Postal cuts to slow delivery of first-class mail v

Source: Asscoaited Press

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Facing bankruptcy, the U.S. Postal Service is pushing ahead with unprecedented cuts to first-class mail next spring that will slow delivery and, for the first time in 40 years, eliminate the chance for stamped letters to arrive the next day.

The estimated $3 billion in reductions, to be announced in broader detail on Monday, are part of a wide-ranging effort by the cash-strapped Postal Service to quickly trim costs, seeing no immediate help from Congress.

The changes would provide short-term relief, but ultimately could prove counterproductive, pushing more of America's business onto the Internet. They could slow everything from check payments to Netflix's DVDs-by-mail, add costs to mail-order prescription drugs, and threaten the existence of newspapers and time-sensitive magazines delivered by postal carrier to far-flung suburban and rural communities.

>

The cuts, now being finalized, would close roughly 250 of the nearly 500 mail processing centers across the country as early as next March. Because the consolidations typically would lengthen the distance mail travels from post office to processing center, the agency also would lower delivery standards for first-class mail that have been in place since 1971.

Read more: http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/U/US_POSTAL_PROBLEMS?SITE=NCAGW&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT

And we all know that FedEx, UPS and the like are so freaking perfect.

:eyes:

:eyes:

And "they" won't be happy until everything is privatized. Roads, utilities, everything.

have to compete with the public option; i.e., USPS.

More, or less, than 24 hours?

This is exactly what they want on the right, fewer well-paying jobs. How they can run on that and win is beyond me. I suppose it helps to have TOTAL COWARDS on the left. Not the voters, but the pols. They're afraid of their own shadow. So we spend all our time fighting on the republicans terms, using their talking points, hoping not to offend. It's so old. I don't think it's the DINO's as much as it is Dems being total pussies. Yeah, the Blue Dog types are shite. But playing by gentleman's rules, trying to make everyone happy ("I'm going to nominate people from the opposite party so that people know I'm fair") is our problem. We're always trying to be better, nicer, more fair...fighting with one arm tied behind our backs.

It is about money and power, pure and simple. The complicated show put on is purely for the voting public....it is a charade, a kabuki, a herculean drama of hypocrisy. When you remove the masks, at least 70% of politicians are in the pocket and working for corporations and their owners and their votes on important matters to the corps...always...always reflect that.

Very often bills are put up that cannot possibly pass in this environment for pretenders to shout out their bona fides to the voting public...and boy do they grandstand on these meaningless gestures.

(a few years ago) to fully fund their retirement fund (in advance) at a cost of about $5.5 Billion a year. The USPS was. I wonder why? How obvious these privateers are.

GO OWS!

those who pay various bills by mail. That could mean more fines, fees and even having service turned off.

What a wonderful development. Dismantling it all is profitable, I guess.

gack.

do you think they do accounting via paper???

It's only alluded to in the article

After five years in the red, the post office faces imminent default this month on a $5.5 billion annual payment to the Treasury for retiree health benefits. It is projected to have a record loss of $14.1 billion next year amid steady declines in first-class mail volume. Donahoe has said the agency must make cuts of $20 billion by 2015 to be profitable.

Wasn't this onerous and unusual payment demand cooked up by Republicans to break the USPS?

public utilities are priced to provide a service : not necessarily make a profit.

However; when those services are sold to private companies..profit is their only motive.

at the link given in that post.

So the PO joins the long list of victims to Great Theft of American money.

and the average American has NO IDEA what the loss of the USPS would actually mean

Yeah, the flat rate shipping packages are great, but most of what I get shipped comes by UPS and FedEx, and they always negotiate sweetheart deals with most businesses.

Snail mail is dying, and the USPS has become little more than a delivery system for forest-raping, landfill-busting, fossil-fuel-sucking garbage. Want to save USPS? Double the price of sending junk mail. Keep doubling as needed.

What mail that does not come to me electronically (bills and the like)comes by U.S postal services and that is many packages and letters per day, billions and billions across the country. This country would fall flat on its face and no service would be provided to out of the way places, without The USPS.

This is grand theft on a level unseen in history. The pugs and Dino's have robbed the USPS with the diabolical intent that it fail and be sold for pennies on the dollar to cronies who are paying them off to sell out the people of this country. In the same way they have robbed SS and Medicare. How do you you think the new billionaires became that way.

The USPS, has over 50 billion dollars socked away in bogus pension funds out to 70 years, that the treasury has stolen from them, (that would be us) aided and abetted by a criminal bunch of soulless thugs in congress, elected by hook and by crook of the 1%, to do just that.

...which there is not, if you look at the total numbers:

http://about.usps.com/news/national-releases/2011/pr11_094.htm

buried even in this, you have to dig to find that, while first class service is down, package service and standard mail are both on the increase. The net revenue change 2010-2011 is a decline of 1.7%, which is about equivalent to the background noise of "business as usual" operations.

People out in the rural areas nearly never experience next day delivery of first class mail. That only happens between the biggest cities and their suburbs. That's what this topic was about, anyway.

The country would not "fall flat on its face" if the USPS withered away, it would just change how things are done. Instead of paying for a mail truck to drive many miles up an unpaved country road to deliver things for pennies, people who live in rural areas will just have to pick up mail when they come to town to buy groceries. With improved wi-fi, eventually every remote point in the US will have high speed Internet that doesn't require a network of copper wire.

Overfunded pension funds or not, this is the future of USPS. We've been out of town since Thanksgiving, and my lady is going to go pick up held mail on her lunch break. I told her to observe how very little of it is actual mail, and how much is crap that she's just going to toss in the USPS garbage can right at the post office. If she'd get her bills 100% on line like I do, the proportion of junk would be even higher.

Like Newt suggests. That would not only solve the problem toot sweet and destroy the dreaded unions to boot; it would leave scads more money for taxcuts for the rich under the guise of funding pension funds out to the year 3 thousand.

Anyway that is your story versus millions of opposite leaning stories of the unwashed masses. RW predictions have a massive tendency to always be wrong and very short sighted...but so much money can be made in the chaos stirred up by those lame predictions.

