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
Rallying cry....
“We need the private option!”
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.
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!
Lesson learned: use a courier. $12 to have an item delivered is cheaper than the $30 to the bank to stop payment on a check.
> “About 80 cents of every postal dollar pays for employee salaries and benefits (compared to less than 50 cents for Fed Ex and UPS).”
Stands to reason when you think it thru. FEDEX/UPS are hi-margin / lo-volume and the US Post is lo-margin / hi-volume.
Opening up the First Class monopoly won’t work because there is no money to be made in doing this. New Zealand has done this already: for the better part of a decade or more our postal system has been open to competition. And there are competitors for First Class door-to-door mail.
The problem is, none of the competitors can do it nearly as well as NZ Post, or as cheaply. By a very long short.
All told, the USPS does a really good job and runs a reliable, lo-cost service, despite its detractors. It isn’t as well run as NZ Post or Canada Post, but it is run better than HM Post in the UK.
If you Yanks were smart you would not allow Barry to touch your postal system. He’ll break it for sure.
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.
If I remember, the cost of a first class stamp in 1950 was 3 cents. .03 x 1000% = .30 cents.
***This is on top of the package business that has already been transformed by Federal Express and UPS.***
In the past I have had extremely important several letters, that could have been sent first class,sent by either UPS or Fed X. I just didn’t trust the mail delivery.
A typical point...I ordered some money from my Credit Union. By mail it takes one full day to be delivered here. Order it on Monday early, and it is here on Wednesday.
After a week the check did not arrive. I called the CU and stopped payment on that check and had a new one cut and sent. It got here after one full day.
Two days later, I got the first check which took 10 days to get here. Why? Because when the first check was mailed the person putting the stamp on it accidentally tore it in half so there was a 1/8 inch gap between the top and bottom half of the stamp. Electronic scanners could not pick up the stamp so it had to be sorted by hand.
Dump ‘em...altogether...and flush....twice...keep flushing...as long as it takes...
Y’know, I’d be thrilled if our mail carrier could read and speak English. That would be just so, so nice. Is that too much to ask?
I took the test a couple decades ago. People were told to note if they were foreign or minority and, if they were, they had points added to their scores before the exam even began.
Here's another idea: Increase the weight limit for First Class packages from 13 oz. to 4 lb. Believe it or not, it is cheaper to send a First Class 1.5 lb. package from San Francisco to Yellow Knife, Northwest Territories, Canada ($6.97) than it is to send that same package to Milwaukee ($8.30 by Priority Mail, which for all practical purposes is the same as First Class. Parcel Post is $8.09, but it takes about four times longer than PM)
Where do we sign up? :o)