Temporary?
I won't be holding my breath for the 46¢ stamp to return.
Posted on 12/26/2013 6:31:31 AM PST by Morgana
Mailing a letter is about to get a little more expensive.
Regulators on Tuesday approved a temporary price hike of 3 cents for a first-class stamp, bringing the charge to 49 cents a letter in an effort to help the Postal Service recover from severe mail decreases brought on by the 2008 economic downturn.
Many consumers won't feel the price increase immediately. Forever stamps, good for first-class postage whatever the future rate, can be purchased at the lower price until the new rate is effective January 26.
(Excerpt) Read more at dailymail.co.uk ...
Their big cash maker, JUNK MAIL, has need reduced since the companies can just spam our inbox now.
And a lot of people pay their bills electronically now. No longer do I use a dozen stamps each month, mailing various bills.
Heck, some people are sending electronic Christmas cards now.
The post office is in trouble, and I doubt a 3 cent increase is going to fix it.
USPS delivers 160 billion pieces of mail per year. Although not all subject to the 3 cent increase, 160 billion x .03 = 4.8 billion dollars.
Temporary?
I won't be holding my breath for the 46¢ stamp to return.
I’m one of the few people in this country who still pays bills by mail and sends actual letters and cards. Call me old fashioned, but I am wary of identity theft with automatic bill paying and there are some situations where handwritten communications are more proper than email.
That said, I think the cost of a postage stamp is way too low for the money expended in getting mail from point A to point B. Sure,:huge wages and benefits, plus waste and inefficiency are the big problems, but even if those issues were resolved, the expenses of delivery (fuel costs, for example) won’t be covered by 49 cents a letter.
Buy a year’s worth of ‘forever’ stamps... they’ll be on sale until the change.
Identity theft still occurs at the mailbox, bud. If you don’t remove your name and address from your mail and shred those labels before discarding or recycling the rest, you are leaving your name and address out in the trash for any dumpster diver to find. That’s over 50% of the work right there. If you have a mailbox by the road, there’s nothing to stop them from sifting through for credit card offers, medical bills, utility bills, etc. As soon as they have any of those, your identity is as good as gone.
This is coming from someone who used to think the way you do. I do everything online behind the “cloak” of encrypted transactions. If they want my data, they either have to want it enough to devote cycles to decrypting my personal information or the retailer has to be dumb enough to lose it (See: Target). At which point I vote with my wallet and stop patronizing that business. With the USPS, you don’t have a choice but to use them.
First time since 2002 they’re increasing by 3 cents.
Hard to believe the price is about to move past 2 quarters!
I still remember when first class cost 25 cents! Doesn’t feel like that long ago!
This starts the cycle again. More people will stop mailing letters, and the USPS will lose more money, and raise rates again.
This can go nowhere. The only reason why the USPS still exists, is that it is a government-enforced monopoly. As such, it is not subject to the normal problems that normal businesses have. It can hire people as political favors, and hire people because they belong to a privileged minority group.
Talk to ryan, maybe he can make another back stabbing inadvertent mistake and have it included in some pay cut to ( fill in the blank).
After 10 years, I quit the USPS in 1999.
They kept telling us that automation and ‘junk’ mail was the way of the future.
How’s that working out?...
Not sure I fully trust online security measures. Of course, most sites are far more secure than, say, Target's, but there are a lot of enterprising geniuses out there whose sole mission in life is to hack anything and everything. Too bad that genius couldn't be applied to maybe a cure for cancer, but that's the world we live in.
Expensive = Government operated
Okay, well you do more than most folks.
Keep in mind that Target’s recent fiasco was not a result of online security failures but physical security faults at point-of-sale systems. The people who were affected were shoppers at physical stores.
I’ve had my CC number swiped a few times as a result of skimmers at restaurants: people who have a second card swipe that is used to catalog your account number for later use. It’s impossible to track who’s doing it. Your best bet is to memorize the 3-digit CVV2 number on the back of your card and physical scratch it out of the card with a knife. If people at points of sale ask for it, decline to do business with them. There’s no reason for POS people to have that number. That’s a newer measure put in place for online security.
Gee, maybe they shouldn’t have sold that five-year supply of Forever Stamps????
You’ll be able to buy the new FOREVEREVER stamp now.
The MAIN thing the post office IS delivering today is junk mail (ad circulars) and mass marketing mailings. RAISE rates on the spam.
IF my mailmain didn’t have to stuff that crud into thousands of mailboxes every day, his journey would be much quicker. Sometimes there is an error in the delivery of the GENUINE mail because they are so focused on the delivery of the monotonous “everybody must have this one” mailings.
The routes would be completed quicker (and cheaper) if the junk mail was paying full freight. Some homes wouldn’t be receiving anything some days. That’s where the speed really picks up.
Some Democrapweasel, it may have been Harry Reid or Chuck Schumer, used old people as the REASON to keep junk mail rate cheaper, it’s the ONLY connection some elderly people have to the outside world. REALLY it’s on tape somewhere in Congress.
Thank you for the valuable reminders.
McDonalds fries 10c burgers 15c
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