Posted on 05/08/2012 7:24:47 PM PDT by Colonel Kangaroo
A NYT article on the financial difficulties of the Postal Service concluded with a comment from Art Sackler, the chairman of the Coalition for a 21st Century Postal Service:
"They haven’t had a good track record when it comes to developing new lines of business."
This organization is identified as "a mailing industry group that includes companies like FedEx, said the Postal Service."
It might have been worth reminding readers that FedEx and UPS have in the past used their political power to limit the ability of the Postal Service to compete with them.
(Excerpt) Read more at businessinsider.com ...
Postal Service's Business Failures Might Have Something to Do With Political Connections of Competitors
No... It has to do with the fact that people choose FedEx and UPS rather than political connections..
You think that Congress requiring the USPS to overfund it’s pension fund might have had a part in the post office’s troubles? People want the USPS run like a private business, but no private company has to operate under such a burden.
Not to mention forbidding it to close thousands of under performing offices and unprofitable business methods.
UPS traditional approach has been to force USPS parcel prices UP So that their requests before state regulatory bodies appear rational rather than outrageous.
What's going on here is simply Senators, who have no idea what USPS does, are rejecting all solutions to the problem.
I've seen this happen before. The old Post Office Department fell apart as Congress continually voted against buying any spare parts for postal machinery for years and years.
And of course the USPS allows competition on house to house delivery doesn’t it?? Oh yeah maybe not....
USPS cannot compete because they have no way to make the unions leaner
Anyone observing 30 seconds of a post office in action knows it’s not Fedex or UPS’s fault.
Except of course GM before it became government motors.
The problem is union contracts pure and simple. Unions have long ago outlived their intended purpose. They exist for the aggrandizement of the left wing workers of the world
Wasn’t that the ad campaign when the postal service compared two-day delivery services without noting that their two-day service wasn’t in the least guaranteed?
What the public can see is only the tip of the iceberg. The mail moves during the night.
Someone recently sent me a valuable parcel via USPS and sent me the tracking number, so I looked it up. For 5 days it showed the parcel in El Paso, but the local post office left a note when they were unable to deliver it. So I logged on to have it redelivered, and the response was that it would be delivered the next day. The local carrier, next day, knew nothing about it, so we called USPS and gave them the number. They had no idea where the parcel was, so we went to the local post office. They looked and couldn't find it. Then they discovered that they were looking for a parcel and not a letter, so they did find it in the back, but the tracking system had no idea where the parcel was. BTW FEDEX freight would have been cheaper.
So I will never ever ever send anything USPS if I care about being able to track it. Never.
The USPS can not have it’s own jets and must use commercial carriers like UPS.
There are areas UPS and FedEx will not deliver to because it is too costly. When they get packages to these areas they give them to the USPS to deliver.
Can any business with as much control that congress has over the USPS be expect to function?
Also there is a lot of politics involved. I know I worked in the industry.
Why in the world would they put FEDEX boxes on their property.
One of many hints is Fedex flew all congressman around anywhere.
Company Lobbyist screwed this country.
Former lefty Democrat Tennessee senator Jim Sasser deserved to be called the senator from FedEx.
I don't know where those areas are. I delivered to people who couldn't get mail service. They could put up a mail box miles from their farm/ranch if they wanted to but many just drove into town to pick up their mail. There wasn't a single place on my route that I didn't deliver to and it definitely wasn't cost effective.
I rarely mail anything anymore and if I have to ship something, I use Fed Ex - non union!
What a joke, what has more political connections than the Post Office?
I can’t recall the last letter I sent...
The postal service’s basic problems began back in the 70’s when the fax machine became popular. It also began when they unionized.
From the founding days of the postal service up until the early 70’s the system operated efficiently and professionally.
The first signs of massive mismanagement was when they changed buying their delivery vehicles from Jeep to Northrop Grumman. Do a search under Northrop Grumman + postal service and see what you get. “Nothing to see here, move along” perfectly fits the search you will get. Since those days the postal service has spent billions of dollars with Grumman products and services.
They did not see any competition with fax machines.
They didn’t see any competition with the explosion of the internet and email.
They didn’t see any problems with rampant union benefits.
They didn’t see any problems with competition from FEDEX and UPS.
They didn’t see how badly diversity, sensitivity, and affirmative action would deteriorate the ability to manage and hire.
They didn’t punish poor management.
They failed to provide quick and efficient service (go to a post office and try to mail a package or simply get some stamps and you will quickly know what I mean).
In summary, the postal service is nothing more than a political tool used by the government today. It’s main revenue is garnered by the “trash mail” industry and companies that mail invoices and general bills to the public....not primarily the common citizen to communicate any longer.
It NEVER did anything to improve or modernize since it thought it was invincible due to the fact that it thought the Constitution gave it SOLE LICENSE to move mail and packages...which the Constitution did not. The Constitution only stated that a “Post system” will be established but did not say that a private system could not compete against it.
In conclusion: Our postal system never saw change coming and never did anything about it. Now, it cries, gnashes it’s teeth and pulls it hair about the result of horrible management (politically correct management (PCM)) and now pays the price, or rather the taxpayer does.
There is a reason that I flaunt my tagline and that is the simple fact that it is impossible for ANY governmental agency to manage ANYTHING in a professional manner. USPS is a dinosaur and needs to be put into a museum.
My manufacturing business ships small packages of electronic products.
Many, many years ago we used to use the postal service for parcel post. The most aggravating fact was the time it took for an employee to go to the post office to mail the daily shipment.
Then, the reality of how bad their ability to track anything was tested several times when a customer called up, blasting us for not shipping their goods and our inability to tell them where the hell it was. Furthermore, we lost some customers due to the total inefficiency of the postal system.
It was at that time that I changed ALL shipments to United Parcel Service and refused to ship any product via the postal service...even if the customer demanded it to be shipped that way. We would refuse to ship until the customer was convinced of the reason we would not ship that way.
Over the past 20 or so years with UPS we have never lost a package in shipment nor has it been delivered to the wrong address. The best part is that it can be tracked and the customer given the information they seek immediately.
Wrong address? How many time have you had your mail delivered to a neighbor’s house and how many times have you had your neighbor’s mail delivered to your house. That sums up the efficiency of the postal service.
The postal service touts the ability to track but simply try it sometime and you will see what a useless effort it is.
The postal service is as useless as tits on a boar hog.
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