Only One Michael Moore Was Harmed in the Making of this Column
The United States Post Office has a problem: It’s a dinosaur. And I don’t mean one of those Jurassic Park-style T-Rexes that can run 30 miles an hour. I mean what we used to think of as dinosaurs — huge, lumbering beasts that had to live in deep swamps because their legs couldn’t support their own weight. USPS owns eleventy-billion trucks and employs eleventy-billion union workers, all to deliver a product nobody wants.
Seriously. Everybody loves getting a letter, but hardly anyone sends them anymore. We have email for that, and we use it a lot more than we ever used paper mail. So how does USPS keep all those employees busy? What do they deliver with all those trucks?
Junk mail. Tons and tons and increasing tons of it. They keep the prices low so the junk mailers will mail more and more junk. Because you’ve got to keep the workers unionized and the trucks running.
There’s a lesson here: Lower your prices and see demand increase. How about them apples?
In my living memory, I’ve seen the price of a first-class stamp — the kind you put on one of those letters nobody sends anymore — rise from eight cents all the way up to 46 cents, with the most recent hike coming just last month. That’s keeping almost perfectly with inflation, so it’s not like USPS has been ruthlessly jacking up prices. But in the face of decreased demand, they’ve held prices steady. You and I aren’t accorded the same smart marketing provided to bulk coupon distributors. Instead, the USPS seems ruthlessly determined to force us all into becoming the unwitting middle men in a vast landfill-filling conspiracy.
Obviously then, the next logical step is to cut back on services:
With a $16 billion dollar loss and, at one point last year, down to just four days of available cash, there’s no doubt that something has to be done at the United States Postal Service. That forecase came Wednesday, as the USPS announced it would end Saturday mail delivery beginning in August of 2013.
Hey, if maintaining prices didn’t help boost demand, maybe providing less service will do the trick. There’s just one teensy little problem in this otherwise brilliant scheme — the Post Office doesn’t have the legal authority to stop Saturday deliveries; they need permission from Congress.
In the Age of Obama, of course, I don’t expect a little thing like the law to stand in anybody’s way. If USPS wants to stop working on Saturdays and spend the time instead with underage Dominican hookers, surely it’s no business of the Congress.
What’s weird is the semi-demi-private-public status of the Post Office. On the one hand, it’s a private entity that’s supposed to make a profit (HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA). On the other, it can’t adapt to changing market conditions without first getting approval from Washington.
Now would it shock you to learn that USPS is losing $25,000,000 a day? If you’re a thinking person and not a progressive (but I repeat myself), then of course you’re not surprised. It’s tough enough to keep a business going when you only have to report to a board of directors. But when your “board” features business heavyweights like Hank Johnson and Dick Durbin? Fuggidaboudit.
Three years ago, Washington performed the very neat trick of turning the entire health industry into the Post Office — another semi-demi-public-private monstrosity with all the mobility of Michael Moore, wearing a wetsuit, trapped in quicksand, trying to rescue a box of Krispy Kremes. If you think it’s fun that the Post Office does little more than cover your breakfast table with useless papers, wait until you see your doctor in 2016. And wait and wait and wait.
But it gets better. What ObamaCare is doing to the health industry, Dodd-Frank is busy doing to the banking industry. Welcome to Progressive America, where you’ll die of middle age, standing in line to get an ATM card.
Forward, Comrade — the lady waiting in front of you seems to have passed out.
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image courtesy nadi555 / Shutterstock.com
“…all the mobility of Michael Moore, wearing…”
Ugh. What has been seen cannot be unseen.
Seriously though, why shouldn’t they hold stamp prices steady with inflation? The remaining demand for first-class mail is inelastic–it’s not like I’d send more letters if they knocked 23 cents off the price.
Actually, they’d do better to double the price and improve the service. USPS is doing excellent business in packages–their flat-rate pricing gives them an advantage with small businesses that aren’t going to get a visit from a UPS/FedEx account rep. How about they revamp their tracking system so that it actually, y’know, tracks your package instead of always giving just a “Electronic Shipping Info Received” message. The smaller post offices either have to be directly subsidized or gotten rid of, with the retail services rolled into commercial retail locations (spin it as a “back to our roots” move, back to the days when the general store was also the post office). Of course, there’s lots of other things that could be done, but they’d have to chop through a thicket of union work rules to do it. It’s not even a union problem, per se. UPS is unionized, too. It’s a work-rules problem and a pension problem.
I avoid using USPS for receiving packages whenever possible. First off the lazy gal that used to deliver here could not seem to figure out how to open my gate to deliver the package – instead she dumped it over the fence. I caught her doing this in a downpour once! Her excuse? Well its raining! DUH! No shit! I have a very nice covered front deck only 20′ from the gate. After that incident mail service was more spotty than ever. The neighbors and I were swapping more mail than ever! The rest is a long story but suffice it to say complaints by many of us in the neighborhood to the local postmaster fell on deaf ears. She has been relocated to another route – good for me and my neighbors but not so good for whomever is on her new route unless she’s changed her ways which is doubtful.
