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I went to the post office today to look for clues as to why they are having so much trouble making $

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Shagbark Hickory Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Aug-06-11 04:42 PM
Original message
I went to the post office today to look for clues as to why they are having so much trouble making $
This picture was taken in front of the post office.
And I think I found a clue!
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Rex Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Aug-06-11 04:47 PM
Response to Original message
1. HA!
Hey, I got an idea...why not Bill Gates step in and save the POSTAL SERVICE!
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CelticThunder Donating Member (460 posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Aug-06-11 04:48 PM
Response to Reply #1
4. The USPS pays its union employees a good wage and benefits for doing hard, shitty work.
Edited on Sat Aug-06-11 04:49 PM by CelticThunder
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CelticThunder Donating Member (460 posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Aug-06-11 04:48 PM
Response to Original message
2. Fed Ex is actually a huge USPS customer.
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PeaceNikki Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Aug-06-11 05:02 PM
Response to Reply #2
11. I thought this was fairly common knowledge.
Guess not.
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RC Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Aug-06-11 05:09 PM
Response to Reply #2
13. That's true. And they are in bed together also.
UPS is out in the cold here. No threesomes.
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hlthe2b Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Aug-06-11 04:48 PM
Response to Original message
3. compare the (non-business) pricing of shipping by FEDEX or UPS
contrasted with the Postal Service. It is incredible the difference-- on the order of 3-5 times more expensive. I sincerely hope that the nasty assed Rethugs do not use this as an excuse to totally dismantle the USPS. It is part of the "commons," in my opinion and SHOULD be supplemented by tax dollars. That doesn't mean it doesn't need to change, mind you, but we need the mail service.
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scheming daemons Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Aug-06-11 04:49 PM
Response to Original message
5. the Internet is the #1 reason.
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gateley Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Aug-06-11 04:55 PM
Response to Reply #5
7. Although so many more people are purchasing online requiring
their purchases be mailed, as contrasted to when everyone had to get in their car and go to the store to buy. So I'd guess online retailing and sites like eBay have generated a LOT more mail, but that's just my take on it.
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scheming daemons Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Aug-06-11 04:58 PM
Response to Reply #7
9. regular mail (letters and bills) has dried up... ups and fedex do the rest
No need for 6days a week mail.
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Shagbark Hickory Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Aug-06-11 06:37 PM
Response to Reply #9
19. But there's more junk mail than ever. And saturday delivery is what makes usps competitive
ups would love nothing more than if usps dropped saturday
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Shagbark Hickory Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Aug-06-11 04:56 PM
Response to Reply #5
8. You don't suppose the $20+million dollars annually of lobbying has anything to do with it?
Edited on Sat Aug-06-11 04:57 PM by Shagbark Hickory
I mean, when your competitors are writing the rules of the road, that could make it pretty hard.

Sure I send a lot fewer letters but I still get lots and lots of mail (that I don't even want).
In terms of postage, the letter carrier delivers more to me in a year of unwanted credit card applications than I receive in parcels from ups or fedex.

I honestly don't think the internet has anything to do with it. In fact the internet can help the USPS generate revenue because people order a lot of things online now thanks to e-commerce. Only merchants seldom use the USPS for parcels because the competition has helped make USPS uncompetitive in the parcel business.
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Danascot Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Aug-06-11 05:46 PM
Response to Reply #8
14. When I get the mail
I write "refused" of every piece of junkmail, put it all back in the mailbox and put up the flag for the next time the postperson comes. It takes a minute or less and then it's no longer my problem.
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Shagbark Hickory Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Aug-06-11 06:31 PM
Response to Reply #14
17. But that doesn't stop it from coming.
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MedicalAdmin Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Aug-06-11 07:56 PM
Response to Reply #14
23. I scan the mail looking for a return postage guarantee ..
... if you get that tape it to a brick and mail that. I have a stack of old recycled (and crumbling) bricks in my back yard that are no good for anything else. So I bag em and ship em back to the junk mailers on their dime.

2 birds - one stone.
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Rex Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Aug-06-11 04:59 PM
Response to Reply #5
10. BINGO!
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demmiblue Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Aug-06-11 04:55 PM
Response to Original message
6. I went to the post office today...
and was bombarded by LaRoachies.

That is enough to discourage any thinking person! :silly:
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Strelnikov_ Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Aug-06-11 05:07 PM
Response to Original message
12. GOP created artificial crisis
pa28 presents the case in the following post:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=102&topic_id=4949703&mesg_id=4949746

++++

In 2006 the USPS was suddenly required to pre-pay future health benefits into a government trust fund and now they need to access some of the 60 Billion in audited overpays they've made. They need a change in the law as well as their own money back and the GOP, of course, refuses to cooperate.

