Posted on 03/20/2012 4:51:11 PM PDT by Oldeconomybuyer
The U.S. Postal Service wants small businesses to send more direct mail, a.k.a. junk mail, to help the beleaguered agency expand its revenue stream by hundreds of millions of dollars.
In a campaign called "Every Door Direct Mail," the Postal Service is touting a year-old online tool to help small businesses micro-target direct mail. The Web tool allows firms to tap customers by neighborhood or zip code without names or addresses.
The Postal Service reported a $5.1 billion loss for the year ended Sept. 30. The loss was caused by an ongoing decline in its core revenue driver, regular letters and bills known as first-class mail, as well as a legal mandate that the agency prefund health care benefits for a legion of future retirees.
(Excerpt) Read more at money.cnn.com ...
What we need to end is any and all public “service” (government job), benefits, which includes healthcare and retirement. Pay them a straight wage that we’re not on the hook for, for decades after they leave. While we’re at it, we can peg their wage to—in some fashion—local median wage.
Raise the price of postage and let this Constitutional Federal Program pay for itself, based on user fees. If it can’t run itself, it’s one of the few services that has valus (like roads), because we need infrastructure in case of war, natural diseaster, etc. But what we don’t need is more junk mail to bloat more government bureaucrats.
Fold-up that USPS POS; let Stamps.com/UPS/FedEx/DHL etc do the work, and save us many, many billions in losses each year. All I get are bills and garbage/junk mail from them!
I thought the P.O. lost money on junk mail. Maybe instead of distributing more of the darned stuff, which goes straight into our recycling bin, they could just raise the price a little.
Someone should raise the question, how many trees will it cost to deliver more junk mail?
Oh sure, it's already nothing more than a high-priced, make-work, union-thug, junk-mail disposal scam.
There's hardly any actual mail in the USPS delivery stream.
[Union advocated] junk mail is what killed the Post Office.
I am surprised they have lasted this long.
Might well have escaped your attention that it is, but that's what it is.
It's not a tax.
FTUSPS
At the moment the USPS is SUBSIDIZING THE US GOVERNMENT through a special tax to pay medical insurance costs for postal employees who aren't even born yet.
$5 billion a year goes into the federal kitty from the money paid by mailers. It won't be touched for 75 years.
No one believes that it won't be touched. It was just a stupid scheme by Olympia Snowe to balance the budget. She's retiring just as her idiocy destroys the postal service in this country.
I think she should be given a ride on a parcel belt!
Standard rate mail is not handled at a loss.
“Postal Service: We need more junk mail”
I’LL DONATE MINE—THEY CAN HAVE IT ALL!
the post office needs to change with the times, we no longer need the pony express. The best way for the po to survive is to use natural gas vehicles, be more like fedex, get rid of the union
I’m all for it! Junk mail makes GREAT kindling.
I’m not sure this author really understands how USPS works. Having spent quite a bit of time in their facilities in years past, I know there are three basic kinds of mail: letter mail, flats (i.e. magazines), and parcels. Each is handled by automated equipment that is unique to each type of mail, and thus the facility must be capitalized for each. The volume of each type has fluctuated historically but until the internet came along, the volume of letter mail has always increased year over year. Now it’s dropped like a rock. That means the facilities are overcapitalized and inefficient and adding more flats or parcel volume may help keep a P&DC or Bulk Mail Center open, but it won’t change the fundamental problem - the precipitous drop in the volume of letter mail.
“I think she should be given a ride on a parcel belt!”
I’d PAY to see that, m!
It would be pretty ironic if they turned the post offices in to recycling centers. ;-)
The enviro-whacko argument won't hold much water. Trees grow back.
The trees! My G_d, the trees!
Short of building a cabin in the woods I can't figure out how to do that.
I get ZERO value or use out of the Postal Service.
They should be eliminated as a GSE (if they can make it on their own, fine) and all things shift to digital.
Can't we make a greenie argument? I bet they burn a million gallons of fuel per day, MINIMUM.
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