Posted on 08/20/2010 9:49:52 AM PDT by decimon
There must be some mistake. Our Postal Service announced in early August it is hemorrhaging at the rate of $14 billion this year. So disappointing.
On the same day, the New Zealand postal system announced its disappointing results. It will earn profits of only $72 million for 2010. Disappointing because they are down a few million from last year. Did you ever expect to see the words “profits” and “postal system” appear in the same sentence?
If this is not enough to capture your attention, let us do some conversions. The $72 million New Zealand dollars are equal to about $51 million U.S. dollars. And New Zealand’s population is only 4.3 million. Multiply by 72 to reach our population of 310 million.
Multiply the profit of the NZ postal system by 72. Yes, the system will make a profit this year equivalent to $3.7 billion. That is in U.S. dollars.
Wait. The pain intensifies. This is the expected after-tax profit. Last year their postal system paid the equivalent of $1.15 billion in taxes to the New Zealand government (calculated in U.S. dollars).
It also pays hundreds of millions in dividends to its only shareholder — the New Zealand government. That is, the taxpayers.
In its August 5 announcement our postal service predicted it could go broke. It may run out of cash by next year. You may catch a whiff here of the service’s plan to hit up taxpayers for another fix.
Meanwhile, the New Zealand system projected its profits will rise. To $4.3 billion next year. And to over $6 billion the year after. (Calculated in U.S. dollars and multiplied by the population difference of 72.) And yes, mail volume is slowing there. Email is growing there too. Their system faces the same challenges ours does.
(Excerpt) Read more at pajamasmedia.com ...
The USPS unions? Just wondering what role they have played in the bloated cost of running the US Postal Service?
The $72 million New Zealand dollars are equal to about $51 million U.S. dollars.
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The dying US dollar...
Just 10 years ago in 2000, one US dollar was worth 2 NZ dollars...
You could have got that $NZ 72 Million for only $US 36 Million...
I was having a “discussion” with a woman regarding a totally unrelated matter about supporting legislation being proposed by Reps from NY that would mandate insurance companies cover fertility treatments. I maintained the usual conservative viewpoint; gov’t shouldn’t mandate, private company, insurance offers services they can make a profit on, etc. She actually used the example of the USPS insurance covering fertility treatments and if they can do it anyone can! Hello??
That's some fuzzy math there.
New Zealand, meanwhile, will deliver a domestic letter for less than US$0.36! And they will let you go up to 500 grams, about 18 times greater than our one ounce limit to stay within 44 cents.
To be fair, they will charge you more for sending a letter to America (US$ 1.28) than what we charge to send a letter to New Zealand ($0.98). But, again, they allow a thicker and heavier letter.
None of that USPS bull s**t that has 5-6 point of sale machines, but only one person working.
People just don't get it or don't want to. And I wouldn't count on that 'conservative' thing. A lot of people sound like fiscal conservatives until you get to something they want.
Competition makes all the difference.
1. TOO MANY MANAGERS
Back in the 1970s when everyone was in a tizzy about Japan taking over the world, a little fact came out about their productivity that was buried by U.S. media outlets. Japan’s postal service had one person in management for every 34 worker bees. At the same time, the USPS had one manager for every 7 workers. Impossible to make a profit with those ratios.
2. BULK MAIL SUBSIDIES
The companies filling your mail box with all that junk mail are not paying the full cost of their mailings. You subsidize their mailings with your .44 (soon to be .46) stamp.
3. MINORITY MAKE WORK JOBS
Just like most government jobs, minorities were given front of the line privileges for years in hiring for the USPS. Ask anyone with a teenager what happens when you give someone something that they did not, could not, or would not earn themselves.
“...until you get down to something they want.”
You hit it exactly on the head. She wants a baby, can’t afford fertility treatments out of pocket, and thinks someone else should help pay for them. And why not?
The increasing (?) level of selfishness & entitlement is very frustrating.
I used to live there. Only country in the world that i’d prefer living in to the US. Amazing people and amazing scenery.
Back to the article. The post shops in New Zealand all sell other things. You might see a postal center in a book store or a convenience store. They also serve as one stop government shops where you can pay your car registration and other fees. None of them are one trick pony’s like our post shops. All of them use the post as only part of their revenue and they save the government from having to have other offices.
There are also multiple companies in New Zealand that handle mail. You see boxes for DXMail, the regular post office, and a couple other companies in all the big cities and you can easily buy stamps for any of those companies.
Good info. Thanks.
Of course it is very possible that our post office would make money there and theirs would fail here. There is a huge cost difference between sending a letter from Auckland to Wellington or Christchurch and sending one from NYC to LA or Hawaii.
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