Most of us prefer the post office just the way it is, very efficient and well run, providing millions of decent jobs without stimulus or bailout money required, while being levied billions for obscene taxcuts for the rich, to the tune of $5 billion a year.

For a self sufficient operation, I'd say that is one giant lift and one giant support beam to the foundation of this, fast becoming, bankrupt economy.

But that's just not going to happen. People who insist on getting snail-mailed bills, and paying those bills that way are simply going to die off. My kids' generation doesn't really get a big lift out of looking in the mailbox like their great-grandmothers did. Periodicals are also going to be received on a strictly electronic basis once tablet technology comes way down in price.

Besides, if you want to keep USPS alive "the way it is" for a few more years, what's wrong with my proposal to double the rates charged to junk mail? If you double the first class postage stamp rates, you just accelerate the decline of first class mail for bills and bill paying.

to provide cover for the thieves and one striking at the truth.

As revenue slackens from redundant or useless mail...much higher revenue will be gained from online shopping; when the millions of packages are delivered and some returned by same method, as mine are. I get everything online, from drugs to gifts to small appliances, computer parts, electronics and the list goes on add infinitum...and more and more, as grumpy old codgers like me die off, many afraid of the computer, the young'ns coming up are made to learn the computer for their own survival...interfacing the world and learning how to make it work for them.

The post office will deliver 95% of what is ordered and so will shopping mall retailers send by USPS and are already clambering for the exponentially growing internet trade from all over the world.

Almost all of my mail and packages comes to me from the post office, everything including a kitchen sink.

Cutting back services is a purely pug stink.

It is the way they become billionairs.

It is their answer for everything, except of course when it comes to the 1% who would slap them upside the head as they understand better than they, how the game is played.

When I go to the post these days, the lines are long, but very fast moving, many holding packages for folks who have purchased something from them on Ebay...more are pakaging their goods at the side counter to be sent...it is a fast balooning fenomanon.

Very rarely and long ago, did a big private delivery truck, pull up to the front drive of my house to deliver a very large item that I bought on Ebay, now over 10 years ago...but all else comes through the post. Prescriptions, OTC medications, vitamins, again add infinitum, to the tune of about 5 packages a day, along with, way to much, junk mail offering free everything till death do you part...which as the postman feeds it through the door my dog furiously stamps it received with teeth marks punches as the postman dances around in glee....Multiply that by a couple hundred million back and forths, 6 days a week and you have a vital assembly line feed, connecting you to the world and connecting the world to you, for what amounts to pennies in the overall scheme of things.

Internet and PO are becoming symbiotic...one, in this age, cannot work successfully without the other.

Close it down and the private Fedexs' of the would, would go into overdrive and the way of the unregulated banks and drug cartels like vulchers, charging as much as 300 dollars a month for one prescription or gambling away this countries national heritage and at gunpoint forcing us to bail them out.

Do you even begin to think your simple thoughts through...

The Post has about 570,000 permanent employees and about as many part timers...Can you imagine what would happen to the economy if the PO closed its doors? Can you even begin to extrapolate...and what about the fleet of trucks, the largest in the world....consider the manufacturers...consider the parts manufacturers and mechanics...consider the restaurants around PO's, consider the paper and cardboard manufacturers and all their employees and how many of those would also close down; consider what is bought with the billions in salaries.... and I have touched but a few.

Consider what that that would do to an already failing economy...failing because of just this sort of ignorant short sighted thinking that is rampant in the puke party....This kind of fraud austerity, is a religion followed "devoutly" with a profoundly stupid zealotry that is destroying this country as it has many times in our past history.

And this is not the only gaping wound they are throwing acid on.

The problem at hand is a kaleidoscope of ramifications the pugs do not have the brains to even begin to understand.

What they do have in spades... is the ability to make billions off the downfall...

who cares about the millions of folks it would effect most drastically?

And for tens or hundreds of thousands of Americans, it provides a living, or at least a family's second income. But about half of what I get from there and online sources comes through UPS or FedEx. Today, I came home to seven packages, four of them were potatoes I sent to myself on my recent trip to the Northwest. Yes, I was willing to pay about a dollar a pound for flat rate boxes to bring my farmer friend's tasty tubers to my (and my friends') dinner table. They lost money on me.

I assume that most shippers figure out which way to ship has the lowest cost. Every time they choose USPS, it likely costs that organization more to ship than they receive in postage, you can thank the flat rate mailer for that. Of course, when a shipper becomes big enough for the sweetheart deal from UPS or FedEx, they'll pick that option. And when the USPS raises rates to cover a bit more of their costs, more will switch to the private carriers, driving their per-package costs down, and allowing them to offer lower rates in the future. The vicious circle will continue.

At one point in time, it was way easier to own and maintain a horse than it was for an automobile. Now, it is clearly cheaper to have the car than the horse, and that's what's going to happen with the USPS. Frankly, it wouldn't surprise me if another company were to somehow materialize to challenge UPS and FedEx; every industry, no matter how much it costs to get into, eventually attracts competition. You can bet that will happen if either one of them tries to charge $300 to ship something.

In any case, you still haven't answered my question: What's wrong with doubling the cost of junk mail to keep the thing running, with or without fiddling with the pension and retirement health funding?

Of the literally thousands of Items I have bought on ebay in the last 10 years, less than 1% of them were sent by private carrier. Using a sack of potatoes as your "proof", is totally disingenuous and a sack of crap.

Over 90% of items sold on Ebay are smaller than a breadbox and lighter than rock and will be sent by USPS because it is cheaper. Larger, heavier, more cumbersome items will be sent by private carrier because it is cheaper.

The live plants and trees I get for my garden, for instance, mostly come private carrier.

To get some real facts you might get on an ebay forum to see what is really going on, instead of pulling things straight from the hat.

A sack of potatoes indeed.