It seems the USPS goes out of their way to damage packages as best they can. I seldom get a package shipped via USPS that isn’t caved in – gouged up – or partially or totally crushed. UPS and FedEx do a much better job.
If the USPS went out of business I would hardly miss them. I get billing notifications via email and I pay bills with online banking – what comes in the mail daily is unwanted crap I haven’t asked for and never read. Kind of like the spam trap for my email. A quick glance is all I need before flushing those electrons. For spam snail mail its a bit different – it takes up space in the local landfill. I don’t much care for that.
I get far, far fewer pieces of spam from the USPS than from email. And all that email costs me time to wade through. Plus, it raises the price of my Internet service. And to move all that email spam takes the electricity generated by a pound of coal per megabyte. Breathe deeply, Paleo, and let the smog fill your lungs.
I toss paper junk mail into the recycle bin. Try that with smog sometime.
A USPS troll — I love it!
Please, folks, feel free to feed this one. I’ll pop the corn.
Oh, its so haaaard to click the delete button.
Are you serious?
Or a postal union member?
Open a web browser, thats the little icon you click on when you want to watch porn.
type http://www.google.com into the little text window at the top.
type “spam filter” into the window on that page and click on the “Google Search” button, or if you are feeling really frisky click the “I’m Feeling Lucky” button.
That magic Google fairy will scour the vast repository of human knowledge and show you how to have most of that spam removed for you.
Computers are super-awesome.
So what are ya sayin’ there greenie? Is USPS now usin’ ‘lectric trucks or somethin’ to bring you yer ‘recyclables’in a more ‘enviro-friendly’ way? Dumb@$$.
My packages fare a lot better than your packages. I rarely get a package with a dent in it, and I have been getting a lot of boxes, small and large, this past year.
The USPS can only offer a lower flat rate for packages than do their competitors by loosing $25 million a day.
UPS, FedX, Et al have to actually turn a profit to stay in business.
I say we decouple the USPS entirely from the government.
Close two thirds of all post offices and sell the properties. Sell two thirds of all their equipment and anything else they own. Use the money modernize what is left and FORCE them to compete in the real world or go out of business.
About all of the tax subsidies that have kept this dinosaur afloat all these years. When it goes private, any American Citizen who has paid a net positive income tax over ALL of the last 10 years should be exclusively offered the right to purchase stock at $1.00/share up to a maximum of 1% of the initial public offering of 25 Billion shares. The next group that get’s a shot at purchasing shares are current and former Postal employees who didn’t make the first filter. The next group are the rest of our fellow citizens. Some shares should be set aside for bonuses for turning a real profit, not for showing up every day. The last group that should have access is Wall Street. All groups should be subject to the same constraint of a maximum of 1% ownership. Once all of the stock that the free market wants is purchased, the number of shares each person owns should be normalized so that their total ownership does not rise above 1% of the total outstanding shares such that every persons % ownership remains equivalent with every other share holder.
The same should be done with Amtrak, GM and any other company currently being propped up by the tax payer.
Just my two cents
End the postal monopoly on the delivery of letters (check, bills, Christmas cards) and end its monopoly on customer mailbox access.
Its death will be an evolutionary one with little pain.
You appear to be talking about PO box access – there is no monopoly on mailboxes; there are lots of rental mail box services available, for a very reasonable fee.
I’ve got a better idea: let’s screw their employees.
1: Declare bankruptcy
2: Decertify the union
3: Nuke the pension plan. Make them all pay into Social Security
If that doesn’t get them off their asses, kill their monopoly, and let the private sector destroy them
Interestingly, postal service is one of the few responsibilities of the federal government that is specifically spelled out in the sacred Constitution. Ponder.
I believe you’ve conflated responsibility with power.
Just because the Constitution says they _can_, doesn’t mean they _should_.
Well, they changed the name of it. Does that count as a cost effective improvement?
The price of a McD’s hamburger has gone up in nominal terms over the last 50 years, but down in real terms. This is a common trend in sustaining industries. The post office hasn’t improved its service at anywhere near the same pace due to its faux market environment.
50 years ago Air Mail was a distinct class of service from First Class mail. So today you’re getting speedier delivery for the same price, inflation adjusted.
Try again.
If by speedier delivery, you mean, speedier delivery of stuff I use to light charcoal and pick up after the cat then you are spot on my friend.
“if maintaining prices didn’t help boost demand, maybe providing less service will do the trick”
Who cares about demand? The taxpayers are paying no matter what. They either pay for a money losing USPS, or they’ll pay welfare or disability benefits for the “displaced” USPS workers.
Most govt. employment is paper-pushing make-work to employ constituents so politicians could return to office. At least the postal workers are “doing” something instead of churning out red tapes to entangle the rest of us.
