processing center is closing, he says probably.

I say how outraged I am and that there is one political party who is trying to prevent that, you know, hoping he would say something

not a word

he will vote for republicans who are going to take his job

fuck I am sick of this

read in school, and even preach in churches . Joseph Goebbels did the same in pre WW2 Germany .
The American people are being indoctrinated on a sub conscience level every day .

AND a Republican!! I try to tell him and he just mutters away..some people just don't know what's good for them.

I only have two types of interaction with the postal service:

1) I have to dump the contents of my mail box into the trash about once a week or the delivery guy gets annoyed.

2) Amazon doesn't let me choose which carrier to use, so sometimes instead of getting my package, I get a note saying that I need to take an hour out of my Saturday to go pick it up at the post office, thus negating the benefits of my decision to buy the product online instead of by going to a store. Somehow, UPS, FedEx and everybody else manages to figure out how to actually deliver the packages to me, but the USPS doesn't seem to have mastered that yet.

As far as I can see, I'd be better off if neither of those things ever happened any more.

Some things are better done by the government than by the private sector. IMO, we ought to be switching to a single payer healthcare system for example. But I'm really not seeing the argument for why we need a public option for package delivery. There isn't a justice consideration in package delivery. The postal service doesn't do anything to counteract the concentration of wealth. I dunno, I'm just not seeing why we need it any more. 50 years ago when that was the primary means of communication, ok, yeah, I can see why we wouldn't want to leave that entirely to for profit companies, but now that it is really just a means for delivering consumer products, I don't see why we can't. Facilitating commercial transactions is something the private sector does well.

for your information, remember before internet you got most of your info in books and the mail

It saddens me that you cant see why this is important, not to mention protecting all those union jobs

Yes, before the Internet, the post office was important, as I mentioned in my post. But why is it today?

Union jobs aren't really the issue. UPS and most of Fed Ex are union too. If USPS disappears and those jobs go to UPS and Fed Ex and whatnot, there wouldn't be a change in the number of union jobs.

Not all Fed Ex shops are union, but many are.

Regardless, if you do away with USPS, pretty soon the Teamsters will be gone and none of them will be union

that is how it works

FedEx has been a publicly traded company since 1978 and from what I can find, it only formed a few years before that.

No doubt, FedEx is anti-union, but so is the management of most union shops. Some of its workers have voted to unionize, others have not. The teamsters have made some gains there recently.

I mean, yeah, it's probably true that a lower percentage of the workers would end up unionized if the work went to FedEx. UPS is pretty much all union I think though. Then again, maybe it goes the other way- postal service workers who like unions go over to FedEx and boost the vote to unionize and you end up with more people- the current FedEx workers- unionized.

do you really expect anyone to have the least bit of sympathy for your complaint here?

i mean, reread your comment; your logic is all built on the premise that you are entitled to expect to never be inconvenienced to leave your throne for one hour?? really?? that's pretty pathetic.

you really might want to educate yourself on the particulars involved here, as there is a much larger picture than what you can see from your mighty throne.

in fact, most deliveries to final destinations are made by the USPS; UPS and fedex rely on them to take care of the remote areas, which are precisely the ones who will get hammered by all these cuts. and really, not everyone in the world at large, or even just this country lives in a place that allows them to have everything their heart desires at their fingertips, so they will never have to leave their thrones.

so NO, facilitating commercial transactions is NOT something the private sector does well; THE PRIVATE SECTOR RELIES ON THE USPS.

moreover, this is yet another instance of the private sector shrinking government to a size so small it can be drowned in the bathtub. sound familiar?

supporting that mentality anywhere is to support it everywhere; please show some consistency in your principles, not just when it suits you and your needs.

to be brutally blunt, sir, your opinion appears to be based on your own selfish demands, without one iota of concern for the larger implications of your opinion on others in the world at large.

perhaps if you bothered to actually rise from your throne on occasion, however inconvenient that might be, and actually see that world at large, you might be both better informed and more sensitive to a reality that includes someone other than yourself.

and while we're at it, you should be rethinking your reliance on amazon for any damn thing, given just what a bulldozing corporate monopolizing behemoth it is, treating its employees worse than slaves.

(a sincere apology for being so harsh, but your stated reasons for your opinion were stunning for their self-absorbed myopia; i'd compare it to declaring libraries be shut down because YOU don't use them. still trying to get my jaw off the floor.)

The idea that we should avoid anything that shrinks government just on principle is silly. We are Democrats. We're rational. We support shrinking government where it makes sense to shrink it and growing it where it makes sense to grow it. We aren't like the Republicans that get the means and the ends mixed up and just categorically want to shrink government just because.

"I have mine so fuck you" attitude that anybody can have.

My neighbor says "we dont need mail on Saturdays, most of what we get is junk anyway"

Well we dont need to dig holes either in some places, but I would rather spend tax dollars on paying one guy to dig a hole and another guy to fill it in instead of giving tax breaks to corps and billionaires.

you say so what about 630,000 employees that get a living wage ... lets get rid of the post office and have a right to starve society ...

if I didnt know better I would think you are a repuking troll ...