What's wrong with doubling the cost of junk mail every time the USPS gets into a financial scrape? Why not keep a system you think is so wonderful running through the stupidity of big business?

created by B*sh, 0 and congress(controlled by Dino's and repukes and Wall st); to force USPS to its knees, so the rethug vultures can pick its bones clean and sell the rest to the pug glue factory...leaving the people of this country destitute and holding the bag and under the thumb of another cartel, joining the drug cartel, the Bankster cartels, and the Oily cartels; the new maga shipping cartels, coming soon.

They have to hand over obscene sacks of money to treasury at gunpoint, (now used for taxcuts for the rich) for a bogus trumped up and oh sooo phony "reason" and cannot raise their rates, because 0 has appointed pug overlords who will not let them. Junk mailers are big donors to pug grifters and con artists in congress and government.

It is only when you get into the weeds of these kinds of cons and frauds that you see just who 0 really is and who's puppet he is.

If there is not a huge hue and cry....this shameful plan will be accomplished to the horrific detriment of the people of this country.

that it may be politically impossible to raise the cost of sending junk mail. I presume you don't disagree with it on any sort of philosophical grounds.

The way I look at it, it's just a matter of political will. The "do not call" list legislation passed through Congress, I can only hope that whatever it takes to stem the flow of expensively-travelled garbage will eventually come about. I don't know that many citizens who really, truly appreciate the flow of crap that floods their mailboxes.

It is the first place I go when something needs to be mailed.

Can't imagine our town w/o the Post Office!

And if I mailed out a lot of packages, I'd love to see the USPS continue forever. But most people in this country are package recipients, and like I said, all the major businesses have worked out sweet deals with UPS and FedEx. My previous job was working for a place that sold medical equipment, when they switched billing and ordering systems, I was able to see for awhile just how cheaply we were able to FedEx heavy parcels across the country to hospitals and clinics.

The little-guy shipper subsidizes UPS and FedEx, but I simply propose that the junk mailers subsidize the USPS. Is there anything wrong with that, since by volume, they are the bulk of USPS mail?

etsy and more are made up of a ton of people who are mailing out packages and often. I try and do business with crafts people.

Really? Statistics please.

And most people DO NOT live in rural areas. Why should we cater to all those empty square states out west? We on the populated coasts already subsidize them enough. The "Heartland" is a minority.


The PO is funded by the sale of stamps. And it has plenty of money if you don't have to fund pensions for the next 70 years... fund pensions for people who aren't even born yet. This is a deliberate GOP move to privatize the mail with a stupid irrational law.... akin to "corporate personhood".

Your anecdotal arguments mean shit.

than own grocery stores, would you want statistics on that, too?

Isn't it reasonable to believe that there are more customers than shippers out there? If not, then we have nothing to talk about.

Again, what's wrong with my idea of doubling the shipping rate for junk mail?

Then it's time to put political pressure on this Regulatory Commission to double the cost of junk mail.

do you have any idea how much your rates with your coveted UPS and FedEx will rise with the demise of the post office? You don't, do you?

prescriptions working out.

That is what happens between a corporation and a forced captive customer when all the competition has been bought off and absorbed and congress is in their pocket.

Some call it fascism.

That being the case, why not do something real that will keep the USPS afloat?

What's wrong with my idea of doing CPR on the USPS by doubling junk mail costs? Maybe it would force a few businesses to evaluate who they mail garbage to. I know I still get catalogs twice a year from companies I picked up some loss-leader bargain from a few years ago. Maybe higher mailing rates for advertising crap would make them see that I'm not worth sending trash to.

send piles of junk mail. Let the CORPORATIONS, who use the USPS to send tons & tons of dead-tree-junk mail, pay for the costs....not the first-class mail users, who are actually paying full price for postage.

It is RIDICULOUS that these HUGE banks are allowed to send tons of mail at a fraction of the cost of regular citizens.

That's just one more thing about this country that bows to the corporations, and fucks the consumer.

There are all kinds of junk mailers out there, from realtwhores to fly-by-night contractors, and all kinds of junk sellers.

And who does that junk mail come from?

big companies and politicians.

Why? Because it the most cost effective way of getting a word out.

It's just the short sighted GOP and Corporate big wigs cutting their own throats while they rob us, again.


Your post is pretty ill thought out. But, fine, if you want to pay a bundle more just to mail something, go ahead. Just don't assume the rest of us want to as well.

for some idiot company to send me two catalogs a year, when all I ever bought from them was a deeply-discounted electronic toy that I found on Ben's Bargains four years ago? Maybe a sudden jolt in rates will inspire people who are supposed to know how to cut costs to go over their mass mailing lists a little better than they have been.

Politicians littering my mailbox get no more respect from me than Domino's pizza coupons, when I live in a land of true Italian pizza.

The dumbasses on the right take everything for granted.....

and without the slightest understanding of gratitude.

the Post Office did a bad job (this was during the health care debates). At that time, many LBN posters wondered why he (a) did not compare it to Medicare, which people seem to like; and (b) why he seemed to be derisive of the Post Office?

I was one of the LBN posters who wondered.

Please see Reply 68.

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

And probably many, many places in the real world with more than 30 people are gathered--and allowed to speak anonymously.

I expect better from progressives

leaving me with a part time minimum wage service job to survive from.

This is part of a well coordinated fascist assault on the middle class.

If the postal service would just jack up the rate to, say 85 cents, all problems would be solved.

But junk mail lobbyists pay to prevent this.

Mail would still be a bargain for average folk. Not so for the junk mail fuckers.

with UPS or Fed Ex -- or ridding themselves of junk mail --

Can you imagine UPS dealing with junk mail? What a farce.

Also recall one PO employee I spoke with telling me she was on

"special assignment" to work at Bloomingdale's to assistthem in

their advertisement mailings -- catalogues, etal -- packages, as

well, I guess???

And they are not allowed to make a profit- just to meet costs.
From a retired member if NALC #47

either on its own or before Congress does:

"But the Postal Service is not a private business, and postal politics often make strange bedfellows. In the case of the exigent rate increase, for example, the mail industry actually found itself — at least for a moment — siding with the PRC when it turned down the Postal Service’s request for a rate hike last year."

http://www.savethepostoffice.com/what-were-you-thinking-mr-president-obama-nominates-hammond-prc

Please see Reply 68 and the link given in that post.

