Posted on 09/04/2011 4:49:11 PM PDT by Free ThinkerNY
The United States Postal Service has long lived on the financial edge, but it has never been as close to the precipice as it is today: the agency is so low on cash that it will not be able to make a $5.5 billion payment due this month and may have to shut down entirely this winter unless Congress takes emergency action to stabilize its finances.
“Our situation is extremely serious,” the postmaster general, Patrick R. Donahoe, said in an interview. “If Congress doesn’t act, we will default.”
In recent weeks, Mr. Donahoe has been pushing a series of painful cost-cutting measures to erase the agency’s deficit, which will reach $9.2 billion this fiscal year. They include eliminating Saturday mail delivery, closing up to 3,700 postal locations and laying off 120,000 workers, nearly one-fifth of the agency’s work force.
The post office’s problems stem from one hard reality: it is getting squeezed on both revenue and costs.
As any computer user knows, the Internet revolution has led to people and businesses sending far less conventional mail.
At the same time, decades of contractual promises made to unionized workers, including no-layoff clauses, are increasing the post office’s costs. Labor represents 80 percent of the agency’s expenses, compared with 53 percent at United Parcel Service and 32 percent at FedEx, its two biggest private competitors. Postal workers also receive more generous health benefits than most other federal employees.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
As far as your comment on my blowing smoke, you are a nutcase.
Cut salaries and benefits.
Problem solved.
Fedex and UPS already deliver much of USPS’s express and priority mail over long haul routes.
And what is your problem? The USPS is supported by postage. It does not receive a government subsidy. In fact, the financial problem is because USPS has been subsidizing the US government.
Actually I still use it to receive and pay bills. (Old habits die hard!) And the various governments harass me for money using US Mail, and expect (mostly) to be paid or responded to by mail.
ML/NJ
That still doesn’t address the fact that the unions are taking USPS down.
I can't speak for important, but I can tell you that if you go to one of the few post offices which keeps Saturday hours (usually something pretty meager like 10 a.m. to 2 p.m.), you will see lines stretching to the front door.
USPS has always rented space on available aircraft ~ that's the way mail is transported in this country, so it's not just UPS and FedEx ~ it's all the other airlines as well.
Bingo on that. Less horses, more stagecoach drivers, that is the problem. I see it in Coporate America as well. My best friend’s husband is a postal worker...and I have had several really terrific postmen/women, happy in their jobs, doing hard work. My ex is an Amtrak employee, loves working with locomotives, steam-fitter, airbraking systems, etc. The crap that gets pulled on them from a bloated management system is beyond pathetic. I have very few issues with the rank and file...except the exasperation I feel for them not seeing the whole picture...forest for the trees? I don’t know. The Consitution does rovide for a postal service...but those in charge have ruined it...adn so has the union leadership.
I don’t shop on line for much but when I do the delivery is almost always USPS—cheaper and just as fast as FedEx or brown.
I don’t know if the timing is deliberate, or just an unhappy accident, but it looks like they are trying to shut down just before Christmas. I can see packages being sent by UPS or FedEX, but people still send greeting cards through the Postal service. Also , overseas and APO/FPO deliveries also depend on the Post Office. It is as if this shutdown was designed to cause as much inconvenience as possible.
To prevent the job from becoming a total part time slot, the delivery staff could work the rest of their 40 hour week doing other tasks at the P.O. at a reduced rate, maybe even minimum wage just to keep their insurance in effect.
"Write About What You Know," as they say.
You have the US government in hock to the USPS for over $100 billion, and who is subsidizing what?
Let's see numbers, facts, references.
No, I can’t say that I have noticed that but I’ll look.
For Ronin, generally, something fills a vacuum of need in business. I agree, UPS and FEDEX are too expensive for most simple packages. I operate a small business and use USPS instead of FEDEX because of cost in many cases. FEDEX and UPS are expenses that most employees abuse without consideration at all for the cost. “Oh, I’ll just FEDEX that out to you.” Documents by FEDEX to Europe are about $60 and will get there in 3-5 days, USPS gets them there in the same time and tracks them just as well in about 5 days for less than $14. How much this is subsidized, I don’t know.
USPS mail sorters do not make 90K a year. According to this link, the max step for a PS-5 postal worker is $49,851.
http://postalwork.net/pay_scales.htm
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.