Posted on 01/27/2019 5:03:36 PM PST by E. Pluribus Unum
The price of Forever stamps is increasing by 10 percent, and will go from 50 cents to 55 cents, according to a United States Postal Service press release.
The First-Class Mail Forever stamp price will take effect Jan. 27, the federal agency said. NBC Bay Area reports that the change is the biggest jump in the history of the USPS.
Although the price is increasing, old Forever stamps remain valid for mailing a letter regardless of how much the price changes.
The price change will offset a $4 billion loss the federal agency experienced in 2018. According to NBC Bay Area, USPS said sales from shipping and packages soared 10 percent last year but there was an overall decline in revenue due to rising pay and higher transportation costs.
The first Forever stamp was issued in 2007 for 41 cents. In November, USPS announced that dancer Gregory Hines, singer Marvin Gaye and a “Hearts Blossom” stamp would be added to the Forever collection for 2019.
(Excerpt) Read more at nbcnews.com ...
oh and i totally agree about the ponzi scheme of Socialized Security. i’ve done spreadsheets of calculations of how much more we’d pay in if waiting until 67 to retire and how much more we’d receive. It’s approximately $130,000 (double that for the employer portion) paid in vs $40,000 received if living to the average 83.
i don’t hate the USPS, just think like all government programs, it is not fiscally efficient. They do a good job ( if one doesn’t have a drunken mail carrier like mine). But retirees at 56, although they don’t get a huge retirement any more but do get the majority of their health care paid, are still costly. And a perk private organizations can’t afford to offer.
thanks for the data. i see you win all the arguments in your house ;)
The “Luddites” were a group in England at the time of the Industrial Revolution. They were opposed to factory work being done by machines instead of people and to rail transportation which removed upper class owners from the people in their employ. They were ruthlessly suppressed by the British government.
Why is the USPS required to pre-fund its retirement system and no other federal agency is required to do so? Congress runs the USPS. They decide the level and kinds of services. The USPS would like to knock off Saturday deliveries. Congress won’t allow it.
The USPS has the worst of both worlds. It is treated like a private business that must depend on the revenue it generates to cover operating costs, but Congress controls what it can and cannot do, including setting postage rates. USPS employees are under the federal civil service retirement rules. Try running a private sector business under those constraints.
Wow. And I am bet that happens often, given that so many live alone these days.
“The USPS has the worst of both worlds. It is treated like a private business that must depend on the revenue it generates to cover operating costs, but Congress controls what it can and cannot do, including setting postage rates. USPS employees are under the federal civil service retirement rules. Try running a private sector business under those constraints.”
And as a consequence, the American Taxpayer has the worst of both worlds as well. If we had a Congress that was in any way interested in the best interests of the citizens of this country, they would be moving to cut the USPS loose completely. Let it morph into a private, for profit enterprise, with the only constraint that it must serve the entire country, even in places where other private entities might choose to ignore. That’s the only hangup here as I see it. Providing mail service to Grandma Freckert in East Bojack, AR has to be part of the deal. And coupled with the privatization, should be some rationalization of pension benefits.
You know that is never going to happen. Congress will not allow the USPS to operate independently. And with the looming ascendency of the Dems as the permanent majority party within a decade, the government will control more of the economy, not more.
Not sure how something from the late 1700s to early 1800s is connected to today, unless you are still opposed to technology like the Luddites in England were.
Do you drive a car? Own a TV or radio? Have a telephone? Own a home? Have power tools? Have a job?
Because I'm pretty sure none of these technologies were available during the industrial revolution.
Sounds like you are sorta Luddite, especially since it's obvious you use a computer and go online.
Good luck with that.
That is indeed how I will describe myself in the future. I'm a "sorta Luddite". I integrate new technologies into my life carefully, with a dose of skepticism about "what could go wrong" with anything new.
Use it as your “tagline”. :-)
You do realize I was being sarcastic to the dufus who thinks anybody who buys stamps is a luddite.?
Per Postal Regulation, BRM is to be used only for the purpose intended by the permit holder.
So all the junk you return costs the mailer nothing if they submit a claim. USPS however bore the expense of processing it. Few permit holders actually go though the claim process. They handle the returned junk the same as they handle actual replies.