All problems would be solved if they just got rid of the stupid law they passed that caused them.

Why are they so damned....pedestrian? I'd almost think they're playing on the other team.

:eyes:

that President Obama appointed one of the architects of that act to the Postal Commission.

You know, the Commission that, among other things, gets to decide if the Post Office may raise the price of stamps, the way that the Postal Service raises revenue?

President Obama did not have to appoint another Republican to the Commission when he nominated Taub. He could have nominated a Democrat--or a Republican who had not played a major role in the 2006 "reforms," he nominated Taub.

The current members, who serve 6 year terms. are:

Chair Ruth Y. Goldway (D) (nominated by Clinton, re-appointed Dummya and elevated to Chair by Obama a year later);

Commissioner Nanci E. Langley (D) (nominated by Dummya)

Vice Chairman Mark Acton (R) (first nominated by Dummya, then by Obama)

Richard G. Taub (R) (nominated by Obama replace Dan G. Blair (R))

One seat is technically vacant, because the term of Tony Hammond (R) expired in October. However, Obama has re-nominated him. If confirmed, the Commission will have three Republicans, just as it does under Republican Presidents, one of which Republicans was a major architect of the 2006 "reforms."

http://www.savethepostoffice.com/what-were-you-thinking-mr-president-obama-nominates-hammond-prc

and even though I do emphasize myself that the part of the reform bill dealing with pension funding requirements is a big source of the current problem, if you subtract the recession from the equation and instead look at the revenue projections that were expected at the time, it was punitive but not destructive. The point to knowing about the problem is to know a way around the problem, not to beat the same old stupid drum some more.

I don't see how it serves any purpose to say that anyone who had anything to do with it needs to be shunned, and that anyone who has anything to do with anyone who had anything to do with it should also be shunned...

To go directly from an understanding of the current difficulties of the post office, to accusing someone who doesn't shun those involved, is to flee directly from understanding to to simplistic guilt-by-association, serving pre-existing bias. What's the real point?

of the Post Office? Please be specific.

Second, Taub was not merely somehow "involved," in the 2006 laws. Obama's own press release said Taub had played a major role in the crafting the 2006 laws--

Second, there is a huge gap between shunning Republican Taub and putting him on the PRC, right when you are also re-appointing Hammond, leaving the PRC with a majority of Republicans, when you could have appointed a Democrat and created a Democratic majority on the PRC instead.

And, as I said, it's PRC controls whether postage rates can be raised, a pivotal fact in the survival of the Post Office.

As for the point, I guess you did not follow the link to the article that I linked in Reply 68. Click on it and read the title of the article, if nothing else. Because postal workers sure got the point.

What's your point?

It was a massive and very detailed and technical revision of the whole postal service operations. I know the part that is causing the current problem, but there are thousands of little things which were done in the course of ordinary government-by-incremental-improvement - the bulk of the bill - which I have no problems with. I'd suggest that anyone who wants to know about the bill go to the Library of Congress site and read the bill - its an informative exercise, and an excellent way to get out of the little rumor-bubble and look at how government actually is done.

I don't know who's idea it was to restructure the pension funding as it was done, but in a bill like this its very easy to make a change like that and have it go through without much worry. With the budget projections of the time, likely provided by the CBO, its possible that the obligations could have been seen as reasonable, except for an unexpected deep recession.

Perhaps there was ill-will involved as well by some (of the generic republican sort), but recognizing the problem that it is causing now is a different thing from saying that it was put there deliberately to cause the problem then, or that everyone involved in the process was aware that it would cause a problem, or that everyone who voted for the bill intended for it to cause a problem. There isn't necessarily an evil hand behind every thing that happens.

The obvious solution would be legislation to slow down the pension-funding requirement, though a little more on the revenue side would be fine as well.

Posting a condescending adjuration to 'read the bill' obfuscates the grim reality that the USPS is under assault, just like our system of Public Education--AND like most of our New Deal programs. If you think the uber wealthy Corporate Megalomaniacs are interested in maintaining the USPS as a well-funded, fully-functional government entity, I have some beachfront property for you to consider--in Nevada.

We are witnessing a global cultural crisis, and some folks are just not ready to acknowledge that.

they'd be happy to pare the USPS down to drownable size, and the other things as you say.

I think the best approach is to educate oneself about it, however, and reading the legislation is something that so very few even attempt to do...bloggers who don't read writing for people who don't read, creating movements covered by journalists who don't read.

Some stupid errors of opinion on my part not too far back were corrected by "reading the legislation", and it was obvious at the time not only that the sole means of correction had to be reading the legislation (because nobody I had talked to or read had done any kind of due diligence), but that I seemed to be "the only one in the room" who cared enough to bother. This is a political website - why shouldn't it be a common suggestion?

If I hear something now, I am most prone to go to the source material directly before forming any kind of opinion; if others checked their own sources in the same way, there's no end to the pointless misdirection and unsuspecting misinformation that could be avoided.

is going bankrupt while you play the flute leading the gullible off the cliff...are you stark raving insane.

Nobody but an idiot could make such a statement when it is obvious why this is happening.

THE USPS IS GOING BANKRUPT AFTER HUNDREDS OF YEARS AS ONE OF THE MOST SUCCESSFUL OPERATIONS IN HISTORY...BECAUSE OF THIS, OBSCENE, GREEDY BEYOND BELIEF, LEGISLATION...IT IS HAPPENING.

You need to tune up your flute if you expect anyone to believe these claptrap pug talking points.

The USPS has been making this country a far better place by its very existence and is a major part of the skeleton holding this country together. Without it we are lost as a civilized country...they need us now...they need our anger...they need our outrage...they need us to organize and call our congress and president...they are on life support....which means we are on life support.

They need our support and they have said as much.

the notion that its going bankrupt, or even that it is having any unusual revenue declines, is fiction.

