Postal Service on verge of going broke, shutting down

Discussion in 'Business & Economics' started by KilljoyKlown, Sep 5, 2011.

  1. KilljoyKlown Whatever Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    6,493
    By STEVEN GREENHOUSE

    updated 9/5/2011 4:52:00 AM ET

    http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/44396682/ns/business-us_business/

    IMO it's about time USPS was restructured. It's to bad that it was allowed to get this bad in the first place.
     
  2. Google AdSense Guest Advertisement



    to hide all adverts.
  3. spidergoat pubic diorama Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    54,036
    Thanks to the Postal Accountability and Enhancement Act of 2006 (A Republican bill).
     
  4. Google AdSense Guest Advertisement



    to hide all adverts.
  5. Me-Ki-Gal Banned Banned

    Messages:
    4,634
    Still beating that drum aye Spidey . Your life is much more than that . I know it must be . You must really hate the bastards .
     
  6. Google AdSense Guest Advertisement



    to hide all adverts.
  7. spidergoat pubic diorama Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    54,036
    Of course. They are killing government agencies in order to be able to claim that government doesn't work.
     
  8. Gustav Banned Banned

    Messages:
    12,575
    i thought email killed the postman
     
  9. Me-Ki-Gal Banned Banned

    Messages:
    4,634
    yeah and who are the guys in the big dark brown delivery trucks . The post office has lots of competition . I wonder if someone who hates has ever heard the expression " Snail Mail "

    The phone companies are having a hella time too I think . So are the news paper companies . Why buy it when you can read it on line for free . Makes no sense ? Them Fucking job killing Republicans. I had no Idea they are responsible for killing jobs like that . Those dirty pigs
     
  10. KilljoyKlown Whatever Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    6,493
    On my topic you can beat that drum any time you like.

    Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!

    But the way the government structured the post office, it had absolutely no flexibility to change with the times. No private company could survive under those conditions.

    IMO the post office needs the best automation and then they need to dump the excess employees and still deliver mail on Saturdays.
     
  11. Orleander OH JOY!!!! Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    25,817
    at work we got tired of postal packages never arriving at our customers. We now send almost everything Fed Ex. Its cheaper and traceable
     
  12. KilljoyKlown Whatever Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    6,493
    When you subscribe to Netflix as I do You notice every single screw up by the post office. They mess up 3 to 4 times a year and it cost me money every time. I average 24 DVD's per month. When the post office messes up I get less than 24 DVD's that month. Netflix does not compensate you when the post office messes up.
     
  13. scheherazade Northern Horse Whisperer Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    3,798
    That many DVD's is likely more than I watch in a year since I returned to the workforce.

    Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!

    While running the home-based business, we rented videos by the week and often only went to town once a week in the winter. That was prior to getting a computer.

    In Canada, we have had five day delivery for as long as I can remember. Mail is delivered 'every business day', as per the following link to Wikipedia on the history of the Canadian Postal Service.

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canada_Post

    Many of our mail outlets are located in other retail locations, so this is another way that our mail service differs from the U.S. experience. My mail is delivered to a community kiosk two miles away, and a more recent upgrade has free-standing mailboxes 1/2 mile from my door. I did not seek a change as it is no inconvenience to me to retain my existing address. The scale of operations regarding the volume of mail and the population serviced are dramatically different, though Canada services a vast and remote geographical region, second to none.

     
  14. KilljoyKlown Whatever Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    6,493
    At least in Canada your postal service is not going broke. The U.S. postal service is forced to operate in a mode that guarantees they will lose money. They can't lay off employees and they can't raise rates more than inflation allows, and that's just one thing on a long list of what's wrong with our postal service.
     
  15. Me-Ki-Gal Banned Banned

    Messages:
    4,634
    it is kind of stupid really . Me as a business instead of raising the price of a letter 1 cent or 2 cent like they did in the 70s and have done ever sense , I would of jump that puppy up a nickle at a time . You might wait longer for inflation to catch up , but back then monopoly was in play. So what? waiting long you still collect 4 more cents a stamp which is need I say percentage above 1 cent or 2 cents . IT was not the money that chap my ass though . It was the odd cents . What the fuck is with 28 cents or 17 cents. To go from 15 cents to 17 cents how ridicules is that ? Just jack the sucker up 5 cents already and make the the fucker 20 cents . What is it now 42 cents ? That fuck should be 50 cents !!! Hells bells even rappers know that . Get down with 50 cents . What ever customers are left will pay it . It is what they know how to do . Every one else already abandoned there ass . Who uses the snail Mail ? You got to ask your self that . Lazy rich old farts if you are still wondering . Raise that puppy up to five bucks then we will be cooking with hydro electric and a little solar .
     
  16. scheherazade Northern Horse Whisperer Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    3,798
    I have no idea of what their fiscal position is.

    They were on strike earlier this year for several weeks in June, which cost Canada Post an estimated $100 million.

    The volume of mail is dropping in Canada also, in response to technology, so there will have to be a restructuring of the service as time goes on, IMO.

    'Going broke' is one way of expediting the restructuring process.
     
