U.S. Postal Service going belly up.

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The U.S. mail is nearly broke. Find another way of paying your bills.

http://abcnews.go.com/Business/postal-o ... d=14449522

ruveyn

So why is it that every time I go into a Post Office, I have to stand in line for days????

They need to modernize, time to offshore mail delivery. Send the mail to Mexico, they already have the staff here in place to take care of the mail, and pick up objects left in your yard.

Homeland Security could pay them more for spying on us.

I used to ship worldwide by the slow and cheap boat, they cut that out, after two hundred years.

Next they zoned me on packages, so I would have to offer seven shipping prices.

I recall when they became private, no longer a burden on the tax payer, then their hiring and debt went up.

If they are bankrupt, sell them to Fedex. DHL is doing a great job running the German mail. They also provide the services of Social Security, Motor vehicles, Savings, all in many locations near you.

When something that has worked for over 100 years stops working, chances are, someone screwed it up.

Another reason why I don't like Public Unions.

I just pray in my heart that the CSRS (Civil Service Retirement System) doesn't quit sending payments out, because my dad is part of the system. He worked for the Post Office as a route worker for 32 years.

Oh, and BTW, I support the NALC and all other unions. You can't always blame everything on the workers. A lot of it is that the pension fund is overfunded while the medical insurance programme is underfunded.

You can't tell me that the private sector can do it better. The average postal worker has a good idea of the people he serves and a strong personal connection. C'mon, UPS, Fedex, and DHL, can you do better with your impersonal business methods.

Without a doubt. The packages get delivered by private firms with barely a glitch. You don't read every year or every other year about UPS or FedEx being on the verge of bankruptcy.

The U.S. government is incapable of running a hamburger shop profitably. Everything the government touches turns brown, smelly and sticky.

ruveyn

I use FedEx and UPS, the business sector, to have things deliver to me. I use the postal service to send things out. But what the postal service does now is expensive. Gas and travel cost a lot more than in the past. They also charge the same amount to ship anywhere in the US. They should charge someone in Alaska a lot more than someone in California due to the extra gas consumed in sending the letter there.

Compare the price of a postage stamp to sending the same letter via FedEx.



Gee, what an original thought. How difficult is it for you to sit there and spout cliches. I'm so much more enlightened by reading this thread.

Honestly, with all this talk of suspending Saturday delivery (i heard they did that somewhere?) I'm partly surprised they didn't they do that a long time ago? Or start delivering and picking up mail on every other day? or a complete random schedule as defined by some phd graduate who figured out a better algorithm?


What it comes down to is the Government is trying REALLY hard to pretend its not totally broke. They will use whatever is in their power to make it appear they are still a valid All American Institution.

Exactly! One pays the private carriers a price which is related to the cost of providing the service. Since parcel carrying is competitive, the price is not excessive in relation to the cost.

The USPS is pretending to run a business.

ruveyn

All of my "First-Class" correspondence in the last 10 years has been via the Internet. My packages get delivered via one of the package delivery companies (surprise!).

The USPS carrier leaves mostly catalogs, brochures, and other "junk" mail, which usually goes straight into the dumpster for recycling.

They won't hire me, and they seem to be a waste of taxpayer money, so what good is the USPS to me?

It would obviously be hard to make a transition like this from U.S. run to a private sector. For one , the "Government "employees mindset here have much to lose if absorbed into the private. There is that vicissitudinous element of having to compete for your position in a " company" with no guarantee of not being one upped, and outed. And I don't think UPS can compete with government pensions. There would be a fight to hold on to this.

" If I get that governmemt job, I'm in like Flint-- a lifetime job my friend." Teachers, postal, state power and electric utilities,etc.
I think we all, in the private sector, have heard this sentiment in one form or another.

Last edited by Mdyar on 07 Sep 2011, 7:19 am, edited 1 time in total.

I pay my bills using the Snail Mail. I may have to use automatic bill paying at my bank now.

ruveyn

They may struggle at first in handling the sudden influx of snail mail, they would probably get things working again at a rapid pace.

Part of the problems with the postal service is the Public Unions, the workers are not to blame for this fiasco, the union they were forced to join though, bears some of the responsibility.

Civil Service used to be lower pay but secure. Retirement was not as good as private, if you could hold on to a company job long enough to collect.

Now government jobs pay more than the private, have fixed benefit programs and health care. Equality is fine, but it has been declining in the private sector. The Post Office has been cutting workers when they should be cutting pay, benefits, to match the people they serve.

Also, Government is the problem with bulk mail rates set so Capital One can send me a new offer every few days. My route carrier is overloaded with non mail advertising. I do not open or recycle, it goes in the garbage can next to the mail box. Those bulk rates are like tax reductions for the rich, they just put the load on some other part of the system.

DHL did not replace the route carriers, or the Post Offices, they just charge for services. Bulk mail is most of the labor and none of the profit.

Also Post Offices do act as a Passport Office, and in Germany, Social Security, Banking, Motor Vehicles, which reduces other public costs.

Under the English system, Savings Bonds, with a part of the interest going into a pool, where bond numbers are picked, and many small lottery prizes are paid out. It gets people saving, which funds government, and produces a player paid national lottery.

I will take a Postal Money Order, but not Western Union and forget any other. Would it be that hard to cut a deal with Paypal? How about the bank to bank transfer used in Europe? Dealing with Europe was hard, as most did not take Paypal till recently.

The Post Office has offices, people I know, it could offer more services.

I once tried to ship a gas cap made in Austria fifty years ago to Canada via UPS. I gave up, went to the Post Office, no problem. UPS treated it like international cargo, I became an importer and exporter, way too much paperwork. Flat Rate Priority Mail works worldwide. Free boxes!

The Post Office could work, if it was a business. It has been regulated out of the profitable sectors by Congress. They also have some cool stamps.