If USPS disappears, but the demand for delivery services remains the same, the number of jobs would remain the same, no?

your assumptions are based on faulty Rmoney calculations ...whose credo to fame and fortune is ...slash and burn those businesses so we can make more money...

what, you think the private sector would just out of benevolence swoop down and hire all those USPS workers if it gets shut down?

have you not noticed that the private sector is all about reducing payroll??

it cuts into their profits!

as opposed to the public sector, where there is no profit motive; the motive is just get the job done, on time and within budget. not always perfect, but hardly ever swallowed up by gargantuan CEO salaries. which is precisely why healthcare should be managed by the government, as you so astutely noted. just as all things that fall under the commonwealth and the public good, like education and air quality and natural resources and utilities (including the internet). these should operate according to public need and the public good.

the private sector is all about making profits. that's what is motivating their takedown of the postal service; they want all that money, including the $75b pension funds the republicans forced them to forward their accounts, which is why they're having money problems. if it weren't for that unprecedented insanity (no wait; the insanity is not unprecedented, but the forward paid pensions are), the USPS would be rolling in dough right now, competing even more than it does now with UPS and fedex.

and oh yeah; those two lobbied heavily for that pension travesty.

such patriots, the private sector. always concerned about their fellow citizens and their country's welfare.

the first thing the private sector would do is cut the workforce.

such christians, too, the private sector. always concerned about their fellow humans.

let me guess; you're young, right?

may i humbly suggest you spend some time in conversation with some folks who have been around the block a few times?

and stop drinking that kook-aid.

No, corporations do nothing out of benevolence. They hire when it increases their profits to do so. When you increase the demand for their services, it becomes profitable to hire.

One of the biggest misconceptions the public has about the economy is that employers create jobs- lose an employer and you lose the jobs of the people that work there. That isn't true at all. Demand creates jobs. You only gain or lose jobs when demand goes up or down or efficiency changes.

You see this misconception most often when people are talking about how propping up one private business will "protect jobs." That isn't really true. If that business shuts down, other businesses take up their market share and hire. The same happens when a public sector employer shuts down provided that whatever it is doing will still need to be done by the private sector.

More and more Amazon and others are using smartpost. UPS and Fed-X transfer final delivery to the post office.
I get Post office deliveries on Sunday!! I'm very happy with them.
In all my 32 years at this house, I've never had to go pick up a package at the post office.

For example, my parents' mailman talked to them about whether he could come into their porch and leave packages (they live out in the country) and they said yes, so he does. I've never had that luck. They don't even seem to try any place I've lived in big cities. They seem to just come once when obviously everybody is going to be at work, leave the note, and that's that. UPS will come first in the evening, if I'm not home then, they'll try at a different time the next day, they'll try for 3 or 4 days in a row, they'll get into the building one way or another and leave it outside my door, etc.

i have no doubt i've been around a lot longer than you have, and i have NEVER seen ups handle a delivery that way. they have NEVER made a first attempt in the evening, nor have they left more than one notice.

and as it happens, you are absolutely right, this varies from place to place.

and you happen to be living in lala land.

first of all, well of course, the USPS delivers when most folks are at work, because they happen to keep work hours too. fancy that, eh?

second, ups has a policy for apartment delivery; they try three times, that's it. and the times of day they deliver depend entirely on THEIR convenience for deliveries in the area that day. period.

third, they will NEVER 'find their way into the bldg,' as this is against the law. USPS can only deliver to designated mailboxes at apartment bldgs, unless signature is required.

you can look this stuff up; not that hard.

but better yet, really, entertain the possibility you are seeing this situation from an astonishingly narrow, selfish perspective. so much so, you've entirely skewed the truth of what happens with ups. they do NOT do what you think they do. that is laughable.

Your experience seems to be dead opposite to mine. I've lived in maybe 10 different houses in 4 different big cities, but always big cities. I've always found the same thing- UPS figures it out, USPS doesn't even try. But, maybe that is just in big cities?

employees are gone. USPS keeps costs down, privatization will explode them- then there won't be any other option. I know a veteran's mom who ordered a replacement prosthetic from New England to ship to AZ. The private cos. gave estimates up to $800. The USPS sent it for $150. Also I don't like the thought of non-post office outsourced private corp. employees at Staples handling my mail and info. like financial and legal stuff.

The USPS is under attack by GOP for years cuz it's the remaining largest union workforce in the US, and they always want to privatize all for $. USPS could add helpful revenue services like notarizing, check cashing, etc. but are barred from this by Congress. During W Bush years USPS was made to advance fund the employee retirement healthcare fund, in millions of dollars, 75 years out (for workers unborn!).

Now the claim is the USPS isn't making any money, they're so bad, blah, blah so shut it down. It's all planned; budgets for govt. agencies and services are often intentionally cut so it can be claimed- look there's not enough workers, it's too slow! Well duh, yeah if you cut staff and operating budgets. It's happening at the Social Security Admin. now, cutting staff, real offices, with any phone workers min. wage generalists, not specialists- when people complain, the right says, see, We're Better at this, close it down and turn it over to us (for profit)!

in my area about TEN years ago... you know people 'suddenly' brought up the subject and would go on and on and on
about some bad experience they had with the USPS, ranting and raving and trying to stir people up. Insidious.

This is all about profits for the private sector. One of the complaints I've heard a lot is that the USPS is inefficient and hasn't been
profitable. This is a SERVICE of our government and we pay taxes to insure we maintain it. The real issue is that
it is being starved out like so many other services by private interests via congress. But this is typical big business
boardroom think tank strategy. Now that they have essentially taken over our government through tactics resembling
a hostile corporate takeover, they are basically slicing it up, reorganizing and distributing the spoils among themselves.
No room for democracy as they see people as 'consumers' only, not deciders or informed collaborators.