Posted on 02/08/2013 1:22:31 PM PST by Ouchthatonehurt
You know that feeling of pleasure you get when you see someone stand up to a bullying, incompetent boss? It’s viscerally satisfying, isn’t it?
That’s the way I felt this morning when I heard Postmaster General Patrick Donahue announce that the U.S. Postal Service intended to move forward with a plan to stop Saturday delivery of mail, effective sometime in August. In doing so, Donahue stuck his thumb in the eye of the U.S. Congress, the mail agency’s ultimate boss. Bravo, Mr. Donahue.
You may think I have incorrectly identified the incompetent party here. After all, it’s a deeply ingrained part of Americans’ worldview that our postal service is the epitome of inefficiency and bad management, the perfect example of a bungling, poorly run government bureaucracy. That view gets reinforced from all kinds of sources – jaded journalists, editorial cartoonists given more to clichés than to cleverness, free-market economists, and others.
(Excerpt) Read more at salon.com ...
Congress? how about unions.
“......That view gets reinforced from all kinds of sources – jaded journalists, editorial cartoonists given more to clichés than to cleverness, free-market economists, and others.............”
He forgot EXPERIENCE of the consumer I believe.
Gist: Eevil Congress forced the USPS to fund its unfunded liabilities. If only USPS could have followed the deficit spending model of the US Government, everything would be Okay.
Gist: Eevil Congress forced the USPS to fund its unfunded liabilities. If only USPS could have followed the deficit spending model of the US Government, everything would be Okay.
First class mail volume is down 40%.
While congress and unions are big contributors, that decline would probably have happened even if stamps were 20 cents.
Technological change grinds on.
BS. The decline in mail volume is forcing USPS to consolidate its operations is all. The shift of commercial mail from 3rd class to online media has been particularly damaging because that was traditionally one of the most profitable services.
Horse Puhtooties.
The unions have demanded keeping rural offices open and are completely against reducing the days of use or elimination of offices to pare operating expenses.
Further, the unions extort the taxpayer for their retirement package, of which, they pay little to nothing toward and will continue ue to receive lavish insurance throughout their retirement.
The post office is run life some idiot and anachronistic oligarchy whose sole premise is old age or rather, retirement patronage. Gratis from the taxpayer.
Sorry PO people...
When they knew they were in a deficit (when weren’t they?) they continued to spend millions to advertise entities like Lance Armstrong, sponsored a NASCAR car, advertised in prime time etc...
Everybody knows WHO the Post Office is, there really isn’t any need to advertise to drum up business...
If they feel the need to advertise, send EVERYONE A LETTER.
Oh, that is right, if they were to deliver a letter to everyone, many might end up being on Newman’s route.
While at it, I would ask why the Navy, Marines, Army, Air Force find it necessary to advertise say during the Super Bowl.
Of course, the stock answer is “We have money set aside in OUR budget” for advertisements....
Maybe so, but YOUR budget is OUR money.
In my way of thinking, the dumber the ad the least likely I am to purchase the product. I wouldn’t buy an insurance policy from GEICO or Progressive because of their stupid advertisements.
And with MOST advertisements geared down to the 4-8 year old, if I haven’t already been buying the product I wouldn’t start now AND you may even ‘force’ me to your competitor if you stooped low enough.
Olympia Snow and her crowd came up with this idea that they could tap into the USPS for several billiion dollars every year to reduce the deficit ~ and that nobody would notice!
The $5.4 billion payment each year for 10 years is to fund health care insurance for postal retirees 75 years in the future. NO ONE DOES THAT ~ not or private companies, not for government agencies.
We got rid of Olympia the RINO ~ now to remove the disasters she left behind.
You really blew it on that one ~ it’s members of the US Senate who demand the small unneeded rural post offices be kept open. True enough the postmasters have an association which looks remarkably like a union, but it’s not really a union.
What I find just plain unbelievably stupid is the plan to stop Saturday mail. Wednesday is the logical way to go. Of course that would mean working weekends with split days off.
Why make a business decision based on ..... business?
All postal revenues are derived from postage payment, not your precious taxpayers ~ the deal here is that the customers pay ~ a remarkably simple concept some people just can't get through their heads.
Can you show us a historical graph of number of employees vs. volume of first class mail?
I laughed at him ~ told him NOBODY had gotten Sunday delivery because God wouldn't allow it, and if I were him I"d stay away from thunderbolts in the future.
That made it to the chairman of the board of governors, and they all had a good laugh.
Actually the guy had been getting Sunday delivery from the old Post Ofice Department ~ but USPS didn't offer that service.
That's an aggregate 700% productivity improvement! The price of a first class stamp (for one ounce or less) adjusted for inflation is about the same now as it was then.
You make it sound like the USPS is worth something. Let’s sell it off in pieces to FEDEX, UPS and whoever will bid. The real estate alone postoffices in high value locations should bring in many billions.
Obama wants more revenue. Let’s give it to him.
We’ve been over this before. Even if they didn’t pay the pension obligations, the USPS still lost BILLIONS last year.
Shut ‘er down, Scotty, she’s a-pumpin’ mud!
Not true. The USPS borrows money from the taxpayers. Also, you keep talking about the pension payments, but I read an article a month ago that said the USPS failed to make the most recent payment. So, you are carping about a payment that they missed?
