Posted on 01/25/2013 12:19:11 PM PST by SMGFan
It’s a brand new year but already the cash-strained United States Postal Service is showing that it’s feeling the financial heat that kept zapping it in 2012. Starting on Sunday, the price of a first-class stamp will go from $0.45 to $0.46 as we were warned last year. Post card stamps will also rise a penny to $0.33. Sure, it’s only a penny, but it’s a penny you don’t have to pay on Saturday that you do on Sunday.
Of course, we’re fans of Forever Stamps, which you can buy now and use no matter how much a regular postage stamp goes up in price, so perhaps today is a good time to stock up on those.
Letters you send off to international friends or family are rising even more to $1.10. It used to only cost $0.85 to mail letters to Canada and Mexico and $1.05 for other international destinations. Overall, notes CNNMoney, all kinds of shipping services will cost 4% more on average.
(Excerpt) Read more at consumerist.com ...
So, one of your friends?
The Postal Service as USPS has been unionized since day one ~ and postage wasn't 1cent or 3cent for a very long time before that agency was established.
How old are you? Are you still sitting out there on the front steps of the Philly main office?
Frankly, I can’t recall that ammo has ever been mailable either and my memory goes way way way back. More recently to come into conformance with ATA rules USPS, FedEx and UPS have all tightened up their permissable limits on otherwise prohibited materials. That was a bear learning how to access those rules ~ not very well written ~ which most folks have probably figured out ~ and I mean anything done by DOT or HHS ~just nasty stuff.
The big driver we discovered was quarterly tax payments ~ depended on when they occurred how companies would structure the expenses surrounding their mailings.
People will beat the taxman before they'll quit sending you advertisements ~ or BILLS
“So, one of your friends?”
Nope, this happened in Las Vegas, Nevada. It was a summer job for a guy who was home from college.
USPS also handles gazillions of pieces of advertising sent all over the world. That’s because the advertising printers are located here ~ however, international mail exchange rates are such you don’t really get any advantage when it comes to the postage.
If the postal service was allowed to change its own rates it would do so ~ privatization has little to do with that matter ~ common carriers and utilities are regulated under a theory that if they weren’t they’d screw the customers every time.
Not a person alive today will ever benefit from it.
The other agencies are not paying it. The idea was it would be an invisible tax on USPS mailers.
That’s why i always use light weight plastic bags.
What will you do, file a grievance against me?
It was a little teasing. Go dry your tears and toughen up.
Department of Education costs about $70 billion per year ~ sometimesmore. It costs taxpayers about $70 billion per year!
The beneficiaries of Education Department pay nothing.
Do you have a problem with that?
Frankly I do. Department of Education should find a non-tax based revenue source or be put out of business. Same with all the other federal agencies that cost taxpayers money to operate them ~ even Department of Defense. That ginormous Navy fleet could certainly bring in some bucks ~ I can think of ways!
I think you are confounding USPS with your county courthouse crowd, or maybe your local schools. Now if you want to find some looting going on, start asking questions at home!
Actually, USPS is required by law to provide UNIVERSAL SERVICE. Your ordinary package delivery services don’t do that ~ they serve only profitable markets. To reach places beyond their reach ~ they just drop it in the mail and let USPS deliver it.
The postal service is in the Constitution. Are foo stams? Obamofoams?
BTW, most postage is paid by folks who use permit imprints
more like 50 cents an hour ~ but my Great Grandfather only paid field help 10 cents a basket of beans, and it was a huge basket.
“Until then I stand by everything I posted.”
Fine, it’s just your perspective ( I am presupposing you are a USPS employee) versus mine as a consumer. You just can’t push off the differences between the USPS and the private delivery services by saying that you “go more places more frequently.” Face it, all government (and that most especially applies to the USPS) runs for the benefit of the employees first, the government second, and maybe the consumer/taxpayer last. It nice for you not to worry about whether or not you do a good job ( and maybe you are a stellar postal worker, I don’t know) making a difference to your continued employment.
Even now, with the USPS essentially failing as a “privatized entity,” the worry isn’t how you evolve to a model that’s cost effective and in keeping with the times. It’s oh dear, how are we going to continue to “do right” by all our excess staffing who are expecting cradle to grave employment/retirement! Your “brothers” over at UPS and FedEx are a totally different breed. I see it every time one of them comes to my door with a package. The are happy, pleasant, and focussed. My mailman in his jeep, on the other hand most of the time exhibits none of those traits, because he knows he doesn’t have to. It’s what’s wrong with government in general and most specifically Public Employee Unions. Their attitude is “I don’t have to give a $h!t, I am a protected species.” But the taxpayer will have the last laugh, because like it or not, eventually, the money is going to run out!
Thankgoodness for him ~ lot of those job sharing guys ended up getting hit with felony convictions.
There is no such thing as a beautiful stamp.
pay your bills ~ i hate evasiveness in a supplicant
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.