  17. nirakar ( i ^ i ) Registered Senior Member

    Messages:
    3,383
    The postal service gets government subsidies but the Postal service subsidizes the rest of the government more than it is subsidized by the government. It is through pension funds that the Postal services subsidizes other branches of government. Some politicians talk about how the postal service is subsidized by the rest of the government without out mentioning how the postal services subsidizes the rest of the government.

    Congress forces the Postal Service to lose money on junk mail because the junk mailers association makes campaign contributions. The Postal service loses money mailing the Wall Street Journal. The Postal service overcharges us on our personal letters, Christmas cards and our bill paying envelopes in order to subsidize junk mail. The problem is we send emails instead of letters and pay our bills on-line and therefore the post office is losing their profitable mail but is still forced by congress to lose money on junk mail.





    Below from http://deadtreeedition.blogspot.com/2010/01/pensions-another-government-rip-off-of.html
    Wednesday, January 20, 2010
    Pensions: Another Government Rip-off of the Postal Service
    "A billion here and a billion there, and pretty soon you're talking real money."
    -- attributed to the late Sen. Everett M. Dirksen

    The U.S. Postal Service isn't a money-losing operation, just a victim of unfair pension accounting by the federal government, a report from USPS's Inspector General indicated today.

    "The current system of funding the Postal Service’s Civil Service Retirement System pension responsibility is inequitable and has resulted in the Postal Service overpaying $75 billion to the pension fund," Inspector General David C. Williams states in the report's introduction.

    "Today, the Postal Service continues to be assigned an unfair share of CSRS liabilities," the report says. "Ending the unfair allocation of CSRS liabilities . . . would put the Postal Service on a sound financial footing."

    The controversy involves people who worked for the Postal Service both before and after 1971, when postal operations were moved out of the federal government into the (theoretically) independent USPS. The government and USPS are supposed to share the cost of the pension liability, but the OIG report objects to the way the government's Office of Personnel Management allocates the costs:

    "As demonstrated in this paper, for employees who worked half of their careers with the United States Post Office Department (USPOD) and half with the USPS, the Postal Service is assigned approximately 70 percent of the cost and the Federal government 30 percent. For an employee who worked 30 years, 20 years before 1971 and 10 years with the USPS, the Postal Service is assigned 50 percent of the cost."
     
    Last edited: Sep 6, 2011
  18. Me-Ki-Gal Banned Banned

    Messages:
    4,634
    that was part of negotiations. There is a business formula a business has to use to absorb that cost. Just like when a company retools . You recover the cost by mark up . The percentage can be small when amortized over many years . Government don't do this cause they know nothing about operating a successful corporation. The formula is simple. I have not cost for a while so I don't remember the formula . I would have to dig out my management books and find it . It was a simple formula of adding cost of x amount of percentage based on the debit to be paid . For a set time until the cost is recouped . The set time was based on the life span of the tooling . So in this case the estimated time the pensions have to be paid
     
  19. X-Man2 We're under no illusions. Registered Senior Member

    Messages:
    403
    I dont know about you guys but probably 75% of my mail is junk mail.How many trees are cut down delivering garbage most people dont read? What a colossal failure.

    I would think at least residential mail could go to 4-5 day delivery.
     
  20. arauca Banned Banned

    Messages:
    4,564
    They can't lay off employee


    This is the main problem ,, Post office is a welfare business Government have to good benefits and that us cistly
     
  21. scheherazade Northern Horse Whisperer Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    3,798
    Carrying a large work force with contractual benefits, but without control of the operating budget (as in cost of fuel for the fleet) or income stream (prices per services charged) does not make a sound business model, IMO.

    From what Nirakar has posted, it sounds as though your postal system is obligated to deliver junk mail cheaply because of campaign contributions made.

    In Canada, the customer can write to the postal corporation and request that only personally addressed mail be put in their box. This eliminates most of the junk mail, but not all, as some mailers have computer address lists and will 'personalize' their junk mail.
     
  22. KilljoyKlown Whatever Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    6,493
    Given what you just said, I have to think fixing the problem won't be easy. What a can of worms a chapter 11 would be. Congress making us proud once again.

    Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!

    If the postal service were structured properly, it wouldn't have any problem providing 6 days a week service at the current mail rates being charged, IMO.
     
  23. joepistole Deacon Blues Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    22,910
    I think the USPS is now facing something similar to what the auto industry faced. And personally, why do we even need a postal service? I think the USPS has been done in by technology. I think the USPS has failed in a big way to utilize technology. And cusomer service seems to be something unknow to the service.

    USPS labor costs are too high as compared with competitors. It is operating the system like we were in the 80's. It has been not on the bleeding edge but on the bleeding tail of technology. I think it really needs to rethink it's role in modern society. If it exists only to push around junk mail, then there really is no need for it from my point of view. I get enough junk. I think the USPS has failed to find a value niche in our society that justifies its cost.

    Why not farm out whatever remains of the USPS to companies like FedEX or UPS? I rarely use the USPS if ever. All it seems to bring me is garbage - advertising junk which I promptly trash.
     
    Last edited: Sep 6, 2011

Share This Page