We should let them stop Saturday service. Better, let them deliver once a week, to save gas. Less expenses on gas, less pollution. Big win for taxpayers!
And when the Post Office finally tanks, people will blame “privatization”, naturally.
Most of our mail doesn’t even get to our house. Our community has a gate in front, and a small drive up kiosk for all the mail. The mailman just parks in back of the kiosk, and delivers mail to about 75 boxes. If you get a package, they leave you a little note, and you can stop by the post office to pick it up.
With so much junk mail, our community association has placed a handy trash can right beside the kiosk. Many of my neighbors bother to pick up their mail maybe once a week. I know one neighbor who even brings his shredder from home, plugs it in, and takes care of all his mail right there. Really, the USPS could save a pile of money if they just accumulated all my mail, and delivered it once a week.
I lived for 12 years in what might be called anything from a “manufactured-home community” to a “trailer park.” There was a single bank of mailboxes in a breezeway attached to the manager’s office. In that breezeway lived a cardboard box.
About 5% of the total weight of mail delivered to the mailboxes ever left that breezeway except in a trashcan. And that was in the ’80s to early ’90s, before anybody had email.
That’s about right. Except in our park, the mail room is the former laundromat. Everything else is the same as you’ve described it…..’>…….
I use mail for the few bills that still require it. And for my parents’ 50th anniversary when we sent sent them fifty anniversary cards by mail. And one large exception: at least twice a month (usually four times) I send a Priority Mail Flat Rate envelope. Right now, that’s the most economical option so FedEx and UPS don’t compete in that space. Yet.
The PO just raise the price 45 cents per envelope ( from $5.15) – First Class went up 1 cent. They know the pressure point. I would imagine that soon FedEx and UPS will find that market more lucrative. Prior to the price increase I bought a two year supply of “Forever” PMFR envelopes, which saved me about $50 in postage. At the end of that time, I think the biz model will have changed. Or at least I …. No never..mind.
“Priority Mail Flat Rate envelope. Right now, that’s the most economical option”
Most “economical” for you. Most heavily subsidized by the taxpayers.
NOT the taxpayers; taxes are not involved in the USPS.
And exactly WHO do you think is picking up that $25 million / day loss?
Seriously? I had no idea. Haven’t used a stamp in years.
I still use them…
Something about the “mailing my bills” ritual that keeps my finances in order.
I just dont trust automatic deductions and online stuff for it..
Not the technology, (I buy stuff online all the time) just the forgetfulness…
Its too easy (for me) to just keep moseying through life and never remember if I “did or didnt” pay that bill online last month, or watch my purchasing habits this week because “I just sent the mortgage out”.
I grab my mail on the way inside every day, and if theirs a bill, I open it and write out a check right then and there, and put it all back in the return envelope and put a stamp on it. Habit I got into in The Service.
Just do it and be done with it, before it gets lost or forgotten.
Its a good “I spent THIS much today?!” bell weather for us working schmos earning under six-figures.
“Daddy says, bills get paid the day they come, period”
It drives my wife and son appoplectic-bat-shit-crazy when I do that
before I even take off my coat off.
AND THATS WHY I DO IT
Paying bills by snail mail is like playing Russian roulette with 4 loaded chambers. Credit card companies are (in)famous for sitting on mailed checks until one day after the due date, then cashing them while simultaneously slapping on late fees and jacking up the APR to 30%. Their excuse, of course, is either “lost in the mail” or “slow mail” which, given the USPS’ long history of incompetence, the victims readily accept.
Those shenanigans are impossible with e-payments.
Data point: I’ve paid credit card bills by USPS mail for over 30 years and have never had this happen.
Another datapoint:
I HAVE no credit card balance to pay off, because my “write the check when you first see the bill” for the last 40 years, means I’m 100% Debt Free, besides my mortgage balance…
Car insurance, utility bill, sewer, water, Motor Vehicle go by snailmail the day I get them.
Everything else is from my debit card at the point of sale.
My online purchases are with “visa” logo or Pay Pal, which comes from a bank account set up just FOR online purchases.
I NEVER BUY ANYTHING I cant pay for with CASH ON HAND including CARS and MAJOR APPLIANCES, hotel rooms, rental cars, you name it. No money in the bank to cover it? Then its not purchased, period
Never missed a bill or bounced a check ever in my life.
I remember the price of 1st class mail was 5 cents, and a post card was 4. Early 1960s.
Like the education industry, the USPS has not been forced to comply with Moore’s Law. Twice as fast (or half the price) every 18 months.
The Post Office should open for mail only for two weeks surrounding Mother’s Day and Father’s Day and Christmas only for delivering the cards we’re all obligated to send.
In my opinion, those dratted CARDS are clutter also.
Fercryinoutloud, if you genuinely want to get in touch with Mom and Dad on Mother’s Day, Father’s Day, Christmas, or other festive occasions, and you’re too far away to visit, PICK UP THE TELEPHONE.
