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Post Office Warns of Default; Wants Help From Congress
Internation Business Times ^ | August 5, 2011 | IB Times Staff Reports

Posted on 08/05/2011 10:49:48 AM PDT by NautiNurse

The U.S. Postal Service lost $3.1 billion in the third quarter and warns it will default on payments to the federal government if Congress does not step in with help.

[snip]

Total mail volume for the quarter that ended June 30 fell to 39.8 million pieces, a 2.6 percent drop from the same period the previous year.

[snip]

Also, it is required to make an annual payment to the federal government of $5.5 billion. The postal service says high payroll and retiree costs and declining volume has put it in a severe bind.

[snip]

The postal service says it lost $5.7 billion during the nine-month period ending June 30, compared to a $5.4 million loss in the same period of 2010.

(Excerpt) Read more at ibtimes.com ...


TOPICS: Business/Economy; Government; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: mail; postal; postalservice; postoffice; usmail; usps
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To: capydick

I think Netflix is carrying the whole USPS for now, and that will decline too as the streaming service continues to grow.

Hey, I know! Really, the USPS should be in charge of all email, and they should be allowed to charge a nickel per email for postage. Then they wouldn’t never have no mo problems.


41 posted on 08/05/2011 4:05:57 PM PDT by ichabod1 (Nuts; A house divided against itself cannot stand.)
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To: Buckeye McFrog

I live in Boone County WV. Of the 15 post offices, eight and slated for closure. Theyre mostly in areas where seniors who dont even know what the internet is, much less having paid their bills on line.

The Govt is going deliberately closed mouth as to what post offices for sure will be closed and when it will happen. I was told the other offices MIGHT be closing in the neight county..or may nor. An yes, even for this county, who alays go for pubblies in the past elections, ar


42 posted on 08/05/2011 4:09:55 PM PDT by Armedanddangerous
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To: fred42

Junk mail is the only thing keeping them afloat. And it’s been that way for 20 years.


43 posted on 08/05/2011 4:10:55 PM PDT by ichabod1 (Nuts; A house divided against itself cannot stand.)
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To: ichabod1

You mean business advertisements?


44 posted on 08/05/2011 4:21:52 PM PDT by Big Giant Head (Two years no AV, no viruses, computer runs great!)
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To: Big Giant Head

1. Is Saturday overtime paid at other branches ? I’d heard it was.

2. 1st class mail volume is down due to the internet (email & the web). End junk mail and the total volume drops even after the recovery.

3. Every-other-day mail delivery would only be for mail recipients. Half the delivery routes would occur on one day, the other half on the next.

4. USPS mail delivery personnel wouldn’t have a longer route, they would just have two routes, alternating every day. Their route size each day wouldn’t change.

With 2, 3 & 4 above, only half the work force would be required.


45 posted on 08/05/2011 5:17:06 PM PDT by fred42 ("Get your facts first, then you can distort 'em as much as you need." - Mark Twain)
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To: NautiNurse

Cap the spening and cut the program.


46 posted on 08/05/2011 5:21:26 PM PDT by Salvation ("With God all things are possible." Matthew 19:26)
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To: listenhillary
Yeah, that's another $78 billion.

Geithner and his running dog lackeys are not interested in accounting for it.

47 posted on 08/05/2011 5:22:03 PM PDT by muawiyah
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To: NautiNurse

That is unfortunate. And you certainly have the right to complain.

If it doesn’t have a value, then it should be eliminated.


48 posted on 08/05/2011 5:23:53 PM PDT by dhs12345
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To: NautiNurse
Why is that laughable? You hold $78 billion on deposit from payments made for postal retirements ~ your boy Geithner took it to pay your bills.

The RATE PAYERS PAY POSTAGE. That's how USPS is financed. You as a TAX PAYER have no right to POSTAGE.

49 posted on 08/05/2011 5:24:27 PM PDT by muawiyah
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To: ThomasNast

Since USPS has not normally been in the practice of losing money every year (until Obama gave way the country to the Chicoms) they were not getting taxpayer support. They still aren’t.


50 posted on 08/05/2011 5:27:22 PM PDT by muawiyah
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To: Buckeye McFrog
A project i worked on years ago revealed the need to close 28,000 post offices. They are closing only 3,000 or so. Ain't no thang. This will generate few real complaints.

Worked on another project to review about 20 years of newspaper articles about post office closures. I found out that almost all the complaints made by the general public concerned a single item ~ the need to change their address as a consequence of the change.

They really weren't concerned with service ~ mostly because when you get your delivery from a small post office it arrives a day or two later than for other people.

