Posts
![[Most Recent Quotes from www.kitco.com]](http://kitconet.com/charts/metals/gold/t24_au_en_usoz_2.gif)
![[Most Recent Quotes from www.kitco.com]](http://kitconet.com/charts/metals/silver/t24_ag_en_usoz_2.gif)
![[Most Recent USD from www.kitco.com]](http://www.weblinks247.com/indexes/idx24_usd_en_2.gif)
Postal service asks to drop Saturday deliveries
Tuesday, March 02, 2010
USA Today reports that mail carriers may spend their Saturday's home watching college football this fall if their request to ditch weekend delivery is approved by Congress. I don't know about you, but, while I was aware that the Postal Service wasn't exactly killing it bottom-line-wise, it comes as news to me that they too are struggling with "massive debt".
The U.S. Postal Service will move this month toward reducing mail delivery from six days a week to five, a change Postmaster General John Potter has said is critical to reducing its massive debt.Is anyone not borrowing from the Treasury Department these days?Potter said Monday he'll submit a formal request by the end of this month to the Postal Regulatory Commission, which must issue an advisory opinion on any change in mail service that would have national impact.
"We know we're going to have less mail in 2020 than we have today," Potter says. "We can't freeze wages. We can't freeze fuel costs."
Once Potter makes the request, the Postal Regulatory Commission will hold public hearings in Washington and around the USA and seek expert testimony, Commission Chairwoman Ruth Goldway said.
...
The Postal Service has already borrowed $10 billion from the U.S. Treasury. Potter says it expects to borrow another $3 billion this year, leaving it just $2 billion under the $15 billion cap set by Congress.
Wards of the state Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac along with the FDIC, the FHA, and other government agencies are already getting billions from Tim Geithner and the crew at Treasury or they soon will - what's a few billion more for the Post Office?
8 comments:
Mail volume dropped from 203 billion pieces in 2008 to 175 billion pieces in 2009. At the same time, their health care expenses rose a lot. These opposite trends are unsustainable.
Jim Bunning might want them to just fire those people. That way no government money will be spent on them.
I am okay with no Saturday delivery.
Deliver the mail only once per week. Not only fire 90% of letter carriers but close all the postal stations or sub lease them for jails or homeless centers, scrap all the vehicles or make them into low income housing.
Give Jim Bunning a Nobel Prize for sanity.
The post office has had 200+ years to get it right. The are collectively a shame and a pox on the nation.
Impeach MaObama.
How bout if they only deliver the JUNK mail one day a week? Or offer a really sweet discount for P.O. boxes, so they wouldn't have to deliver to as many homes?
Yeah, shut all those post offices, lay-off 90% of those lazy postal employees, deliver mail only once a week, and scrap all those made-in-America delivery vehicles. But whatever you do, don't take away the postal welfare the bulk mailers get. Ok, impeach Obama, but let's put Bush/Cheney and their Cabal in jail first.
Let's see. You're given a monopoly on first class mail. Private citizens almost have to use you for routine package delivery and especially mailing books. The typical stop at a residence 50 feet from the next one yields about $3-4 in revenue, and the $30/hour carrier can do about 100 of these an hour, all day long, 6 days a week. You have massive economies of scale. This is a revenue stream most would kill for. Yet you still lose money.
Based on this and other things like Amtrak, I'm going to suggest not letting these folks run the healthcare industry. It's broken, but this isn't going to make it better.
Without junk mail revenue, USPS would be nowhere. Yet, bulk mail rates remain low while 1st class rates keep going up. Do you see bulk mailers using Fedex, UPS or DHL? Taxpayers are subsidizing the delivery of junk mail to themselves. Without the taxpayer subsidy, the rates on bulk would have to rise thereby curtailing much of the tonnage and the USPS would be forced to reduce the size of its operation.
True but FedEx and UPS have had how many years to get it right? And they are still extremely painful to use. Even if they are marginally profitable their customer service is atrocious. I'm fine with stopping Sat deliveries, but 1 day a week is too infrequent. Maybe 3 days a week might work? Mon-Wed-Fri?
Post a Comment