Or if Mom and Dad are on the Internet, you can use your webcams, Skype, or whatever other facility, and have a proper conversation.
Paper will never become entirely obsolete, but IMO we are using too much of it.
They should have looked into also not delivering to homes on Mondays since 6 of those in each year are federal holidays (MLK, Presidents Day, Memorial Day, Independence Day, Labor Day, and Columbus Day) and, in some cases, states have additional Monday holidays (e.g. Patriots Day in MA). Saturday might be a day people are actually free to write bills and beat the postman. The solutions offered by #1 and marco73 seem to spin toward preserving and redirecting idle labor into the actual the post office edifice.
Great idea! Mailless Mondays are so frequent they might as well be permanently mailless.
I have a sister who lives where UPS and FedEx don’t deliver; the only way to send anything to her is via the Post Office, or expect her to make a 100-mile roundtrip to pick up from UPS.
A side note on Saturday delivery – small companies that don’t have a lot of cash reserves will be hurt if it goes away. In this economy, a lot of people and companies are stretching out payment to try to improve things for themselves. (Have I got some horror stories about that!)
If one of our customers sends us a check that arrives on Saturday, we can get it into the bank first thing Monday morning, and it will be processed that day (which doesn’t mean the bank will make the money available that quickly, but …).
If we don’t receive the check until Monday, the bank won’t be processing it until Tuesday. That extra day can be very significant in terms of cash flow.
So your sister chooses to live way out in the country and I should help pay for the cost of delivering her mail way out there?
Well, it IS in the Constitution…
Which is why removing this dinosaur might be even harder than Mr. Green thinks.
Um, whut? Congress is authorized by the Constitution “to establish Post Offices and post Roads”. It doesn’t say they have to. It doesn’t say they have to do it everywhere. It doesn’t say they have to charge everybody the same.
So you think you shouldn’t subsidize delivery to somebody living out in the boonies, but you probably still like to eat don’t you? Where do you think cattle, wheat, sunflowers, rape seed, barley on and on are grown? It isn’t in the suburbs. Besides I see you call yourself Over50, do you mean that when every penny you have paid into SS and Medicare have been spent in your benefit you will drop out so you don’t get subsidized. Maybe by a farmer living out in the boonies.
To tell you the truth, I don’t know how far out into the country she lives, or even whether she’s outside town limits. All I know is that she lives in an area that is at least semi-rural, and that UPS and FedEx won’t deliver to addresses in Iron River, Michigan.
I have also been through small communities in Texas, Colorado, Wyoming, and New Mexico that I would not consider to be “in the country” that had post offices but no UPS or FedEx office.
@Wheels; That’s interesting, as the FedEx website lists a drop box and pick-up center at the Kinkos in Iron River. Additionally, Iron River is less than 50 miles from Iron Mountain where I’ve sent and received numerous FedEx packages, and it’s less than 15 miles from Crystal Falls, where I’ve also received and sent FedEx packages. If Crystal Falls, which is slightly more than an intersection of two rural roads and far smaller than Iron River can receive FedEx, I’m hard pressed to understand why they won’t deliver to an accessible Iron River residence…
Maybe they do, now. They didn’t the last time I sent her a Christmas present (my siblings and I agreed a year or so ago to stop sending presents).
My small business takes checks by fax. That will cut several more days off your wait time and it doesn’t really cost anything to get the software. The money can be in your bank the same day it is sent.
People call it checks by fax but they are usually scanned and sent via e-mail.
Speaking of dinosaurs…
…If you want to see real “efficiency” in action, the City of Tulsa charges a $2.00 fee for each online payment transaction. I’ll continue to use the 46¢ stamp out of principle and to help out my nice postman.
It’s a real paradox we’ve got here in town. A few rich “progressives” calling the shots in one of America’s most conservative cities.
Of course, it’s the same group that even calls itself ‘progressive’ that recently implemented the new “green” trash service after 94% of its citizens rated the old system good or excellent and didn’t want to change, including about a substantial increase in price, once a week service instead of twice, spending $15,000,000 for new trash cans that won’t fit through most backyard fences and the elderly and infirm can’t handle, and somehow in their old underfunded system finding a few mill to send brochures to each household explaining the wonderful features of the new service few wanted.
The biggest abuse of unelected power I’ve ever witnessed. And the people just grumbled.
If your so conservative, why do you keep electing progressives who thwart the will of the people?
Simple…
Anyone even MILDLY interested in “running for office” tends to be an a**hole busy-body with an axe to grind…most of the rest of us dont have the time or inclination to be part of something like that. We might shoot one of those obnoxious jerks if we had to “work” with them, so we avoid everything to do with “local government” like plague.
So it severly limits the “pool of personalities” you’ll ever have to choose from, no matter who you vote for.
Basically, anyone in a sport coat with a clipboard and brochure introducing themself to you, is up to no good.
