The Hill:
Postal workers say a congressional plan to fix the budget shortfalls at the United States Postal Service (USPS) is short sighted and have asked the White House to broker a better solution.
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The USPS is modernizing but one of the major issues it faces is the same thing that GM faced until it went through bankruptcy. The liabilities linked to the USPS retirement funds are significant. Many of those benefits go back to the days when postal carriers walked log delivery routes. Just as many of the delivery schedules and work assignments go back to a similar time.
It is interesting to note than some post offices had installed automated postage machines in their lobbies so customers could bypass the clerks. I have seen any of these lately. I guess people were trying to cheat the system so they hand to be taken out. On the other hand, some automation could be used in conjunction with the postal clerks. I see a lot of wasted time as people wander up to the clerk for things that could be handled by automation. And example would be Delivery Confirmation. While you can print the shipping lable including postage and a delivery confirmation bar code on your home printer the only way you can be sure it gets into the USPS computer system is to wait in line and have the clerk scan each individual package.
The post office isn't run by just the govt completely anymore , when they didn't need to show a profit! it is partly privatized...they have been hiring ceo's for many years now to run the post office so they can make a profit, and cutting services and jobs from within but NO postmaster is hired from within They only hire CEO's...With all the NON caring things that went on, that is when they started relentlessly pushing everyone to the breaking point.. (thats when many of the postal workers went ballistic ) as no one cared about the workers anymore...just how fast they could be. ......which wasn't fair....this began as far back as 1979 or so...since privatizing they lost the parcel part of the business....and have been working real hard to ruin any reputation that the post office used to have many many years ago......when anyone actually really cared...................so any help to the PO now is probably like the for bonuses for their ceo's llike at AIG.............I doubt seriously if it is to actually help the business! as if they cared about that they would have competed with UPS or Fed X for the parcel bart of the biz
No post master generals thats funny a friend of mine was just appointed the post master general in our state and he use to be a postal worker. So who is the CEO of the Post Office. Trust me it is government run and will always be government run. Just another lib trashing or trying to trash the private sector.
I think the "lib", as you say, was just trying to support the men and women who work for the post office.
Has Mr.Obama named his own PMG or is Bush's guy still running things?
Gee the government can't run the post office but we are going to trust them with health care. Only in America is incompentency rewarded. Our Government is incompentent I would not trust them to pour water out of a boot with the directions on the heel.
Look at the bang up job we do with the Defense Dept budget
Yes we cut missle defense as NK is shooting missles every where great job there. Look at the bang up job they did with Medicare and Medicade. Government can't run anything and it is proven time and time again. I don't care if they are Democrat or Republican they are both incompetent.
IDEA....Close the Post office...get the government out.....A slew of companies will hire the employees...run them right..and stamps will cost 10 cents,and the companies will show a profit
"... and stamps will cost 10 cents" Don't make me laugh.
Have you sent anything by either Fed Ex or UPS letter service lately? It costs in the area of $10. The service that we get from the USPS for the cost of a first class stamp is a much better ROI than what you would get from a private company. Of course, all those private companies would love to get their hands on delivering the mail. They see big money to be made once they get the USPS off their backs. USPS is the one thing that is holding the rates down on package delivery by private companies.
The best thing the USPS could do is be allowed to adjust the rates upward for all those bulk mailers that they currently service. Most of that costs more money than they make providing the service. The problem is that Congress wants to make sure those companies shoving money into their pockets for campaigns continue to enjoy the cheap bulk rates they get.
It costs me less to mail the same package using UPS or FedEx, than it does using the USPS. It takes me less time to ship it and they have better hours to pick up a package than the USPS.
Where is the peoblem?
Exactly. I'm amazed that it still costs less than fifty cents to deliver any letter door to door - usually overnight!
Maybe it's time that the Feds audit the postal service. They have been raising their rates, with their "cry wolf" rate hikes at seems like 2 times a year since forever, but the service seems to be getting worseand now they're supposed to be "strapped" for cash?
Maybe they're stashing the cash, and crying broke so they can get in on the "bailouts". I say we demand an audit effective immediately, as something is stinkin' in Denmark up the post offices throughout the country.