So another personal example of these USPS losers, I order a $400 item, delivered by the USPS, but rather than bring it up my driveway to me, there rubber-band it to my mailbox at the end of the driveway. Brilliant.
Why, I think that reducing service, raising rates, begging taxpayer money and blaming everyone else is always a good way to get the public on your side.
Rubber band? You got lucky! I’ve had two boxes in the last two months jammed into the mailbox to the extent that I thought I was going to have get the Jaws of Life to pry the mailbox apart enough to extract the boxes. Fortunately, the items in the boxes were well packed and despite the damage to the boxes from semi-extreme extraction menthods, what was inside was ok. The mail carriers will do just about anything not to get out of their trucks and come to the door with anything.
Haha, you are right, I recall that happening here, too.
Yep, USPS is another one of their hosts and soon to be among their casualties.
The $5.4 billion payment is one of a number. They finally ran out of money.
I am tired of subsidizing the taxpayers!
Really? Thought they were paid like my local union employees.
A cop starting out in San Jose has a base salary and the tax payer contributes 100%. Or $38k + per year towand their retirement. same with fire fighters, librarians earning $200k in base salary and IT guys earning $80k base per year.
Si it’s completely different fir USPS?
Really ??? You seem passed at me for some reason. I’ve got two friends who are USPS. They are members of my lodge. I don’t have contact with them until next week but, I will ask them.
It’s my understanding they do belong to a union. It’s called something or other
The small rural post offices are nothing the big city APWU/NALC (bargaining unit) want to have kept in business ~ you are looking for NAPUS and National League of Postmasters. They have a right to consult with management, but are not unions ~
http://www.postmasters.org/ ~ you’ll find that the International Socialists are in league with this group to keep open useless small post offices ~ (note Bernie Sanders in the text). We want to close these guys down ~ 28,000 of them haven’t served a purpose since the 1920s.
http://www.postmasters.org/ ~ you’ll find that the International Socialists are in league with this group to keep open useless small post offices ~ (note Bernie Sanders in the text). We want to close these guys down ~ 28,000 of them haven’t served a purpose since the 1920s.
APWU has over 300k in members ...
Seems like there are at least 7 national unions and more than 50 local or regional.
Gotta go. Dinner time.
The big dogs are NALC and APWU ~ but they don’t work at those small post offices.
Ultimately postal retirees are paid an annuity by Office of Personnel Management (a us gub'mnt agency) but the employees and the USPS have paid funds into that system. This is done on an actuarially sound basis ~ no expectation of 8% returns like those police department local retirements assume ~
There's a HUGE fund that's built up from postal contributions ~ it's worth hundreds of billions of dollars. The US gub'mnt has borrowed it ~ to get around the debt limit!
Postal employees and retirees are currently subsidizing the US Government ~
Your mail-piece count is correct, but in 1969 there were almost 1 million employees. It's about 350,000 now.
Nonsense -- even posted twice, it's nonsense.
The USPS wasn't "forced to fund its unfunded liabilities", it was forced to fund nonexistent, potential, future liabilities. I'm sorry to say it was a Republican Congress that ordered it.
No other government branch was required to do the same. Why was that?
Folks regularly sat around drawing up enormously impressive charts showing the date when the POST OFFICE DEPARTMENT would employ every man, woman and child in the country!
There was a strike in 1969. The Postal Reorganization Act was passed in 1970. The USPS began in 1971.
It's really important to keep these dates straight. The first date I gave you was in 1966. It came from a major management presentation made available for review on June 11, 1966.
Mail began taking off as an advertising vehicle and using the old manual distribution systems and antiquated rules the POD was hiring people right and left to get it handled and delivered.
Along the way in that period the old national hub office at Chicago literally broke down and they couldn't even get the mail into the building. Tractor trailers were lined up for miles all over the Chicago region waiting for dock time at the main post office. Then there was the strike. Congress reeled under the weight of the customer complaints ~ many of them complained that they had no time or anything else ~ they begged Richard M. Nixon to save them!
I truly do -- and did -- understand the difference between 1966 and 1969. The fact remains that the Post Office employed some 960,000 in 1969.
My point was that the Post Office has severly reduced its workforce.
“Severly” is often spelled “severely”. Cheers.
Yes, the workforce is down ~ i had something to do with that. put me in charge of USPS for 2 years ~ on a special consulting contract ~ they don't pay enough for me to show up otherwise ~ and i'd top off a 1000% productivity improvement while speeding up average origin to destination times.
Seems a lot of my perceptions are from my childhood and 40 years outdated.
Found a good report that details their funded(self) is from revenues.
I’ll read this later. stepping into a movie.
No, it seems like YOU missed a lot of things.
The USPS does borrow money from the taxpayers: http://money.cnn.com/2013/02/06/news/economy/postal-service-cuts/index.html
They also lost $16B last year. The last time you claimed that the USPS was solvent, I did the math for you and posted the loss in 2012, EXCLUDING pension payments. You may go look it up in that thread if you are still hazy on these points.
As a taxpayer, I am tired of subsidizing a bunch of lazy union USPS employees who enjoy an anticompetitive monopoly on First Class mail. Break up the USPS for scrap and sell it off, or failing that, terminate the taxpayer loan facilities and eliminate the monopoly and let’s see if the USPS can stand up on its own two feet or if it collapses under the weight of all of the fat union morons.
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