Thats what pitchforks are for.
I said UNELECTED. They’ve got the money, all that I know personally are millionaires, and they buy influence from mayors and City Council to sit on the boards – they are paid no fee. I believe this more than demonstrates many people who call themselves conservative are anything but, much as many who call themselves Christian are anything but Christian.
I’ll leave it to you to decide the powerbroker motives – and I wouldn’t put kickbacks past them as part of it, but the citizenry I would call apathetic, gutless, and too ignorant to fight back or unwilling, believing they are powerless to stop it.
Oh, OK…UN elected..gotcha..
Sound like the “Historic Architectural Review Board” in my town (our home is from circa 1750).
Retired Professors and Socialites that entertain themselves now by dissecting your home repair and maintenance projects…and get insulted when you don’t bring one of their “friends” on as a “consultant” (paid of course) to “present your plan” to them, complete with a slide show/powerpoint presentation, architectural models and material samples.
Heaven HELP you if you propose to replace a storm door or light fixture YOURSELF…
“You dirty little blue-collar type of man, how DARE you”, says Mrs. Howel
Of course these are the SAME people who grant zoning variances for every High Density Toll Brothers Development that goes like stripes with plaid in our Historic Borough, and are bending over backwards to accommodate an otherwise illegal 5 story PARKING GARAGE to go up next to a church built in 1685, because of the “revenue” they’ll get to play with.
Loyal, guilty white Liberals with Obama signs in THEIR yards, every last one of them.
OKC does the same thing, charging an extra fee to pay a bill owed to them. That fee is negated if you use online banking. You’re still paying your bill electronically, plus you have the added bonus of know that the company/city you’re dealing with doesn’t have direct accesss to your checking/savings/debit account.
Labor is 80% of the Postal Service’s expenses, compared to 53% at UPS and 32% at FedEx, according to the New York Times.
Read more: http://articles.businessinsider.com/2011-09-06/strategy/30129383_1_fedex-postal-service-usps#ixzz2K9gelHaw
Later this article had to be corrected as false because the USPS delivers 6 days a week. Oh boy, OK. So if the USPS goes to 5 days a week labor will go to what……Try 79%…..the unions aren’t going to give up anything.
BTW I used the USPS for years in publishing with several time dated magazines and generally never had big issues as long as I stayed plugged into the system, just as you would with any vendor. I have never bought into the inefficiencies, but certainly understand why they can no longer compete. I also understand why I sold my last targeted regional publishing company in 2004. Everything is quite clear in the publishing world if you just look around. I retired last year after a 40 year run in print media. I love the net, but I’m not interested in re-learning my career as it looks now. Good luck, I hope they hash it out, but if Dick Durbin has his fingers in it I can’t imagine the smell of the end result unless you are a progressive then it smells like roses.
“So if the USPS goes to 5 days…the unions aren’t going to give up anything”
Yeah they are.
Overtime.
How much of their labor hours happen at “time and a half?”
Probably a WHOLE LOT MORE than any other (smartly run) industry, thats for sure.
Any correlation between the rate of the cost increase of first class mail and the rate of cost increase of college tuition?
Many years ago, while working for the US Government, I learned a strange and–to me–inexplicable truth: the normal rules simple do not apply to the Postal Service. When the entire federal workforce got a 2% cost of living increase, we learned that the Postal Service got an automatic doubling of that rate. Huh? Marines and Navy SEALS and FBI and DEA agents could make do with 2%, but the nasty lady who sold me my stamps got twice that because…well, just because? That is when I figured out that we were doomed.
Greetings:
Back when Mission Statements became a managerial rage, I came up with my Universal Mission Statement in order to prevent my having to attend any more Mission Statement management seminars. It went like thus: Our Mission is to provide quality goods and services on a timely basis at prices that our customers perceive as a value and that allow for continuing operations.
In that light, my approach to the Postal Service’s problems would be to end not only Saturday delivery, but also deliveries on Tuesdays and Thursdays.
The mail that comes to my residence is mostly invoices (bills), magazines, and direct (advertising) mail. None of it requires same day or even next day action. So, in my opinion, the Postal Service has worked itself into a position in which it it delivering more service than is rationally required and at prices that do not allow for the above “continuing operations”. Its customers may indeed see this as “a value”. I see it as both “a value” and a “get-over”.
But in the historical way that it takes a committee to redesign a horse into a camel, the Postal Service has preferred to kick the can around and around while ignoring all the information available about its inexorable market decline. My advice would be to cut deeply, not just the marginal Saturday bit, and then hope to develop some new services and revenue sources in the future.
The Empire, as it stands, can no longer be defended.
Or, put one set of routes on a Monday-Wednesday-Friday delivery cycle, and another on Tuesday-Thursday-Saturday. Much more efficient, although it would mean the end of next-day delivery.
Anyone else remember those “Postal Notes” commercials in the ’90s with the late, great George C. Scott?