Just another page in their playbook. Fabricate a financial crisis and then use it as a variation in their "america is broke" story line which, of course, will lead to a discussion on privatization.

Here is some additional backround.

http://federaldaily.com/articles/2011/05/17/usps-billions-in-benefits-overpayments.aspx

++++

And a follow up link by PoliticAverse:

http://www.postalnewsblog.com/2009/03/26/the-postal-ponzi-scheme

++++
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pinboy3niner Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Aug-06-11 06:26 PM
Response to Reply #12
16. GOP's goal: Destroy the unions AND privatize--a twofer
We've had several USPS "crisis" threads today, so I've already posted a couple of times this letter from a postal union officer in Chicago, published just yesterday in the Chicago Trib:




USPS can keep Saturdays

1:00 p.m. CDT, August 5, 2011


If one was to believe the recent propaganda by the Postmaster General, you would think the internet, the economy and the declining mail volume has made the United States Postal Service (USPS) unprofitable- thus they must eliminate Saturday delivery and close local Post Offices in order to survive. This is simply not accurate.

While it is true that mail volume has declined over the past ten years, the Postal Service, with cooperation from its labor unions, has made the appropriate business decisions to remain competitive and efficient. The real reason behind the "loss" of billions is a law that requires the Postal Service to pre-fund its future retiree's health benefits for the next 75 years. That mandate, enacted during the Bush-era (2006), requires this to be done in ten years.


That's right – the USPS is required by law (not by its labor unions) to contribute over $5 billion annually to pay for the future health benefits of carriers and employees that have yet to be hired. The National Association of Letter Carriers is aware of this, which is why we have been working hard to get Congress to relieve the Postal Service of this unreasonable and unfair burden. No other company in the private or public sector is required to do this so neither should the Postal Service. ....
...


.... The Postal Service is still very relevant and for only 44 cent a stamp we don't require a dime of your tax dollar! If it was not for the congressional mandate to pre-fund our retirement, the Postal Service would have seen profits of over a half a billion dollars over the past five years. Right now the United States Postal Service does not need to close post offices, reduce services or a bailout -- we just need Congress to fix the law that is breaking your Postal Service.


-- Mack I. Julion , President, National Association of Letter Carriers, Branch 11- Chicago


http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/opinion/letters/chi-110805julion_briefs,0,2889672.story
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Name removed Donating Member (0 posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Aug-06-11 06:25 PM
Response to Original message
15. Deleted message
Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.
 
Shagbark Hickory Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Aug-06-11 06:34 PM
Response to Reply #15
18. Or maybe tents.
Hey they could do what their competitors do and set up shop inside Office Depot but that idea was probably made illegal.
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JI7 Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Aug-06-11 06:40 PM
Response to Original message
20. does the USPS have to make that much money ? i think the costs of keeping them
might be less than if they were to go away and we had to depend on the private companies which will probably raise prices.
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pinboy3niner Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Aug-06-11 06:53 PM
Response to Reply #20
21. Without the GOP's onerous pension funding law, USPS is totally self-funding
The GOP succeeded in saddling USPS with ADVANCE pension-funding requirements in 2006, under the W adnministration.

Under the law, they are required to divert what would normally be operational funds to pre-fund pensions far beyond what what is required of any other government or private organization--even to the extent of pre-funding pensions for FUTURE HIRES.

GOP manufactured the crisis to destroy unions and fully privatize postal service. Without the extreme advance pension-funding requirements imposed by law, USPS would have no deficits at all.
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Shagbark Hickory Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Mon Aug-08-11 07:59 AM
Response to Reply #20
24. USPS could easily make money, and lots of it if they
stop letting their competition write the rules of the road.

They could start by doing away with the 13 ounce rule which make it illegal to ship something as small and light as a mobile phone by first class or parcel post by depositing it in a mailbox or handing it to a carrier.
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jberryhill Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Aug-06-11 06:54 PM
Response to Original message
22. They should just decrease the rewards on those posters inside
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w8liftinglady Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Mon Aug-08-11 08:01 AM
Response to Original message
25. my partner said it best.
"The USPS was never intended to 'make money'. It is performing a necessary public service"
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Shagbark Hickory Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Mon Aug-08-11 08:31 AM
Response to Reply #25
26. That may be true but it could be easily making money by simply
not letting their privately owned competition dictate the rules of the road. Extremely preventable by putting an end to the corruption.
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