Same problem as Social Security had (and has), with an assumed, future, guaranteed, revenue stream, and current revenue *not* being saved up for the future obligations.

If you promise your infant kids you can pay for college, because you have a good job today, but don't yet have the future costs for college already saved up, and stored in the local credit union, you are a liar.

What company do you know of, that has to cover pensions 70 years into the future....on top of having hostile pug overlords working for its demise.

The USPS could, even under these usurious and onerous conditions, (politics aside) pull itself back to solvency, by raising its rates a few pennies...a decision that is first and last up to pug politico's appointed by of all people BO.

If they cut such a deal, hoping nobody would call their bluff, they lost.

and then there is the snake walk of 0 taking a sever right turn after the election, that is oooh so much different...and its guided by the wicked witch, (that would be the 1%) dropping stale and poisonous bread crumbs for the hoodwinked followers of Bo Hansel AKA a Judas goat, leading the circle D dupes and the forced rest, (that would be us) into the oven...that would be the new and improved bankruptcy where the wicked witch takes everything.

it was not a republican plot - the bill had wide support from Democrats.

Not.

46 gazillion brazillion (obligatory reference) times between Halloween and New Year.

A tribute to the ingenuity and resourcefulness of postal workers and the United States Post Office (before Republicans)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aeqOkYDqNw8
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uFpX0arnPqc&feature=related (start at 1: 15)


on edit:

This should be mandatory viewing by the GOP, having tried their damnedest (and I use that word advisedly - and descriptively) to dismantle the Post Office. It was made a government corporation under Nixon - if I recall correctly - because of the mantra (intended by those idiots to be said with a sneer, a la their chief exemplar Snidely Whiplash): "if you like the Post office, you'll love government run healthcare"

The fact is, there would be a lot to love in both systems - if the GOP (Gross Obfuscatory Plutocrats) would keep their slimy hands off!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

about this mega hijack, as I have, you get a glazed stare.

Please see Reply 68 and the article cited in that post.

and privatize this important service - a twofer in their minds.

They've been doing everything they can to push USPS to the edge of a precipice and then over it.

Democracy Now has a great piece on this. Here are a few excerpts:

http://www.democracynow.org/2011/9/27/shock_doctrine_at_us_postal_service


CHUCK ZLATKIN: —on that act. Well, my union and the people we represented, we opposed it from the beginning, because we saw what was going to happen in our future, because it wasn’t just creating this arbitrary payment that had to be made. It limited the amount of debt that the Postal Service could use, and it also pegged any price increase to the Consumer Price Index. You put those things together, it was dooming the Postal Service. This is a manufactured crisis that was brought about by the same Congress that you’re saying that we shouldn’t go to to correct it. They caused the problem. We have to go to the cause of the problem and then come together and deal with this on behalf of the people who depend upon the Postal Service. As far as the union is concerned, if there’s service to the public, we’ll have jobs. We don’t have to manufacture jobs. The people who want to destroy the Postal Service had to manufacture a crisis.

~~~
CHUCK ZLATKIN: to accomplish this, you have to go to Congress to pass laws that will negate a contract that the Postmaster General, Patrick R. Donahoe, negotiated with the union in April. In July, he was going to Congress and saying we have to pass laws to break this contract. What happened between April and July? Absolutely nothing. If Donahoe did this contract, which was attacked by Issa, was so bad, why is Donahoe in his job now? He should have been fired. And/or at least if he was a decent guy, he should look at the situation and resign.

And we should also look into the sweetheart retirement package, filled with bonuses and pensions, that his predecessor, John E. Potter, got. If Potter left the Post Office in such a dire straits, why did he get these millions of dollars that was voted to him by the Postal Board of Governors? We need Donahoe out of his job and an investigation into what took place with the financial payoffs to his predecessor, and then we’ll be dealing with some of the real problems that the Postal Service is facing.

~~~

CHUCK ZLATKIN: Well, the unions are an important factor, because part of the reason that it looks so good to privatize is, as they see this business and they’re saying, "Look at this, we’re paying close to 600,000 workers a living wage, benefits and retirement package. Well, if we could break the union and eliminate that, we could bring in people, at-will workers for an hourly wage with no benefits, and that money could go to, not the American people or costs in government, that would go to profits. This is another situation where working-class people and poor people are being asked to suffer and sacrifice to benefit the rich.

It was in perfect condition and was handed to me by my mail carrier - not stacked on the porch like UPS. I have a mail carrier that knows everyone on her route and watches over us. The so called private sector can not say the same.

if everyone who has to ship christmas gifts would look into this service, instead of forking up MORE money to pay for shipping their gifts by the pound to UPS, then it would be a big help in getting some of the lost business back

people just don't need to mail bill payments any more, it's too easy to schedule this to happen automatically, electronically, either online at your home or at the library or at your bank...

where the post office shines is shipping the items that can't be sent electronically...for a random example i recently shipped a 27 pound package in a medium flat rate priority box for under $11...the tracking was free because i went through paypal to buy the stamp but it would still be a TRACKED package for less than $12 if i paid cash at the post office...my customer received his package in texas in less than 48 hours

let ups ground try to match that!

The Republican dream of the past 25 years finally comes to pass! FINALLY it will be privatized! Somebody's buddies will be billionnaires all over again as soon as prices are raised, services cut, and employee wages are reduced to a pittance. Plus, divying up Postal real estate should be especially interesting - they own some really expensive real estate after all, having been in every major U S city for a couple of hundred years. And after Fed Ex (or Red X or whoever) gobbles up city delivery for a mere $5 bucks an envelope to the citizenry, guess what famous group of taxpayers will get to fund delivery service to the 25% of the nation where those guys won't go? (and by the way, that's why USPS is the only agency in the U S Constitution - the Founders believed it was in the nation's interest that the country be "bound together" through communication. Ah, the spoils of victory! Not to mention a half million union members knocked off. It may take them a while, but this group will get their way - no matter what it takes to do it.