I seem to recall him asking, Did you know that the Postal Service doesn’t receive one dime of taxpayer money?
Always thought this was one of those statements that, when couched in just the right terms, would be technically true as far as it goes, but complete bullshit in any common-sense interpretation.
– wonderful Federal Express commercial — which FedEx was forced to pull — showing the union postal shits ignoring the lines and pulling the closed shades at their windows will discussing their huge pensions. Key line, “It’s a nice bit of change, don’t cha know?!”
I once heard from a senior Post Office lawyer that it used to be cheaper to mail bricks to Alaska than by normal frieght. Clearly, costs have never been a big concern of the Post Office. Service is better in rural areas because of pay. When the snow plow on our state highway destroys our mailbox, the Post Office graciously keeps our mail for us until we can get around to fixing the mailbox. The US mail service is actually better than the Aussie service, which doesn’t pick up letters @ the box. And UPS and other private carriers do use the Post Office to for the last leg of rural deliveries. We are a big country.
But monopoly is monopoly and rarely very efficient. But Congress could force the Post Office to be more efficient or disappear. The Monetary Control Act of 1980 forced the Federal Reserve to be more efficient in it’s provision of payment services. Virtually all of the Federal Reserves check processing plants disappeared a few years back. Physical checks were replaced by check images. Email is clearly performing the same function as old fashioned first class letters. It is just an electronic image of a lettre. And there is no reason junk mail can’t disappear and be replaced by an image as well. The only way we can truly improve our standard of living is by discarding the things we no longer need. Change is rarely easy but it is required.
I don’t know about mailing bricks to Alaska, but it certainly applied between Salt Lake City and Vernal, Utah.
Maybe its a Craptatstic entity on the east coast but I get great service and better pricing on everything from USPS compared to UPS or FedEx. BTW, if the feds would not have made them pay so much up front for their pension system instead of the way They pay for it (never) USPS would not be in such bad shape.Sorry to burst he bubble here gang but maybe its more an entrenched east coast attitude and not the whole entity.Feel free to piss all over this,I know you all wanna.
I agree with you completely, Rich K. I sell books by mail, and neither UPS nor Fed-Ex can come close to matching the Postal Service’s prices. Meanwhile, the quality of service has been outstanding. I’ve sold nearly 4,000 books by mail, and only two have been lost (or, at least, that’s what the buyers claimed).
As you noted, USPS’ fiscal crisis stems from Congress’ demands that the service fully fund its pension system — an obligation NO OTHER ENTITY, public or private faces. Worst of all, I believe USPS must fund its pension obligations 40 years into the future, which means Congress is making it pay for the pensions of workers who haven’t even been hired yet.
In essence, Congress is doing all it can do to sabotage the mail system.
While I loathe big government, the Founding Fathers themselves realized the importance of mail service to the nation. If the Postal Service goes belly up, the cost of sending letters (via APO/FPOs)to our brave men and women overseas in the military surely will go from 46 cents to $10 apiece if one of the private operators takes over the system.
It’s a bit confusing though.
On the one hand, retail is dying because everyone orders just about everything but food online. And food is probably going to happen.
On the other hand, the USPS can’t make any money delivering stuff, even though they usually cost less than FedEX or UPS
I am going to follow behind Rich K with some more inconvenient discussion. I tend to chafe at all things government run or controlled and the post office certainly fits with that. That said, like Defense the post office is called out in the constitution as an enumerated power in Article 1 Section 8 as applies to the powers of congress – “To establish Post Offices and post Roads”. Now the argument can begin as to how far the government goes with this, the have already “privatized” them. Can they also move to have them contracted out? What are their responsibilities as to service to the people including those in remote and inaccessible locations? As opposed to most of the crap and overreach of authority inherent in our government, they actually have some type of responsibility here.
I once went to my local post office and asked if I could fill out a form telling the mailman not to deliver junk mail to my mailbox anymore. The postal clerk said there was no such form. I asked to speak to the station supervisor, who turned out to be an African American woman with attitude. She told me it was against law for the mailman not to put junk mail in my box. I told her that was ridiculous. She smugly handed me a complaint form and walked away.
The worst part is I suspect she was right. The law does require the post office to deliver junk mail whether the homeowner wants it or not.
And that reminds of a complaint I have about the movies. When people get mail in the movies they always get half a dozen pieces of first class mail. You never see anyone on TV trying to look through all the folded pages of advertisements trying to see if there is a piece of real mail lost in there.
Junk mail is a catch -22 for the post office….
THEY didnt adress it to you, someone else did…
And do you REALLY want someone else (espcially the GOVERNMENT?) deciding which things addressed to you’ll get, and which they’ll toss in a dumpster without telling you?
USPS doesn’t deliver to my house, or any of the houses on my road. We all have PO boxes and drive the three miles to pick up our mail whenever we feel like it (in my case, generally magazines and two bills that aren’t paid electronically). FedEx and UPS however, will drive right up and deliver a package to my door.
