Comments on: The Post Office — return to sender

By: REDruin

REDruin — Sun, 05 Jun 2011 02:37:45 +0000

Buses travel every day, during summer and weekends too? And they go down roads where there are no children? When did this happen?

==Aelryinth

By: Envelman

Envelman — Sun, 05 Jun 2011 01:25:50 +0000

I am sure this article has raised a few eyebrows especially given the facts that are simply WRONG…

1. The USPS gets no federal funds. It operates from ratepayer provided revenues only.

2. The USPS has NOT asked for a Government Bailout, just a return of money that it has paid in over the years in excess of benefits paid out.

3. The USPS needs to be allowed to manage as a business, to resize itself as needed, to establish operating practices that are cost efficient and to operate to best meet customer needs.

4. The USPS is not insignificant to the US Economy, in fact mail related jobs and revenues represent 7 percent of GDP. It would impact the economy if it ceased to exist.

5. The problems the USPS are only partially due to the economy and technology, more are related to a business model that was created in the 1970s and not relevant to the market of today.

6. It is very difficult to compare the USPS to any other global post. It carries 40 percent of the world’s postal volume and delivers over a very wide geographic area – very few other posts deliver over such a wise area.

7. We certainly need to look “outside the box” at a future design for the USPS but we don’t have to “blow the agency up” in the process. If the tools are developed correctly, if the USPS can continue to retain the right people and if it has flexibility to adapt, it can be here.

8. Carper and Collins and their staff’s get it. They all know it is not a bailout, they have just got to create the tools to enable the enterprise to thrive.

And I am not a postal employee!

By: Reuterster

Reuterster — Fri, 03 Jun 2011 17:14:35 +0000

The issue of rural delivery you mention as being in jeopardy could be resolved if rural areas used the only other transportation that travel our roads every day, everywhere….SCHOOLBUSES! The buses could collect the mail via Blue Post Office Street box mounted near the door inside the front of the bus. Rural schools could be the new location for Pickup and delivery also. The use of PO Boxes at rural schools would provide that service.

By: REDruin

REDruin — Fri, 03 Jun 2011 16:05:37 +0000

The reason the USPS raised its first class rates is simple…it’s the only way it can make money now.
Letter rates were formerly subsidized by large-scale shipping and overnight letters…things that have been taken away by UPS and FedEx, because there’s no monopoly on it.
The USPS has a monopoly on mail because it is the RIGHT of every U.S. citizen to send out a letter for the same price and see it delivered anywhere in the country, all for the same price.

If you dismantle this monopoly, and sell off the business parts, what you will get is the following, and you need only look to Britain and Europe:

1) Multiple postal services that give horrible service, don’t pay postal workers well, give no job security, and have overlapping postal duties that do not get done efficiently.

2) The ‘cream’ areas will be skimmed off, purchased, and run on a ‘local monopoly’ basis, as is done in Britain. These are the areas with high population density, where it is easy to deliver vast amounts of mail, collect the revenue.
Outlying and rural areas that are currently subsidized by the cities will be left to the USPS, which will then lose even more money, as these routes have ALWAYS lost money, but the PS can’t make it up elsewhere.
3) Profit-driven companies have little care for their workers. Look at the European companies and how they’ve increased volumes of mail that have to be delivered, forced longer working hours without increasing pay, etc.

4) Mail will shift to FedEx pricing, which is strictly source to destination. Mailing a letter from Backroads, AR to WhereinthehellamI, AK, could cost $10.

Is the ‘job security’ aspect of the PS overblown? Yeah, probably. But privatizing mail will NOT go well. There’s ample proof all over the world that selling off the mail service doesn’t bode well for anyone outside major cities.

==RED

By: mlcro

mlcro — Thu, 02 Jun 2011 12:00:17 +0000

Rural America would get by without its tiny post offices? Well, yes, small towns would not disappear without the USPS. But what about the jobs and simple fact of sending and receiving mail. Would the private companies even bother with the small town of 1,475 where my relatives live? The last thing rural America needs is another source of jobs and another link to other owns and cities disappearing.

Also, check out Section 8 of the Constitution of the United States. “Congress shall have the power to…Establish Post Offices and Post Roads.” Mandate or possibility, I’m not a lawyer, but the post office is provided for in the highest law of the land.

By: richusker

richusker — Thu, 02 Jun 2011 02:44:09 +0000

I love how people try to overstate their stats by only going back to a date to make them look better. sure stamps are up 13 percent since 2006 but only 18 percent since 2002 which is 2 percent a year far less than inflation. and a 3.5 percent raise over 5 years is less than one percent a year plus employees will have to pay more in health care costs all but erasing this increase.

