Posted on 08/22/2009 6:46:39 AM PDT by kellynla
Whatever possessed President Obama to mention the travails of the post office while discussing health care the other day, his timing was certainly apt. The Postal Service is headed toward a loss of $7 billion this year and another $7 billion in 2010. Naturally, Congress is planning another bailout rather than the kind of reform that would recognize how technology has transformed modern communications.
Most mail today is delivered electronically via email. Traditional postal mail volume has fallen by nearly 20% since 2000, and the average household gets one-third fewer letters than a decade ago. But this is only the first stage of the decline. The transition to Internet communications means that the Postal Service's core business—from paying bills, to sending birthday greetings, to delivering magazines—is slowly vanishing. This is on top of the package business that has already been transformed by Federal Express and UPS.
Not that the Postal Service has ever been a paragon of efficiency. If the cost of a postage stamp had risen at merely the rate of inflation since 1950 when a stamp cost two cents, today you could send a first-class letter for 30 cents. Instead the cost rose in May to 44 cents from 42 cents.
These higher prices have corresponded with worsening service. The mailman used to deliver twice a day in urban areas, but now Postal Service Chief Executive John Potter says he wants to stop Saturday service to reduce costs. No private business in America could continually raise prices, lose billions of dollars and then hope to win back customers by promising poorer service.
(Excerpt) Read more at online.wsj.com ...
The problem is too many minorities would be hurt. Not going to happen.
I use priority mail at least once a week. The price is half that of UPS, I can get a tracking ticket that allows me to track on line and track delivery.
I still write letters and send cards to my kids and wouldn’t dream of sending them e-cards.
The union rules are what is killing the post office and that is not about to change.
Most likely the messiah will be bailing out the post office before too long.
We were talking about this at the office. The post office has to go private.
They should announce a 5 year phase out of the postal service. Give time for the private comopanies to extend their services as they will or new companies to come forth. Also, gives time for employees to retire or get other jobs. Sell off the buildings and put in fund to pay for retirements.
Postal Ping
Agree. Plus, the unions are a major Obama power base. If anything, he may disguise what he does, but the unions will be better off and more insulated than ever under his Administration.
Obama: “The post office has been such a great success, let’s have the government take over health care!”
Rallying cry....
“We need the private option!”
That’s a great graphic and would look even worse if you used, say 1880, for a base year. First class postage was two cents from then until World War II, except for a brief period during World War I when they were increased to three cents. After that war ended, they went back down to two cents where they would remain until World War II bumped them up permanently.
I have a business where I ship a number of packages every week. Forget UPS — don’t even bother — they are not competitive. Why? All Union.
I ship mostly Priority Mail, though depending on weight, some items are cheaper to ship via FedEx Ground, particularly if they are going to a business, where FedEx Ground gives a huge discount.
I print all labels online, for both Priority Mail and FedEx (you get a discount by having an account with FedEx and printing the labels at home). For USPS, I leave a note on the mailbox and the mailman comes to my door to pick up the Priority Mail pkg. For FedEx Ground, I drop the package at any Kinkos/FedEx store. You can have Priority Mail boxes of all sizes shipped to your door free.
Did you know that most USPS Priority Mail packages are moved city to city under contract by FedEx? Now you know why the service is so fast and efficient.
BTW, there's always somebody coming up with the comparison of a basic FCM stamp with the CPI ~ you rarely see them compare the average cost of a piece of mail with the CPI. As you well know major mailers get substantial discounts for pre-preparation of their mail, and the Wall Street Journal itself benefits from the very low rates for Periodicals Class ~ and without which they would scream to who-tied-it.
I suspect they fear that if there is a postal bail out their mailing class will not benefit from it inasmuch as they are already a beneficiary of heavy cross-subsidization.
Like I've said before, there's a class of capitalist who wants no competition and a government subsidy.
Nah, just combine the PO with gov't health care. They could deliver the doctor to your door.
And it’s not just “labor” costs...
I live 5 miles from the beach in So. Cal. and my P.O. has the A/C running 24/7 365 days a year...you could go into my P.O. on any Sunday a.m. and “hang meat” in there it’s so cold.
Talk about WASTE!
and don’t talk to me about the employees!
Half of them don’t speak the “queen’s English” and the other half don’t know what the heck they are doing.
We had one postal deliveryman, a foreigner, who COULDN’T EVEN READ THE STREET SIGNS!!!
I don’t know what happened to all the Military Veterans who were supposed to get a preference in hiring at the USPS but in So. Cal. the MAJORITY of postal employees are FOREIGNERS!
(1) Employee buy out,
(2) Government grants full service monopoly for 20 years, renegotiable indefinitely for additional 20 year periods,
(3) We do a leveraged buy out of Fed Ex and UPS, and then displace Postal managers with UPS managers ~ and Fed Ex becomes the exclusive air lift provider for the new USPS.
Service changes will include the closure of 28,000 useless facilities that actually impede the speedy delivery of mail to the rural sector, the elimination of door delivery in residential areas (to be replaced with cluster boxes), the elimination of Tuesday delivery, and quick negotiation with states, counties and cities where there are buildings rented by USPS to EXEMPT those buildings from property taxes (else a building will be rented some other town that makes that agreement).
Minimum quantities eligible for presort or bulk rate discounts would be raised substantially.
Yeah, I've been there ~ 115 degrees and it's just Sunday morning.
AC AC AC AC AC AC AC AC AC.
Solution ~ move to the beach!
The post office hasn't received taxpayer money since 1983.
Actually, stamps went back up from two cents to three in 1932, not World War II. They were definitely three cents in 1950 and rose to four cents in the summer of 1958, the base year for the chart in post #2.
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