Further, I can order ammunition, which USPS will not touch, and the white or brown trucks will bring it to my door. Same with lithium batteries and a host of other stuff that the post office not only won’t take but will sic the Feds on you if you try.
Further, every year or so the main post office floats the idea of closing the branch near me, which would mean a twenty mile drive to our PO boxes. I figure eventually it will happen and USPS will become even more irrelevant to me. At that point it could close down entirely and I probably wouldn’t notice for a while, until it occurred to me that I hadn’t seen an issue of FineScale Modeler in a while.
Which merely points out another of life’s little absurdities: you can rent a post office box (the last time I did it was $70/year, must be more than that now), take time out of your day, spend money on gas to drive to and from the Post Office which may or may not be open; OR you can set up a mailbox along the route and they will bring it to you for nothing. Sounds like a great business model to me.
Even more absurd, the local Post Office cannot deliver local mail without first sending it to the processing center 30 miles (soon to be 75) away. So if I have a stamped envelope that is addressed to a P O Box which is literally fifteen feet away from the guy I hand it to, it will be delivered tomorrow after being sent on its roundtrip to the processing center. Add that to the business model.
If you have a Kindle Fire, you can get FineScale Modeler delivered to your device for $3.33 a month.
The USPS is becoming irrelevant even for magazines.
While I’m in substantial agreement with the vast majority preceding this; the fact remains that it would require a Constitutional Amendment to entirely do away with the Postal Service.
It could be trimmed down to a factual insignificance through mere legislation though. Limit it’s mission to First Class and Parcel Only. Charge a buck per envelope, more for larger. Eliminate bulk, entirely.
But, as the Mail is in the Constitution itself, we’re stuck with some semblance thereof, for the foreseeable future.
Jim
Sunk New Dawn
Galveston, TX
Well, no. Just because Congress has the constitutional power to do something doesn’t mean they have to exercise the power. You don’t see them gaveled into session every day to issue letters of marque and reprisal.
Your implication that postage rates for people’s bill payments and letters have gone up but not those for commercial direct mailings isn’t true. Our company does small bulk mailings for clients who are religious day schools, and we’ve seen t postage costs go up over the years – even the discounted nonprofit rate.
By the way, while you may not like junk mail, the mailers do a chunk of the postal service’s work for them – bar-coding, route-sorting and bundling the mailing pieces, for example – and the discounted rates help pay for the cost of doing that.
You’ll forgive me if I’m not exactly relieved that the senders of things I do not want help defray the costs of things I do not receive.
The main error is in thinking that the mission of the USPS is to deliver mail. That’s its secondary mission. Its primary mission – as is obvious when you read postal regulations regarding the priority of a postal workers time – is to process disability pension applications. Postal workers are guaranteed a set number of hours during their workday to work on their workers comp and disability applications. Of which, there seems to be one for each “worker”.
I think Stephen seriously underestimates the energy that Michael Moore could summon in an effort to save a bag of Krispy Kremes, but other than that, spot on. No kidding, don’t get between Chuck Schumer and a microphone or Michael Moore and a bag of Krispy Kremes.
I’ll defend the post office. It delivers a huge amount of mail, of which junk is only a part. UPS or Fedex could not do the same for close to the same price–have you seen how much they charge for a single envelope? At one point Fedex was extremely competitive on price for small, heavy packages. No more. In the past when I sold things on eBay, over half the time Fedex was much cheaper. For at least the past five years, that isn’t the case–the USPS has fixed rate boxes which are very convenient.
At my current location, Fedex delivery sucks. UPS is great (the only place I’ve lived where that’s true) and USPS is simply fantastic. The USPS workers are friendly, professional and very hard working. My local post office is one of the busiest I’ve seen. If you stop there after 4:30, there is a steady stream of local business customers dropping off bins of packages.
Claiming that you get only junk mail is being quite disingenuous. Everyone gets quite a bit more legitimate mail through USPS that they often claim. Without the USPS, how would you get this mail? If you think Fedex or UPS would deliver it, you’re delusional–their model is centered on high margin shipping, not marginal shipping, and they aren’t set up to do that many deliveries in a day.
Yes, the post office has room for improvement, especially with labor costs. Getting rid of Saturday deliveries is one way to help do this. Advocating getting rid of the USPS entirely is idiocy.
I can speak only for myself, but the majority of mail I get is advertisements. I’m a Netflix customer and originally I got DVD’s only. Then, they established their on-line service and have expanded it. I expect them eventually to either abolish mailing of DVD’s or raise the price of that service–which, like the USPS raising rates and then reducing service, is a vicious circle. Netflix and competitors will eventually be all on-line and postal service will eventually become what personal mail and long distance service originally were, luxury items.
In Australia we privatized almost all the post office branch years ago, system works well, no unionized work force, the guy serving you owns the place or is standing next to the guy that does. Works so well that there are calls every few years to privatize the rest.