They open it, pull out any checks, process any credit card numbers, and throw all the rest in their large recycle dumpster so they get paid for the trash paper.
Bottom line for me is, since I didn't solicit or request their junk mail, they won't mind getting it right back.☺
Our local paper has a cover price of $1.
Comic books, depending on the book, are about $2.
At $.55, postage is still comparatively cheap.
The most interesting kook burger BRM I remember was going to Gerber Baby Food. Some nut wrote all over the return envelopes. The rants were very anti-Jewish. We'd process a dozen or so every day with the same handwriting.
Eventually the rants turned threatening so the Postal Inspectors traced them back to the mailer.
People in .biggov are always so paranoid. They think everyone is out to get them. Of course by the way they run .biggov in such a reckless convoluted manner, I guess it’s not surprising.
Btw I do enjoy bundling up all their junk mail and jaming it into one of their return envelopes. It only takes a second. Some I send back are like 2 “ thick!
Well, I don't get the "news" anymore, so much as filter the garbage coming out of the media nowadays. I'm a 71, retired and live in the country on a cattle farm. There's really not much need to follow the "news" anymore. You'd be surprised how your life still goes on without the "news". My wife doesn't follow it at all. She's happy just to work with the cows and her garden and greenhouse plants. The "news" doesn't affect her at all.
We don't have regular TV or take a newspaper. We just live stream Netflix for entertainment in the evenings. Neither of us does any social media except I do follow national political stories from reading FR posts and the links, but even then, I am skeptical, and even cynical, about what I read and whether it's true or not. Because of that skepticism, I have gotten into the habit of creating political memes that point out what I believe about stories in the media, not necessarily what they report. I post them of FR from time-to-time.
I don't believe there is such a thing as straight, factual "news" anymore, if there ever was. It is all agenda-driven narratives that the media puts out. And since I know that, why would I waste my limited time watching or reading someone reporting lies to me? How many times has the media been caught lying about stories to make Trump look bad and then they turn out to be not sure? More than I can count. That to me is not "news".
My email communications is hardly the stuff of surveillance. Grandkids, tractor repair and high school reunions. What hacker would want that? I do keep all of my records on one small bank account and tax returns on a laptop that is not connected to the internet. Our savings is not in an institution or the market anymore. We lost a big hunk of our retirement funds when the stock market dived just before Obama was elected in the fall of 2008. Since then our savings in is a secure concrete bunker in the ground in one of the cow paddocks. We've only needed to access in once when we paid cash for a tractor. All of our transactions on the farm is cash. No checks.
The post office raising their forever stamp rates to 55 cents only confirms my decision years ago to not use the postal service. I still have a roll of forever stamps in my desk that have never been opened. It's also slow. It takes five days to get a letter to Arizona from Florida but only seconds via email.
I'm not adverse to low-tech but even that is not always safe. About 15 years ago we had a check "washed" and re-written by persons unknown. We didn't lose any money but I did have to close that account and open a new one. And that was a paper transaction, not a digital one.
To be fair, this increase DOES affect some older people who are not tech savvy, and on very tight budgets, plus people who need to mail a lot of legal or medical documents. Many firms and agencies will not accept these by e-mail.
Also, some online bill payments still come with a “convenience fee”, which is considerably more than a 55 cent stamp.
However, I am more interested in what’s going on with the Post Office’ subsidy of shipping for sellers from “3rd world” countries, etc. I thought this was going to be eliminated, but, overseas sellers on eBay (some from some fairly wealthy countries) are still able to ship me, for example, a half decent 3 AAA battery LED head-worn flashlight for $2 and free shipping.
Uh no. Fed EX and UPS do not make special deliveries or arrangements to those who cannot pick up packages or who live in areas not profitable for those companies. It’s exactly why they drop ship thousands of packages to the USPS for final delivery. USPS doesn’t have a choice.
As for the so-called garbage in your mailbox. Somebody is paying for it to be delivered. You’re not required to have a mailbox. Just take it down. Your problem is solved. Or, become a manager...you seem to know everything about the USPS. You’d be great. Fit right in.
Nope. The vast majority of USPS employees are not civil service. They did away with that years ago. They are under FERS. Federal Employee Retirement System.
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