Posted on 05/09/2009 6:37:16 PM PDT by NormsRevenge
WASHINGTON – Peel it and weep: It'll cost an extra 2 cents to mail a letter starting Monday.
The price of a first-class stamp will climb to 44 cents, though people who planned ahead and stocked up on Forever stamps will still be paying the lower rate.
It's the third year in a row that rates have gone up in May under a new system that allows annual increases as long as they don't exceed the rate of inflation for the year before.
(Excerpt) Read more at news.yahoo.com ...
the usps union is incompetent.
You mean Inflation was over 5% last Year? I thought it was somewhere in the two’s.
Is 44 cents too much for you?
Deliver it yourself.
People still mail stuff?
I’ll send even less mail than I do now.
Now that I bank by mail, I never buy stamps.
Just another inept government agency raking in more $$ and piling up more debt! At least in previous decades there was some level of sanity in running the USPS.
I have heard the figures for the cost for the USPS every time the cost of gas goes up a penny. Amazingly high!.
What are “stamps?”
I used to buy tons of them. Now I realize they will be a part of my estate ...
No govt media complex here, move along.
Quick: Name another legitimate function of Government that is cutting back, cutting jobs while increasing efficiency.
Last I checked, you can't e-mail a physical object like a package.
But in that department, the USPS does face competition from UPS, FedEx and others. At least there prices are not that bad.
Gotta admit that mailing a letter is a darn good deal: from your front door to anywhere in the country in 1-3 days for less than two quarters.
That said, thanks to increases I only use about 5 stamps a year. Rates went up one year and I switched almost exclusively to electronic communications.
I hand-deliver as often as possible.
And when gas jumps 10 cents in a day, you post complaints about the inept oil companies I assume.
Who writes letters anymore other than the occasional b’day card and Mother’s Day cards ... Christmas???? Hanukkah? ... most people do their bill paying on-line now ....
Does that ever happen with Department of Defense, or the Treasury, or State Department, or......
USPS operates under a law that requires that it set prices sufficient to pay its costs. The others get vast subsidies at taxpayer expense.
To be safe most people use UPS or FedEx ....
Did you ever allocate the costs for using your computer and internet connection to pay your bills?
Not if they’re sending stuff to New York City ~ only the USPS is immune from the mob in that area.
Which means then, no package delivery since the mob has stolen it like those laptops several threads ago .... USPS offered up $74 for $3000 worth of laptops ... Oh, but the nice thing was they also offered to refund the postage ....
How about less junk mail to drill through?
It got delivered and then was stolen somewhere in the bowels of that enterprize.
We got nothing back inasmuch as we were the post office (which is a self-insurer).
Even with the finest tracking system and the best insurance stuff gets broken and lost in transit. Sometimes it even gets stolen. However, the mob has no respect for anyone ~ but they do stay away from USPS in New York Metro. I think that's because the US Postal Inspection Service carries guns!
I wonder when was the last time the USPS used guns when delivering mail/packages ....
You’ll never know.
Yes - I seem to remember buying a roll of them at one time. I pay most items electronically now. I slide my rent under the landlord’s door and pay the power bill at the night deposit box. Sliding stuff under a glass door is more fun than buying stamps because you can see how far you can make it slide across the floor.
Still a bargain.
Ah, you must live in a small town ... :)
I think that way too.
Tonight, two of my grand children and I played a short little game that I made up. See who can stand on one foot the longest, without changing feet or touching anything or each other. I won but they say I cheated because I blew at them to make them lose their balance.
Poor losers.
Who can make money when an entire subcommittee of Congress exists to stick its nose in your affairs?
Throw in the unions and the Office of Personnel Management and you have a little sympathy.
Just a little.
It now costs significantly less to drive across town and deliver bills by hand.
Go figure. Oh and No junk mail.
Neumann from Seinfeld, is that you?
Boston Herald: $1.00 daily
Boston Globe: $1.00 daily, $1.50 outside 30 mi area
Mail a letter 3,000 miles: 44 cents
>>cutting jobs while increasing efficiency.
I work for the postal service. For years positions were eliminated through attrition. With the latest crisis
(high gas prices, pensions to pay, less volume) we have been
offering early retirement, stopping new construction, consolidating jobs, continuing to eliminate positions by attrition...and our postage increases are tied in to inflation. If we were allowed to, we could boost it to 50 cents and pay off all of that debt. But we can’t.
At at 50 cents it would still be a pretty good deal.
AND at, that should say...
Really? Why does it take 5 to 7 days for my expense reports to arrive in San Diego from Pocatello? Most items are 5 days. If it has to be there in a timely fashion, I pay FedEx.
Clever idea, the "forever" stamps. Now they can jack up the cost anytime they want and nobody will really bitch about it. In fact, as you suggest, it'll encourage people to buy more to beat the price increases.
No, because I’m going to pay the flat rate for internet regardless of whether I pay bills online or not.
Flat rate? What flat rate?
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