Is he well-meaning, or yet another fox guarding the chicken coop?

as all Postmaster Generals have been for many many years. I don't have a good read on him. My guess is we've had a long line of "foxes".

The "Governors" are powerful political appointments, made by the US President. All the current governors but one (Dennis J. Toner appointed in 2010 by Obama) were appointed by George W. Bush. There are nine governors.

All are Republicans except Toner and Thurgood Marshall (though many democrats would disagree that Marshall is a democrat.) Postal Gov. James C. Miller III is currently a member of the board of Americans for Prosperity (Tea Party/Koch founded). Ain't that cute?

Thank you for this information! Also interesting is that this isn't as widely known as it should be.

really getting into the weeds.

If the USPS closed its doors...the good ol' USofA would be in immediate chaos and in a full blown depression far greater than the last one...almost overnight and perhaps that was the intent of the outrageous and onerous poison pill "our" intrepid Mafia congress slapped on the USPS with the clear understanding it would destroy it...and so it has.

The Constitution is the only thing that will save it. The Republicans don't like the Constitution and they commit treason everytime they attack the Constitution as far as I am concerned..


Thank you for your service!

From a fellow retiree- NALC branch #47

Thanks for the welcome, hard working friend!

Please see Reply 76, then Reply 68 and the article at the link in Reply 68.

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day I get it. It won't be easy to predict when a letter will be delivered unless you send it FedEx and pay $15 for the letter.

i am angry about the slowdown in postal service but for a real reason, not an invented one

you can predict to the day by paying online and scheduling your payment, as everybody has been doing now for many years, one of the reasons that the post office can't sell as many first class stamps as they once did

the postal service provides a MUCH cheaper parcel delivery service than the private firms and they do it faster to ALL addresses, whereas the private services refuse to deliver to certain addresses such as post office boxes...that's my concern

we sometimes get a netflix in the mail the very next day, i've gotten cards and coupons with a two or three day turnaround, i can ship a package weighing 30 pounds that would cost me i'm afraid to think how much by ups for only $15 in a large flat rate shipping box...the postal service saves me, as a small person making some part time sales through the mail, a TON of money

shutting down the postal service is destructive to small individuals just starting out or who only sell a few items a month through the mail, it takes the profit of their small business if they ship heavy items

that's real

paying a credit card bill late, when no one pays by mail anymore, is not real and it just makes "them" think we don't have a legitimate argument

when trying to save this service and these good jobs with good benefits...let's put forward our BEST most believable arguments and not arguments that will be laughed off

All my bills are paid online through my bank. and I also have automatic payments set up.

who do not accept electronic payments - so if you aren't mailing a check, the bank is via the bill pay service.

Your statement is false, many hundreds of thousands of times over.

We are not looking to do it anytime soon either.

Fewer pay by mail but it's in error to assume NO ONE PAYS by mail any more. Younger folks tend to think this, as computers are so much a part of their culture. Believe it or not, many people do not even own computers. Some (older or disinclined or without the resources to own them) will never pay a bill on line.

And remember the 25% of the population that Fed Ex and UPS don't reach? (They collect good money from the customer but actually pay a little to the Postal Service to deliver to that 25% - that would include boat routes like the Okefenoke Swamp or Alaska, or villages in the Grand Canyon that are served by burro.)

Figures are available that demonstrate first class volume - the numbers are staggering even with the amount that has gone to the internet. If you could see the literal mountain of mail that processes through any large city on any night, you would have no doubt that every piece of mail that properly reaches your name and address is a miracle.

IT IS STILL A LUCRATIVE BUSINESS - THAT'S WHY THEY WANT IT.

They have cell phones, and don't need telephone companies, either.

We're in the midst of a huge cultural shift, and people are arguing about supporting old, dead, technology, and for how long.

Used to be much easier when the phones were bigger.



;)

Just read the document on your phone.

get around a little more.

Ridiculous statement.

I have never paid online and hope I am never forced to pay online.

And, as you can tell from reading this thread, several other posters obviously pay by mail.

there ARE MANY of who pay by mail, like many who don't use computers, for instance seniors and those in rural areas.

As to all 'bills' can be paid electronically and by banks, not true; for example, I make regular payments to IRS for arrears, and they must be paid through the mail.

Absolutely untrue. I am a USPS automation clerk. I have sorted thousands of such payments at a time, loading several hundred at once into the sorting machine (DBCS, or Delivery BarCode Sorter).

"paying a credit card bill late, when no one pays by mail anymore, is not real"

Everything else you have said is true, but these two quoted statements are 100% falsehoods without so much as a mote of truth to them. I should know. As recently as last year, I processed them DAILY.

Way more people pay their bills by mail than you believe. Way, way more. The difference between what you believe to be true and the reality of the situation could not possibly be more vast. Tens of thousands per hour at my P&DC alone, and that's just the bill payments, and does not count at all regular first-class mail or standard mail. Again, DAILY. Hundreds of thousands of payment envelopes per week. And yes, I do in fact know this to be the case. I, unlike most members of this board, am in a position to know.

that their site had been hacked and all that financial information had been compromised.

I won't do automatic bill pay.

with an automatic payment from their banks. Even though the payments were alwyas going out on time, the utility department was not crediting the accounts right away. But the late charge was labeled ambiguously on the bills, so people didn't realize for years that their payments had been late every month, because they all thought it was just some sort of small surcharge of the sort that sometimes gets tacked on to utilities of various sorts.

When one woman finally asked what the extra little charge was for, she was shocked to discover that she had been paying a late cahrge every month for over 2 years, despite having an automatic on time payment arranged through her bank, because the computer program at the utility department did something hinky with the way it was crediting such payments.

When the newspaper did an article about the situation, the public made enough noise that the utilities department suddenly found a way to reprogram their computers, even though they had originally assured the reporter that there was no way they could fix the way the program credited those payments.

Paper trails are useful.

PLENTY of people in America still mail checks for bills

Another way is to, if you have a checking account, pay it with Billpay, wherein the money is taken directly out of your account and the record is clear.

