Frowning takes 68 muscles.
Smiling takes 6.
Pulling this trigger takes 2.
I'm lazy.
Posted on 01/24/2011 8:16:56 AM PST by Libloather
U.S. Postal Service to close 2,000 post offices
By Dow Jones Newswires-Wall Street Journal
Posted today at 7:13 a.m.
With red ink showing no sign of stopping, the U.S. Postal Service is hoping to ramp up a cost-cutting program that is already eliciting yelps of pain around the country. Beginning in March, the agency will start the process of closing as many as 2,000 post offices, on top of the 491 it said it would close starting at the end of last year.
In addition, it is reviewing another 16,000 — half of the nation’s existing post offices — that are operating at a deficit, and lobbying Congress to allow it to change the law so it can close the most unprofitable among them. The law currently allows the postal service to close post offices only for maintenance problems, lease expirations or other reasons that don’t include profitability.
The news is crushing in many remote communities where the post office is often the heart of the town and the closest link to the rest of the country. Shuttering them, critics say, also puts an enormous burden on people, particularly on the elderly, who find it difficult to travel out of town.
The postal service argues that its network of some 32,000 brick-and-mortar post offices, many built in the horse-and-buggy days, is outmoded in an era when people are more mobile, often pay bills online and text or email rather than put pen to paper. It also wants post offices to be profitable to help it overcome record $8.5 billion in losses in fiscal year 2010.
(Excerpt) Read more at chicagobreakingbusiness.com ...
Maybe in 1811, not so in 2011. (Posted from a remote community)
You got that right.
I live near a town of >500 people...there's >1000 people in the whole zip code according to the 2000 census (I doubt it will change much)
We have a large, modern, brick PO with two employees...far larger than our needs, and all the homes are serviced by rural carriers.
Within a 20 mile radius of that PO are 5 more POs including a large PO servicing a town of about 7000.
I've often wondered why the Postal service didn't just close all POs within a 25 mile radius of the big one and service everyone with rural carriers as that's how we get our mail anyway.
A quick map check tells me they could close 11 post offices (minimum).
Too much waste
sad thing is fedex and ups do most of the long haul express and priority mail for usps now, and they still are 8.5 billion in the hole...
The post office is obsolete. All mail can be delivered electronically and packages can be delivered either by UPS or FedEx.
Time for this dinosaur to go extinct.
Most of the post offices are nice, brick buildings and most offer courteous service with minimal waiting times. They also offer ample parking.
I suspect these will be the first targeted for closure and people will be directed to those without much parking so that the people herded to them can provide additional fine revenue for the bigger cities.
And businesses will be lining up to buy the closed post office buildings in the smaller towns. < / sarcasm >
Read post 12 above, it sums up why big government is not the solution, it’s the problem.
Not to mention over 1/2 the clerks are minorities. (white men not welcome) Do the math for the next to years. I know a guy that works for the USPS as an Electronic Technicians,, he calls it the W&SC. (Welfare and Social Club)
PS,, the USPS does use some high tech stuff. Most letter size mail is only touched by the person that picks it up and the person that delivers it. The rest is mechanical/computers.
Side note,, Affirmative Action is alive and well at the USPS,, they just lowered the testing standards for the higher paying maintenance jobs to facilitate more minorities.
In the beginning, a government-run post office was necessary to provide the infrastructure because there was no private alternative. The Post Office has outlived itself.
We're getting less mail but fewer and fewer employees mean a much heavier workload per employee.
Smaller post offices: Where I live in Beverly MA, there is one huge post office and two smaller ones--one in Beverly Farms, a well-to-do area, and one in Prides Crossing, ditto. (John Updike used to live nearby) Don't know if those 2 smaller offices would be among those closing (people would have to go downtown). There have been some "college post office" branches selected for closure.
Don't know much fat at USPS HQ could be cut (further...). Some of the deficit could be made up with a rate increase, but at a time when newspapers cost $1.50 and you can send a letter 3,000 miles away for 44 cents (I know, email "free"), you'd think they could boost it to 50 cents or so to make up these deficits. It wouldn't be backbreaking. (A move to up the rate to 46 cents failed).
Of course the PO has also done things like spend millions to sponsor Lance Armstrong...
The bad news, of course, is that all of those loathesome employees will be spread out among the remaining post offices.
Isn’t there a move to dist. checks for tax refunds or social security right into bank accounts, no more mailed checks? Thought I heard something about that
Most do not get checks now. They get welfare cards (debit cards). Caliornia tracked the spending and CA welfare dudes spent $69 million in three years out of state. A lot of it at Nevada casinos and Gulf Coast cruises.
ping
In many cases it the only thing that allows a little town to still officially exist. I worked for the USPS as an environmental consultant few years back. Talking with some of the small office postmasters it became apparent for some of these small towns the PO is all they had left. As one PM told me, “They closed the school, the trains don’t stop here anymore and the interstate passed us by. The PO is all we have that still makes us a town”. It was kind of sad, but didn’t engender a good business model for the postal service.
Personally, I would have no problem with them rounding the postage up to 50 cents if they would keep my small town post office open. Everything is just too far apart here, plus the crossing of zip code/county lines, for them to close. Closing just screws addresses up, doesn’t it?
I don’t care to get e-mail cards anyway.
The USPS should be privatized, but keep the small branches open for convenience.
I was advised that at the first of every month, there are a HUGE amount of Dept of Treasury mail and SS mail.
My wife works for a large school system, and they still send out over 50% of the Payroll checks by USPS.
Thanks for excerpting my post and replying to it out of context.
“I mean, if you think about, if you think about it, UPS and FedEx are doing just fine, right? No, they are. It's the Post Office that's always having problems." - Barack Obama
Towns are overrated.
*grin*
I understand some people need to live in closely packed communities for many reasons (social, economic, and convenience come immediately to mind), and I have lived in major population centers, but looking back, I wonder why.
Green acres is the place for me.
Farm livin' is the life for me.
Land spreadin' out so far and wide
Keep Manhattan, just give me that countryside.
I was advised that at the first of every month, there are a HUGE amount of Dept of Treasury mail and SS mail.
83 percent of social security payments are by direct deposit.
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