a fifteen year-old girl talks. Hello?

[Txsleuth]

My husband is white and he works for the Post Office--he is a Viet vet and had a Bachelors Degree in Marketing---

He took the job right out of college until something in "his field" came along---well 30 years later, he igetting ready to retire in a few years--

He would be the first to tell you the waste of money that is spent by the PO., but I can't be objective on this subject since it (the POstal Service) has been very good to me and my family---

BTW we are members of the Thrift Savings program which is very similar to the Soc. Security personal accounts that Bush is pushing for----THEY are terrific and if it (by a miracle) should pass, IMHO it would be a good thing for my kids and grandchildren....

[Political Junkie Too]

It characterized the purpose of the legislation as an effort "to preserve the jobs of more than 750,000 career USPS employees."

Transfer them to the Border Patrol. They're already used to doing a lot of walking and driving in open, boxy trucks.

-PJ

[kingu]

Ahh, yes, free market postal services. An illegal in every driveway!

The postal system pays for itself. If the author wishes to view it as a welfare program, fine, don't contribute to it. In the mean time, our business will continue to use USPS exclusively to get our packages to our customers faster than UPS and FEDEX for a lower price. And when we want to notify our customers of specials, it is a swift stop at the post office to mail out 5,000 cards.

Won't it just be thrilling to have to go to twelve different private carriers to do the same job. And gee, who the heck wants to deliver mail to south central Los Angeles? Oh, yeah, let's get the courts to order private business around so it is all fair.

I'm more than happy with the semi-private quasi-governmental USPS system. A few tweaks here and there, sure.

[longtermmemmory]

i would submit that the USps is the best place for shipping general types of packages. I see ebay people there quite often.

in addition first class male has a different status in courts vs other forms of delivery.

lets not also forget that the usps has a monopoly by law for first class mail.

[rabidralph]

LOL!

[Nick Danger]

Merge it with Amtrak.

[Sybeck1]

These are the folks that load my box down with junk mail everyday.

[hunter112]

And gee, who the heck wants to deliver mail to south central Los Angeles?

You can add small-town America to that, also. Trying to send the things people sell on eBay by UPS, FedEx, etc., is a super hassle in places that are not well served by shipping stores.

[The South Texan]

Did someone say "mail"?