Posted on 05/09/2015 10:12:28 AM PDT by Olog-hai
The U.S. Postal Service on Friday reported a net loss of $1.5 billion during the first three months of this year, noting that while more people are using its shipping and package services, its costly to do and revenues from other products have declined.
The Postal Service is an independent agency that receives no tax dollars for its day-to-day operations but is subject to congressional control. It has asked to end most Saturday deliveries, a request that was blocked by Congress amid opposition by postal unions and others.
(Excerpt) Read more at bigstory.ap.org ...
That’s $1.5 billion that could have gone to creating jobs for Jihadists!! Personally I’d rather have the faster package delivery. They are pretty good at that lately.
I'm not 100% sure, but it seems to me that the Postal Service has been losing billions of dollars a quarter, every quarter, for decades.
I guess I don't understand how this "independent agency" can stay in business -- especially since they never -- EVER -- receive ANY tax dollars.
Seems ... odd.
raise the price of junk mail, duh
By a law passed in 2006 by a Republican Congress, the USPS is required to pay $5 billion/yr into a fund for future employees' benefits.
The USPS actually makes a profit on operations (some $600 billion last year), but has not been able to meet the extra cost of the $5 billion payments. Congress has refused to act on any bill that would address the situation.
Um, the profit was $600 million -— not billion. Sorry.
how could you make a half trillion profit but not be able to pay 5 billion? confused
Operating at a loss - is that legal?
A large part of the loss of revenue is by Internet commerce and personal correspondence going by e-mail, rather than by a written communication by “snail mail”. Billings are sent online, and payments are transmitted almost instanteously by remitting from a credit card or debit card, again online, with nary a stamp being licked or a meter activated. And think of all the trees you are “saving”.
Facebook or twitter feed are even faster than e-mail, and per-use costs have dropped to a very low level, as compared to using the Postal Service.
The buggy-whip is being retired. And the Post Office is saddled with these huge legacy costs, even if they stopped all operations tomorrow.
And THAT is the problem. 535 politicians telling the post office 535 different ways to run a business in a way to politically favor themselves.
I'm thinking the vast majority of their income is now thru junk delivery.
I remember when I was working I had to send multi-page reports to other plants via company inter-office mail which was ultimately delivered by the post office. Now all that stuff, even large 100 page +reports can be done via email and zip files to multi-individuals with the press of a send button.......
I don't know how the post office can survive
The Postal Clause does not specify Congressional control over post offices past their establishment.
And it is funny how DHL, FedEx and UPS survive just fine on what the USPS is describing as a business with “marginal” profits, isn’t it.
receives no tax dollars for its day-to-day operations but is subject to congressional control. .....Ummmm, I see a problem right here. No tax dollars? Until we are so far in the hole, Congress says”We HAVE to bail them out!”
Your questions answered in under a minute: Here
If you meet your costs and have money left over, that's your profit.
The USPS cannot meet it's costs, it does not have money left over -- it does not make a profit on operations.
Also, if an independent agency cannot fulfill its lawful obligations, how is it Congress' responsibility to address the situation?
My actual bottom line is that I believe the USPS is just part of the government, it is above the law, it does what it wants, it runs a deficit and does not care. It's just the government.
On paper, the USPS is not the government. But that's a lie. It seems abundantly clear that no matter what the piece of paper says, the Post Office is as much the government as the EPA. They just expect us to believe the Big Lie which says, "Oh, noooooo ... we're independent. Look: it says so right here ..."
Most famous RINO Congress in history, barring this present one. Never mind the ravages of the public sector unions.
I get almost no mail except junk mail now. Email and automatic bill payments has eliminated mail. The mail carrier still stops by six days each week and the same post office is still in town. How can a business still have nearly the same overhead of decades ago with a fraction of the business and survive?
The post office does receive hundreds of millions in taxpayer dollars via a laundering scheme. Government paid postage. Social Security mailings, IRS mailings, state mailings (license renewals, revenue), local mailings (court houses, schools).
Why doesn’t the USPS become a social network site?
For a low annual fee or free w/ads, people can sign up for a secure .postoffice.com email and get all the mail sent to them digitally. They could do online banking.
For packages, the USPS could create their own versions of UPS Stores.
OH MY ,is that why the tracking number on my package is not working ? LOL
Operating at a loss - is that legal?
No , It’s The Obama Way ,LOL
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.