Depending upon your credit card company, it may offer a free payment by phone service. You may want to call them and check. That makes me almost as uneasy as putting my bank info online, but not quite as uneasy.

I actually have a bank branch in my neighborhood to which I can walk and hand my check to the teller, but my neighborhood is unusual.

Fighting for the post office?

Isn't that what they're supposed to be doing?

Rather, we're seeing that the RW pressures on the PO over the last 20 years

have accomplished their goal now of totally destroying it in order to turn

the business over to private hands!!

PO is our largest government employer! And there goes another union!!

and congress would be forced to rescind its ridiculous poison pill. The problem is they have already given the 50+billions to the voracious 1%ers who they serve like fluffers on a sadistic porn set.

Shamefully -- !!!


We need to be chanting -- "Who are you selling yourself to today, Senator?"

Or "Mr. President?" --

D and D...you are spot on...once again.

Please see Reply 76, then Reply 68. In Reply 68, you will find a link to an article entitled "What were you thinking, Mr. President."

and the other Democrats that co-sponsored this legislation.

....the Corporations and their privately owned Politicians have whored this country out so bad we are on poverty's doorstep.

when you get those unsolicited applications for credit cards from groups like Citigroup, Wells Fargo, etc. simply place the blank information packet in the return envelope they provide for you and mail it back to them. They get to pay the postage on it. It was also suggested that you stuff it with other papers so the weight of the envelope increases the fee paid by the corporate sender.

I'm not sure if this helps or hurts the USPS, but it sounded like a great way to get the corporate mass mailers to back off and to pay more money for their unsolicited trashing of our mail boxes.

REC.


Also, if this does help the USPS, why wouldn't we send EVERY unsolicited item back in the enclosed postage-paid envelope?

Please chime in and let me know if this plan is not a good one.

it could hurt the Post...just more paid for business.

Wrap up a brick, and tape the envelope to it. Do your part to increase revenue for USPS.

at any building supply store) in the envelope. Apparently, if it does not bend it costs the corporation more money. Plus the shim adds weight. But not like a BRICK!

the more jobs they can make the country lose the better for them they think,before the next election.

They are trying to get rid of things that have been good for this country for decades but it is all about them WINNING.


They don't give a FUCK about this country.

I've lost all respect for the Obama administration...

Read post #25 by new DU member summerschild.

Here's one quote:
The "Governors" are powerful political appointments, made by the US President. All the current governors but one (Dennis J. Toner appointed in 2010 by Obama) were appointed by George W. Bush. There are nine governors.

All are Republicans except Toner and Thurgood Marshall (though many democrats would disagree that Marshall is a democrat.) Postal Gov. James C. Miller III is currently a member of the board of Americans for Prosperity (Tea Party/Koch founded). Ain't that cute?

It is encouraging to see that someone had a response other than "my team is all things wonderful and nothing but all things wonderful."

The teams are 99%, 1% anymore, but so few seem to want to let go of the "red team, blue team" paradigm, even when it doesn't fit.

I guess it's worked (or seemed to) for the better part of a century, so shaking it up is very, very difficult, even though the occupiers sure have been trying their best.

out or even mention, by far the most salient point of this fraud... why it is that the USPS is going bankrupt and how it has nothing to do with its true financial condition which is far more than healthy and would be running a huge surplus if not for the criminal thugs in congress legislating a poison pill for them, just as they did for medicare.

That means anyone who gets a check or important papers in the mail will have to wait longer. Union busting at its finest.

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Another step in their attempt to privatize a service that dates back to the founding of this country.

Am I correct in my belief that the main problem breaking the USPS is a law that requires them to fund their retirement system for a stupid amount of years?

Can someone link me to info that I can pass along?

Loads of better links out there but I had saved this one because the article was pretty comprehensive and it provided a comparable to FedEx in the marketplace (last paragraph quoted below).

http://thedailycougar.com/2011/09/15/privatization-of-us-postal-service-could-be-costly/

Skip –
“What is not disclosed is that most of the USPS deficit is actually the result of Congress imposing a ridiculous mandate.
The USPS is required to fully fund its retiree benefits for the next 75 years, and it must do so by the year 2016. This costs the agency nearly $6 billion dollars a year. In effect, this is a fiscal death spiral; they must take out a loan to pay for a future that becomes less likely to happen the more money they borrow.”

Skip –
“However, proponents for privatization claim that the cost to consumers would be reduced by removing the mail service from government control. But market prices suggest otherwise. Currently, a 44 cent stamp will get a letter from Houston to New York in two to three days. According to the FedEx website, two-day delivery of a similar letter to the same destination will cost between $20-30 dollars.”

but that should speed up their demise... if they do.

only reason I think the USPS is still around is because of Netflix.

Around a hundred or so packages a day. I wouldn't take a free subscription to Netflix.

And the small packages of jewelry we mail first class go for around $3 to anyplace in the country in two or sometimes three days. Same packages would be $30 by UPS or FedEx to the places they do go. Since the items contained cost less than $50, we'd be out of business.

Plus scheduling every pickup with those other guys, instead of the carrier coming every day to see if you have something to send? TIME is worth something, isn't it, still?

For those who loved pumping their own gas, adore checking and carrying their own groceries, performing all the executive functions of a shipper for no pay will be a delight!

They depend on low rates to stay alive.

Even more so to stay competitive internationally.

Ebay ring a bell?

Catalog companies?

Small businesses?

People sending birthday, anniversary, graduation, birth, holiday, etc. greetings and gifts?

Birth announcements?
.
Wedding invitations?

Mail from Congresscritters and others running for office?

Magazine subscriptions?

And on and on

Oh, well. I can't imagine any reason at all why Ron Paul is still running, but the troll just won't go away.

:mad: :puke: :grr: :nuke:

This is a clusterfuck indeed! Ack!

Did I mention that I HATE repukes?!? Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr!

because their very existence is a fraud.

rising up in such a way as to force f******g Congress to change the damned legislation.