By: fn04zb

fn04zb — Thu, 02 Jun 2011 01:32:51 +0000

What if you were the CEO of the nations third largest employer? What if your company controled 40% if the worlds mail volume. What if your company had $67 Billion in revenue last year more than Apple and Microsoft combined. What if your company was the backbone of a $1 Trillion year industry that employed 8 million americans and totaled 7% og the nations GDP. What if you were only paid $276,000 a year while your competion paid there CEO’s $10 and $14 Million a year. What if your company was overgharged by Congress $78 Billion dollars in 2003 for pension payments. What if the pentagon and Congress overgharge your company $27 Billion in 2004 for military credits. What if your company was again overcharged by Congress %75 billion in 2010 for Civil Service pensions and $6.9 Billion for FERS pensions. What if in 2006 Congress decided to write a law that your company must turn over $5.5 billion a year to set in a trust fund for “future” employees health beinfets? Note* not employees that are currently working but for employees you may hire in 2050 and retire in 2075. What if Congress made your company fund this amount in less than 10 years. What if your company was the only company in the entire world that has to do that. What if your company was reuired by law to deliver to EVERY address in the nation while your competion could pick and choose. What if your company was required by law to have a retail office in every town in the nation regardless of population while you competion can have just one office in a 50 mile radius. What if your competion, knowing that your company goes to every address had you delivered 40 million of THEIR packages last year and looking at close to 70 million this year. What if you delivered 27% of your competions ground parcels last year. What if your company was unable by law to offer the same services as your competion, like fax service, email notifications, ebill payments, electronic mailboxes and a whole host of other things. What if congress wrote a law that your company can ONLY sell stamps and package products. What if your company lost a total of $20 Billion dollars from 20006 thru 2010 with a total of $21 Billion of that being paid to Congress for the so called “trust fund” payments? What if your company was requied to charge on $.44 to deliver something 3000 miles away only to find out the person moved and your company now has to haul it another 3000 miles for free. What if your company did all these things from money generated from postage sales and not 1 ounze of ANY TAX PAYER MONEY.

The company I have just described is the United States Postal Service.

By: andypost123

andypost123 — Thu, 02 Jun 2011 01:28:22 +0000

I am a frequent user of the Post Office and would be sorry to services degraded. Its’ still is very useful for my business. I really don’t know a lot about its’ finances,however I do know it is not tax payer funded. I guess people can put anything they want out there, true or not. Makes me doubt his entire premise. It truly is shameful.

By: ERAnderson

ERAnderson — Wed, 01 Jun 2011 21:19:33 +0000

Hi Greg. A couple thoughts about the piece below.

Senators Carper and Collins do not have a bill together. Each has their own bill right now. Your text makes it sound as if there is a Carper-Collins bill. The WSJ editorialized with this error too.

The Collins’ bill does not bail out the Postal Service; it fixes a Postal Service overpayment to federal retirement funds that was identified by two independent actuarial studies.

Her bill contains workers’ compensation and contracting reforms that would likely save the Postal Service hundreds of millions of dollars. Currently, more than 2,000 Postal Service employees age 70 or older receive workers’ compensation when they should be in the less expensive regular retirement system. Instead, these individuals, who are never going to be returning to work, are collecting up to 75 percent of their pay tax free. The Postal Service paid more than $1 billion in workers’ comp costs last year demonstrating the need for reforms and better safety practices.

Her bill also cleans up the contracting mess that includes costly, no-bid contracts awarded to employees who retire one day and return to work the next as an expensive contractor.

Feel free to give us a ring next time your are writing on this issue. Thanks so much.

Elizabeth “E.R” Anderson
Press Secretary
Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee
Senator Susan Collins, Ranking Member

By: FantheFlames

FantheFlames — Wed, 01 Jun 2011 18:45:55 +0000

Nice Rant – Feel better.
Perhaps you should read some of the sources you quote.

For example, pensions.

“Every year between now and 2016, he has to put aside over $5 billion to finance health benefits for future employees. You read that right: future employees. There isn’t another business in the country that finances benefits for employees it hasn’t even hired yet.”

Add to that the $75 Billion in overpayments that the Federal Government won’t return.

How about all those post offices. It’s against the law to close a post office for strictly revenue reasons. Yes,against the law. Going to blame the USP for that? Write your congressman.

Oh, and please show us the line item in the Federal Budget where the Tax Payers put money into the Postal Service. You know, where all thaqt bilking is going on.