That problem ~ the address change ~ was FIXED some time back with implementation of the 9 digit ZIP Code.

51 posted on 08/05/2011 5:30:36 PM PDT by muawiyah
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To: vetvetdoug
Snow Shoe Thompson lived in Canada. He had a couple of wives, and a whole string of concubines stretching across the Great White North.

Today Most Canadians are descendants of ol' Snow Shoe.

What relevance does he have to USPS?

52 posted on 08/05/2011 5:35:58 PM PDT by muawiyah
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To: Waco
Oh my Gawd!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Hey, guys we need some help here ~ ol'Waco missed the destruction of the Post Office Department, the creation of the United States Postal Service, etc. JUST NOT POSSIBLE.

53 posted on 08/05/2011 5:41:46 PM PDT by muawiyah
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To: fred42
Hmm ~ all great ideas ~ but my goodness MOST postal employees don't work as carriers. There are distribution clerks, window clerks, supervisors, specialists of all kinds (keeping the machinery working), management, etc.

Whacking the carrier craft in two would probably do two things ~ reduce the workforce by about 1/5 AND PO every blue haired old lady in the nation.

Lotsa luck.

54 posted on 08/05/2011 5:44:55 PM PDT by muawiyah
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To: ichabod1

28 years ~ I think that’s where revenue from third-class exceeded that of First Class Mail.


55 posted on 08/05/2011 5:47:55 PM PDT by muawiyah
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To: muawiyah

yes, but raise the price of junk mail & the total volume will drop, reducing the number of workers needed.


56 posted on 08/05/2011 5:58:02 PM PDT by fred42 ("Get your facts first, then you can distort 'em as much as you need." - Mark Twain)
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To: fred42
Not the way it works. There are dynamics in effect that are generally not obvious to the general public. For instance MAIL STORAGE. Contrary to common belief, there's little space designed into postal facilities to store mail overnight, and certainly not for two nights.

Then, there's the problem of "number of stops" ~ let's say a route had 500 delivery points or possible deliveries. On an average day you'd probably have mail going to at least 400 of them. The time it takes the carrier to cover that route is highly dependent on actual delivery stops ~ because it takes a certain amount of time to actually deliver mail at a stop (Stop. Get mail from tray. Open window ~ in winter. Reach out to box. Open box. Put mail in box. Close box. Check for traffic. Travel to next box.

It gets far more complex with foot routes, park and loop, etc.

When you cut delivery to every other day on any particular route you increase the number of actual stops ~ probably all the way up to 500 every time you deliver.

Apartment routes have other problems ~ and so on and so forth. USPS has numerous employees dedicated to making sure these routes can be delivered efficiently. Every idea you presented will result in greater street time requirements. You'd have to ADJUST all of the routes as a result, making them shorter. Then you'd need more routes established, with more carriers.

I'm sure your aggregate savings would be about 30% of what you imagine is possible.

That's just on street time ~ which is ideally more than half a carrier's time, but not all of it. There's office time and that's a totally different problem. All the things a carrier does in the office before going out are dependent on the volume of mail, not the length of the route.

57 posted on 08/05/2011 6:02:50 PM PDT by muawiyah
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To: fred42
Talk to the Postal Rate Commission. That's an independent regulatory agency that conducts elaborate hearings from time to time on postal requests for various prices ~ up or down.

They are usually loathe to simply let USPS charge a higher price without some sort of cost justification!

Their job, in part, is to protect the public from predatory pricing practices.

58 posted on 08/05/2011 6:04:51 PM PDT by muawiyah
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To: muawiyah

yes you’d have to store mail a day longer, w/o junk mail, there’s be less to store.

take away my junk mail & I’d rarely get mail. most all important mail I get on the web.

the bottom line is we need a plan. times change. should we have kept all the gas lighters after the electric bulb became available ?


59 posted on 08/05/2011 6:16:34 PM PDT by fred42 ("Get your facts first, then you can distort 'em as much as you need." - Mark Twain)
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To: muawiyah
You as a TAX PAYER have no right to POSTAGE.

No matter how much you yell, that does not change the fact that I, as a taxpayer, must pay hard earned money to dispose of all the unsolicited junk mail received. As a taxpayer, I must pay for maintenance of my mailbox when the carrier overstuffs the box and knocks the slot door off its hinge.

The USPS is just another bloated government entity held hostage by porcine union thugs.

60 posted on 08/05/2011 6:27:59 PM PDT by NautiNurse (TSA Tit for Tat--Yukari Mihamae--thank you!)
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