Posted on 01/25/2014 7:28:16 AM PST by Innovative
If you have letters or bills to mail, you might want to rush. Saturday is the last day when it will cost you 46 cents.
Starting Sunday, you'll pay more -- 49 cents.
On Sunday, the cost of mailing a post card will also go up to 34 cents, a 1-cent increase.
The current rate hike brings a much-needed cash influx to the financially struggling postal service.
Much of its cash problems stem from a congressional mandate to make annual $5 billion payments for future retiree health care benefits.
(Excerpt) Read more at money.cnn.com ...
I haven’t used stamps in years. I do buy some once a year to mail Christmas cards.
And still more bills get paid online, eliminating the payment by paper check mailed before the due date.
The entire Postal Service is quickly becoming as obsolete as one of its earlier service programs, the Pony Express, as technology advances.
They COULD run around and get in front of this avalanche of electronically transmitted information transfer, but they are a little late to the game. Perhaps some version of an e-mail service, using street address and the specific name of the recipient, for a modest monthly fee. Worked for years with Yahoo and AOL.
But then, it would be a government program, and probably be as badly designed and insecure as the Obamacare on-line signup.
And so more and more people switch to electronic bill paying. This will lead to lower mailing volume, and a demand for higher rates, which will lead to lower volume, etc etc.
The present USPS in its horrid condition, is a real marker in government history. I am old enough to remember as a youngster going to the post office to buy one penny post cards and three cent first class and five cent air mail stamps.
At that time and for decades after, the REAL United States Post Office was the ONLY department of our government that actually generated a profit. Those profit dollars went into the general fund. Now look at what we have. Speaks volumes.
I read that apparently the Post Office try to modernize itself, but some government regulations wouldn’t allow it and Congress never voted to change those regulations.
Everywhere you look, it turns out the government is the problem, never the solution.
Same here ...I avoid the post office like the plague....only gets me worked up at the stupidity of a govt. operation.
USPS is nothing but a union jobs maker ...nothing else!!
That simple cause/effect equation seems to elude the “best brains” at the PO. No wonder they’re failing (I almost wrote flailing LOL)
My opinion of the post office has been modified somewhat.
I buy nearly everything I need from Amazon on Prime. Sometimes they’ll pass the shipment off to UPS, and then UPS determines it’s better to hand off to the post office at terminus (locally). I’ve often gotten packages from USPS in the mail here a day before UPS originally promised it would be here.
I think USPS has the infrastructure and UPS recognizes this. As long as my Prime gives me free shipping, I don’t care. When UPS transfers, I get a USPS tracking trace and I can find out the status just the same. It has worked well for me for about a year now since I’ve noticed they’ve been doing this.
“I buy nearly everything I need from Amazon on Prime. Sometimes they’ll pass the shipment off to UPS, and then UPS determines it’s better to hand off to the post office at terminus (locally).’
Good that it works out for you. In my area — and I recently read that it is by no means unique, the post office delivers mail regularly around 8 pm, yes, I do mean 8 in the evening, so when I am waiting for a package, I have to wait with an open door, to make sure the package won’t stay out all night and may or may not still be there in the morning or sometimes the Mailman won’t leave it, because it’s evening, and I have to go to the post office to pick it up.
I am right at the point to call, instead of just order on the internet and ask how their delivery works and if they won’t send it to me via UPS or FedEx ALL THE WAY, I will tell them that I will buy it from someone who will.
The only non-deliverable notice I have ever gotten is when something I’ve ordered on Amazon happens to come from Hong Kong or Shanghai or the like, and that hasn’t happened lately, even with some items from there...
I do get stuff from UPS and they ALWAYS say they’ll deliver by 8PM, but I always get an email that night telling me it has been delivered and I step out the front door and get it. My post office always delivers before 3PM.
PS — I live in a large city, not in some out of the way place, so there is not excuse for the post office to deliver mail in the evening, instead of during the day.
Inspector general to probe late mail delivery
The U.S. Postal Service Inspector General’s office said Wednesday that it is launching an investigation into the shift in mail delivery to evening hours, a change that’s alarmed letter carriers and customers.
“My post office always delivers before 3PM.’
Lucky you!
Please also see my post 15.
I live in a county with 20,000 residents. Basically one post office whose employees are from here and are neighbors, friends and co-residents. They generally are hard workers and do their jobs. I’d imagine that it is difficult to get the same kind of workers in large cities.
They tried to close on Saturdays and congress said no.
I live in downtown oceanside ca. The old and new post offices are 8 blocks apart. What’s wrong with this picture?
Postal service in my town absolutely sucks. Right now I’m taking in my neighbor’s mail while he’s on vacation because our post office simply will not keep people’s mail while they’re on vacation. Oh, they’ll pretend to. You can go on the website and ask for your mail to be held from X date to X date, and they’ll even give you a printable receipt promising to do so. Or you can go to the post office in person and fill out a form. They’ll even give you a choice of whether you want all the mail delivered at once upon your return, or whether you want to come pick it all up. But the postal employees must laugh their heads off when you walk out, because it simply is NEVER done. Not once have they held my mail; each and every time, I come home to a stuffed mailbox, and same with my neighbors. If the post office can’t even do that, they are a bunch of incompetents. Plus I’m always getting other people’s mail, and they get mine. I for one will be happy to see the post office go away. They are a bunch of surly, incompetent boobs, far, far, from the old saying about the “couriers in rain, snow,” etc.
Unfortunately that’s what happens when there is no incentive to do a good job and no punishment, such as being fired, for doing a bad job.
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.