Article I, Section 8 of the constitution says that Congress will have the power (but apparently not the obligation) to establish post offices. Read in a literal sense, it could mean that the government only has the power (and not the obligation) to provide a brick/mortar facility for postal services. Taken in a more general sense, could this mean that the government has the Constitutional obligation to preform post office services as well? In any event, could the closing of the USPS be construed as an unconstitutional act and therefore require a Constitutional amendment to do so? Could this provision be construed to allow USPS to sell off all its assets (like a corporate take-over we are all too familiar with)on the sacred "open market". The new corporate master would provide the service at whatever price and in whatever manner it determines would be the most profitable to it.

If she has sufficient seniority she might be eligible for a job at the remaining mail handling location. The commute would be 60+ miles one way and she can't consider relocation. This is an unnecessary blow to a lot of her co-workers too. :(

Employees at Network Distribution Centers are working 12 hour days, many seven days a week and can't keep up with the mail. I suspect that the whole plan is the destruction of the Postal Service.

They can take from the people and the nation a service that existed before the nation existed, the only federal agency in the Constitution of the United States.

Yeayyyy, for Fed Ex, Parcel Post and the others.

They win.

We lose.

Again.

It will swift and dramatic because many small businesses (and large for that matter) depend on the Post Office. Unfortunately, once it is done, it will be nearly impossible to reverse.

It is seriously disturbing that they are willing to play with this hot of a fire while the economy is so tepid and unstable.

I have a couple of co-workers with the mindset of: "Well, they NEED to shut down the postal service!! If any other business lost that much money they would close their doors! Why are my tax dollars propping up a failure??"

I try to talk sense to them but it's useless

There is no way we can compete with big companies via internet or media advertizing. The collapse of the economy and mortgage industry has already put us on the precipice.

Make the junkmailers pay more!

It's what they want - proof that the government doesn't work. And by crippling it's programs, they prove themselves right. What smart cookies they are.

with Bush out of the White House since January 2009, Democrats in control of Congress from January 2007 through January 2011 and Democrats still holding a majority in the Senate?

Please?

I don't mean to single you out, but I have seen one post after another blaming this on Republicans and only Republicans. That makes no rational sense to me.

So, if you can explain to me how Republicans have managed this on their own, I'd appreciate it.

See also, Reply 68 http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=102&topic_id=5079858&mesg_id=5080212

I said nothing of republicans having "managed it on their own" - that's an important distinction and if I understand your concern, I am aware that there are more forces at work than what can simply be labeled "Republican". Many Democrats share in the culpability. Blue Dogs I believe they were called. DINO might also be an appropriate label. "Spineless" would fit others. Then there are the Libertarians and their blessed belief in the invisible hand of the market place. Corporate self-interest and incessant lobbying is another force(probably the most important one...but which party bends over for them without fail? Republicans. Yes, Republicans).

But having said that, we wouldn't be in this mess that is leading to our governmental institutions failing us if it weren't for Republicans. Yes, Republicans. And if you want to get more specific - Conservative Republicans. But there really are hardly any other types these days. "Conservative" is their crown.

Do I need to repeat history here? Republican legislation to break unions, the weakening and elimination of business regulations, Republican presidents assigning industry whores and lobbyists to our regulatory agencies (a-la Reagan, Bush I and II) blocking legislation that would actually fix the problems that our public institutions are having, etc., etc. The most insipid and anti-public initiatives come from Republicans. Yes, Republicans. Just compare the congressional legislative bills that passed under the leadership of Nancy Pelosi to any time the Republicans held a majority. And remember who blocked just about every one of those bills - Republicans. Yes, Republicans.

Which party stands behind all initiatives to privatize of all our public institutions? Which party wants to privatize Social Security? Which party pushed through legislation to require the Postal Service hold funds for its pension plan 75 years into the future? That's an unprecedented requirement!

I'm not going to repeat ad infinitum all the crap legislation that Republicans (yes, Republicans) have passed over these last 30 to 40 years with their domination of our political system. Seriously, do you need an explanation? Just who the hell is telling everyone that government is the problem and should be minimized, reduced to god-knows-what? Or do we live in a different universe and I accidentally posted to one in which Republicans actually value the role of government in the interest of public good? If so, I stand corrected.

Then again, I'll give you this... If elected Democrats had actually fought for progressive and liberal principles with the dignity and integrity that is inherent in those principles, we might be in a different place today. The Democratic party has been an ineffective counter-balance to the bullshit that conservatives, via the Republicans, have laid on us over that last 30 to 40 years. Why that is, is a whole other discussion.

Hey, this is the same thing that rethug governors have been doing to their states. Leasing toll roads on 75 year contracts (Indiana's Mitch Daniels), Privatization of public utilities so that everything is profit based and the pols can get get more lobbyist money which comes from regular Americans.

The post office is the largest employer of unionized workers in the country. The Republicans passed a law under Bush which is no more than a poison pill, forcing them to fund 80 years of medical benefits in 10 years. That's why they are going broke. The Republicans want to bust the union and payback their UPS and Fed Ex donors. Where are the Democrats?????

and January 2011.

They've got over 90% of our wealth as it is. And by "they," I do not mean only Republicans.

We need to finally wake up and smell the coffee before we are stripped of even the change in our couch cushions.

Or we can keep making believe.

can collect too. For those people who don't have the internet and can't pay their bills on line, they are going to have to send their payments out way early or risk fines and penalties. If your P.C. breaks down and it takes time to repair or replace you're basically screwed. BB doesn't even have to take the blame, they just get to scapegoat the P.O.

Oh well. The Big Banksters have to "make more profit" some how. They're all that matters anymore.

:sarcasm:

The county in which I live is entirely vote-by-mail. The half of the state in which I live is predominately Democratic and the other half is predominately Republican. So envision this scene: Late October, 2010, ballots are in the mail. The ballots from the Republican half of the state are duly sent and arrive before election day. Ballots from the west side are taken through the slow track and somehow just don't show up until after election day. This new plan on delaying delivery of mail could swing state elections and even national ones.