Aside from sponsoring Lance Armstrong’s cycling team and a NASCAR race car, two things they shouldn’t have done at all, here’s an example of how upside down things are at the Post Office: If you want a box at the Post Office, they charge an annual fee, but if you want home delivery – that’s free. Although I don’t have a PO Box now, when I did, I had the smallest one and it was $5/month, certainly a modest amount. And yet, when I closed it and had my mail forwarded to my home, voila! No more fee and all I have to do now is walk 60 feet to my home mailbox and get my mail. Now, I’m no genius, but isn’t that backwards from what they should be doing? What they should be doing is providing, for free, anyone who wants a box at the Post Office. Then, if you want your mail actually brought to your home, then a modest fee could be imposed. For the infirm, elderly & disabled who can’t get to the post office, fee waivers could be given (How many Obamacare waivers have been given to date?) and those folks can still have home delivery for free. And yes, I also realize that amounts to charging for mail delivery on both ends, once for sending and once for delivering, but keep in mind that if you have an account with them, cell phone companies, water utilities & cable companies charge monthly fees whether you use their services or not.
And yes, I also know the unions would fight this idea tooth and nail b/c it would improve efficiency.
Congress can shut down the USPS tomorrow with no constitutional repercussions. Congress is granted the power to establish post offices and roads; it is not saddled with the obligation to do so.
You know what killed the USPS? The “green” fad. Try to save the Postal Service, and you’ll make a polar bear cry!
I’m kidding, obviously–I receive and pay bills on-line because it is cheaper, quicker, and easier, not to “save the planet”…but companies who urge me to go paperless do so by invoking the trees saved by such a move, even though their real reason for preferring e-statements and e-billing is convenience and efficiency, not environmental awareness.
Couching their preference for on-line transactions in eco-babble does insulate companies from the wrath of the federal government and postal union though, doesn’t it?
” Instead, the USPS seems ruthlessly determined to force us all into becoming the unwitting middle men in a vast landfill-filling conspiracy.” Brilliant! Best choice of words I’ve seen in a while.
This model of raising prices while reducing service will not work.
My carrier does not pick up mail from the box- the way I was used to for- what – 35 years of my life?
So- I now pay ALL my bills online- instead of half. I also am considering ditching Netflix mail (since they won’t pick up I need to mail from a box- which I often forget- so basically Netflix value has fallen) for Amazon prime or maybe Roku/internet service.
See the viscous cycle?
oh- I forgot about the post offices. Too many of them. Close half to 75% of them. Allow a private firm to take boxes if needed. Forget about the stupid regs with weight put in for the Unibomber.
Sell the property- which is often prime real estate. Use THAT to pay for pensions.
I have two post offices within about a mile and a half of each other- close one. UPS serves my major city with two distribution centers- not 300.
Hasn’t Congress required them to keep their pension fund fully funded for 75 years into the future? That’s a ridiculous requirement, and I believe the Post Office would be on much more solid ground if that was reduced to say 40 years, just to pick a number out of a hat.
On the other hand, if the Post Office didn’t have what I believe to be legal theft and a monopoly on other peoples’ property (I buy a mailbox, put it up myself, and all of the sudden it belongs to the Post Office and I can’t allow another business to use what I purchased and put on my property?), then they wouldn’t be able to compete. Allow licensed delivery services to use mailboxes, and UPS and FedEx and others will destroy the USPS.
The USPS’ paid trolls love to scream about that prefunding stuff, but it’s really irrelevant once you do the math.
Last year’s USPS loss: $16B
Last year’s prefunding: $5.5B
Last year’s loss with zero prefunding: $10.5B
And they manage to gush that much red ink despite having a tax-free monopoly!
Are you listening, FedEx and UPS? Will you make an offer to take it over? We lose to the Socialists whenever we let them struggle on blowing our money. An offer from either of these firms would at least put the USPS, and it’s not-always-most-efficient workers AND MANAGEMENT on notice.
Between the federal gov’t and junk mailers sucking up all one’s valuable time sorting through all this crap, what’s a person to do?
Simple.
First note that a lot of that stuff has your name and other info already filled in for the convenience of both yourself, and identity theives. I know people who had stuff stolen out of their mailbox, and used to buy stuff in their name. (Bulk mailers and credit card companies are helping you be vulnerable to identity theft. Appropriate response is called for here,)
Next, tear away all info which identifies you, including suspicious barcodes and claim numbers etc
Take remainder of undesired material, and insert into the return envelope which they have thoughtfully provided you. Optionally, insert other unwanted items you have laying around your desk/house/neighborhood.
Seal envelope, put in mailbox. A duly authorized agent of the federal govt will be by to remove unwanted materials.
On a grand scale, this would become a solid waste management program, and might create enough revenue to keep usps alive.
Delightfully vicious, but not harmful to anyone who doesn’t deserve it.