Posted on 05/08/2012 4:57:08 PM PDT by tobyhill
The U.S. Postal Service is often the butt of jokes, but there's nothing funny about the agency's bottom line.
The USPS is losing up to $25 million dollars a day. Until now, taxpayers have not been on the hook for its mounting losses, but that could be about to change. A bill recently approved by the Senate would appropriate $34 billion in federal money.
"If the post office was a business, it would be in bankruptcy," said Rep. Dennis Ross, R-Fla. "It's insolvent."
Ironically, however, Congress shares much of the blame. For years, the Postal Service begged Washington for the freedom to cut its own budget by closing post offices and cutting employees. But Congress, under pressure from rural constituents and labor unions, prevented the cuts, and the service continued to bleed red ink.
In December, the USPS said it wanted to close more than half of its mail processing centers, eliminate 28,000 jobs, end overnight delivery of first-class mail, close 3,700 local post offices and end Saturday delivery.
(Excerpt) Read more at foxnews.com ...
Privatize the Post Office and let it make money or die.
I thought that they had made a profit center out of handling the distribution of eBay sales.
I could have my mail delivered once a week and be happy.
I’ve read that there are 650,000 employees at the post office.
They aren’t going to make the needed changes.
Is anyone really surprised?
Eliminating supernumery mail processing employees could be Third or Fourth on the list. Have to see how closing down those smaller MPCs is going to affect the service ~ could be a disaster. Modern computer modeling techniques should be able to tell us ~ but I think the ban on doing a Preferential Mail Network is still in effect so management is probably just pulling that one out of their collective behinds.
We shall see.
There's about $20 billion a year right there!
The problem is two fold ~ the URBAN postal operations are probably trimmed as far as they can be safely trimmed at the moment. The rural postal operations are FAT and for the most part so overstaffed you wouldn't believe it. They can be trimmed way back and the whole business in any county with less than 10,000 population handed over to rural delivery service.
There are a good 95,000 people involved in running those small buildings. That's what they do BTW, just open the doors, turn on the lights, certify the utility bills for payment by the PDC.
The problem is two fold ~ the URBAN postal operations are probably trimmed as far as they can be safely trimmed at the moment. The rural postal operations are FAT and for the most part so overstaffed you wouldn't believe it. They can be trimmed way back and the whole business in any county with less than 10,000 population handed over to rural delivery service.
There are a good 95,000 people involved in running those small buildings. That's what they do BTW, just open the doors, turn on the lights, certify the utility bills for payment by the PDC.
Where, muawiyah, in your plan is the privatization part? Which parts (hopefully the whole thing!) of the USPS would you sell off, and why?
You give it a national charter and that's the end of that.
Happens every day.
It’s NOT about saving money. It’s about saving a lot of union workers jobs. PERIOD!
What do you mean by, “national charter?” You are suggesting selling it off and retaining a government-enforced monopoly? That’s no solution at all!
We should cut the pursestrings, and let them live or die. USPS is an anachronism.
Privatize the post office and the problem is solved. Part of the problem is that Congress couldn’t run a lemonade stand without a billion dollar loss, and part of the problem is that Congress is stealing from the post office to fund it’s other programs.
That's true. But all except one of them are on break. Step to the next window, please...
“Privatize the Post Office and let it make money or die.”
It’s not that simple. We have a satellite production office in Canada. Sending by Fedex a few documents with a tracking number costs us $76. Priority Mail Intl costs us $23.
It’s no secret why Ebay and Amazon sellers depend on the programs from USPS. If one indeed privatizes the system, start with the overall logistical process of USPS.
Let them adjust their pensions. Scr** them not us.
I thought the Post Office was spun off from the Feds some years ago.
FYI-—
I live in a small rural community.
We ALREADY have private delivery. The persons who bring us our mail already are NOT employees of the USPS.
They work for a ‘Private Carrier’ and have NO benefits. I have yet to clearly understand who pays for their gasoline, etc, since they are driving their OWN cars.
Some places we have ‘cluster boxes’. Some places, individual mailbox delivery.
I would support cluster boxes all over the valley to speed things up.
Meanwhile, if they close our local USPS, it is a minimum of 17 miles to the next closest one.
Oersonally, I think the rural post offices could be inside other places of business—like the satellite banks inside the grocery stores.
They could have FEWER employees and not be paying for their brink/mortar buildings.
In the past 7 years, within 35 miles of where I live, there have been 3 THREE NEW USPS buildings built—when the old buildings were just fine.
Most people are familiar with the large tractor trailer operations that say USMail on the side and the back ~ same thing but much larger scale than the guys in the cars and trucks.
I FOUND ONE that was 3 days out and 2 days back.
There's no reason you can't get all the mail services you need from those carriers. Ask them.
Rural Delivery is also provided by USPS elsewhere than your neck of the woods.
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