U.S. Postal Service to close 2,000 post offices

Chicago Breaking Business ^ | 1/24/11

[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.

[Libloather]

Think Commiecare™.

[Bitsy]

Government management at its best/s. Wow, I wonder what they would do with health care?

[martin_fierro]

[palmer]

In the country the post office service persons are very good. In the city, not so good, so those are ones they will keep. Also the post office sends junk mail asking me to buy stamps by mail, but the local post office gets brownie points for selling me stamps, so they compete against themselves.

[KeyLargo]

None of the worthless employees will be fired though.

Obama will not allow his constituent welfare program to end.

[taildragger]

Nations larget employer greater than Walmart has a pullback. If Congress had brains they would put out bids to spin off 50% and let Fedex, UPS and even Walmart bid on the business and run 1/2 in their model vs. the current one and see the results.

[wbill]

I'm kind of astonished that there's a need for 32,000 postoffices nationwide.

Mailboxes? Sure. But post offices, actually staffed and so on? I don't see it.

I still think that sending a letter cross-country, for less than 50 cents, is pretty cheap.

[KeyLargo]

[max americana]

Here in Hollywood, we have FIVE PO’s within driving distance of 5 minutes. Letr’s say u hate the clerks at 1 PO, you could literally walk to the others within 15 minutes.

[abb]

Dinosaur Media DeathWatch™

[madison10]

Here in Hollywood, we have FIVE PO’s within driving distance of 5 minutes. Letr’s say u hate the clerks at 1 PO, you could literally walk to the others within 15 minutes.

So it is not the rural post offices which should be close/punished, it is those in the larger cities.

[WayneS]

Our federal government is admitting it is not competent to perform one of the few jobs it is actually empowered to perform.

Wow! That certainly increases my confidence in its ability to handle the tens of thousands of issues it has NOT been empowered to insert itself in to but which it involves itself any way...

[reagan_fanatic]

The Post Office will mail you as many Priority Mail boxes as you want - all free of charge.

Perhaps if they want to save money, that would be one place to look.

[ConservaTexan]

...remote communities where the post office is often the heart of the town...

Maybe in 1811, not so in 2011. (Posted from a remote community)

[NonValueAdded]

Use the Sam Drucker model. Heck, you can already buy stamps at Winn Dixie. Just don’t get your store reclassified from a 3ND to a 2PD-BB!!!

[Chickensoup]

As post offices close mail orders and Ebayers will have a hard time of it. This is monies the government wants.

The government wants to empty the rural areas completly for the elite.

Increase the price of gas, and cut off the post office is a good start.

[FroggyTheGremlim]

Well, they “de-activated” our mailbox about a year ago. I used to be able to walk to it to deposit my mail.

Now I have to drive to the replacement box.

Maybe they’ll de-activate that one too so we’ll have to take a bus.

[bert]

-—(Posted from a remote community)——

I have occasion to travel into south east Kentucky along the new and much improved US23. The hiway follows the old route from coal village to coal village for miles and miles. Much of the area is now a continuous strip city. Even off the main road many of the villages have grown toward each other and roads are improved to the point that it is easy to go from one to another.

Each of these villages has a post office. One big facility could serve many of the small ones, likely better than now.

Also, the USPO no longer serves as it once did. There is UPS and Fedex. Local shops service all three, including selling stamps and other postal services. The need that once was is no more.

[Eska]

Here along the Yukon, they won't close a fed park that spends millions and is used as a private park for govt, they chase the locals out.

Then they want to close our post office? What do you do when there is no road to where you live besides moving????? Mailing canned goods in is our main way of getting food here from Sams.

I think they better get their priorities figured out.

[Michael Barnes]

Around my parts, I would NOT call these people worthless. Some brutal weather they have to contend with right now and my mail lady is like clockwork, everyday.
Our postal office is nothing special for the small community it services and it does a good job. Maybe they can branch off and just go private; I have no doubt they could turn a profit.