P.S. I'm still stewin' that I paid for EXPRESS, NEST DAY MAIL, that FINALLY turned up in the back of one of the mail trucks, and delivered 11 days later, and all I got was "stuff happens".... Or all the times I go to the post office, thinking it's only going to take a minute, and end up standing in long, slow lines, with two registers open, and I'm supposed to feel sorry for 'em? Please!!!
take time to read the whole story @ thehill.com , it might help with your comments
Snail mail volumes are going to continue to shrink, and the post office will have to adapt to that fact. They could be getting more of the small package volume, but foolishly have jacked their prices for small packages way, way up over the past six years. Six years ago less than $4 would send a Priority Mail package of 2 lbs or less anywhere in the US. Now that same package can cost two to three times as much depending on destination. Instead of matching UPS' price increases, the Post Office should have aggressively gained share in the only part of their business with growth prospects: Delivering the items people buy online.
There is still time to reverse course and put a big push on to use Priority Mail to take up the slack. The Post Office has a huge cost advantage in delivering small packages because they already have a person going to every address every day. UPS and FedEx have to make special stops to deliver consumer packages.
The USPS had gone into the crisis mode for the last several years and every year the rate for mailing has been increasing. Why had the USPS not put this burden at the foot of the previous administration. Why is it doing this now?
I am getting less mail than ever. Yes, delivery only every other day would work very well. And stop delivering that junk mail for next to nothing,
i agree. deliveries only every other day would work. :)
Monday and Friday delivery would work for me! They would have to pay me for every piece of junk that they are driving around and I don't even bring inside...it goes in the TRASH! I pay my bills online, get my coupons on line and just stopped my newspaper since I read about four a day on line.
Another Union that has outsmarted themselves. Let them finger it out!!!
I hate that junk mail. You know what I do with it. I take the stuff out one junk mailer place it in the envelope of another junk mailer and send it back to different companies.
Lately, I haven't received a lot of junk mail??? I wonder why?
I love that, and probably I should do it too.. Sounds logical to me to stop the crap filling my mail box.
raise the cost of stamps up to one dollar. that will not strap anyone, i don't think. also, it will eliminate all of the junk mail one gets. really, in this day and age, how many are mailing anything anyway? i know tons of people who pay bills via the internet or through their bank's website. my local post office is great, but their customers not so much. they get to the top of the line and are unprepared for whatever it is they came in for. people carry in, let's say a christmas present, and carry it up to the counter not boxed or anything. if they come in with a request to pick up a registered piece of mail, if they don't like the returning address, they walk out without it. just last week someone came in to pick up their vacation mail and didn't have any ID, when it is stated clearly that if you put a hold on your mail, you will need a valid ID to pick it up. just curious, how many things do any of the people here actually "mail" each month? i find it amazing that they can get a piece of mail overnight to local zip codes, and it only costs 44 cents.
A lot of small businesses have to use mail, so that's not the solution because it would strap people. I think you're thinking of just people with small amounts of mail that can be taken care of online.
Sometimes I mail 30-50 envelopes first class a week. Raising to a dollar would more than double my expense!
Getting rid of junk mail is a good idea. And maybe even not delivering everyday, say... eliminate Saturday.
thank you for enlightening me. :)
Good grief, now it's the post office?
IS THERE ANYTHING BUSH-CHENEY DID NOT BREAK?
as my husband would say, they "could ruin a wet dream".
Mine says that too, only he uses a slightly less proper substitute for the word "ruin".
LOL. You are so ignorant. The post office has been killing itself for decades. They had nothing to do with it.
Get an education, Obamabot.
For goodness sakes, raise the price of a first class stamp!!!! Presently it costs 44 cents to send a letter from Maine to California. That is a bargain. OK, so maybe eliminate one day of mail service during the week. One or the other, or both. Just get it done. Why is this a crisis??!! First the Auto Workers fall from the middle class. Are the Postal Workers next?? Seems like Americans are filled with glee to see good paying jobs go down the tubes. Listening to conversation, you would think that American workers are the root cause of all of our economic woes.
No problem, we will be waiting in line at the post office for our auto repairs, banking and medical care. The Feds run everything. The masters of Amtrack should do as well with other aspects of the economy.
I have the solution: Eliminate the post office. Give all postal delivery duties to private companies like FedEx and UPS. We'll get a better quality of delivery, they can hire the former postal employees to help them with the larger amounts of mail and packages they'll need to deliver, and we won't have our tax dollars taken to pay for a bloated, inefficient system.
I'm going to go with no. I thought we knew by now, business is the problem.
Do you have anything besides socialist hippie rhetoric to make your argument?
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First Posted: 07-18-09 03:54 PM | Updated: 08-18-09 05:12 AM