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US Post Office might have to shut down this winter
Topic Started: Sep 4 2011, 08:22 PM (744 Views)
Baldo
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Postal Service faces grim ‘new reality’

he current mail system of the United States is "no longer financially sustainable," and the U.S. Postal Service (USPS) is looking for billions of dollars in cuts to its services.

The postal service announced Thursday it was considering closing nearly 250 processing facilities, cutting equipment by 50 percent and slowing mail delivery in an extreme cost-cutting effort. It is looking for $3 billion in annual savings.

And as the president and Congress search high and low for ways to boost job creation, up to 35,000 people could be laid off as part of that effort.

"We are forced to face a new reality today,” said Postmaster General Patrick Donahoe. “With the dramatic decline in mail volume and the resulting excess capacity, maintaining a vast national infrastructure is no longer realistic."

Since the advent of email and other electronic communication, the postal service has seen a steady decline in its use. More than 43 billion fewer pieces of mail are sent now than they were five years ago. First-class mail has dropped 25 percent, and the transmission of stamped letters is down 36 percent over that time frame. The postage purchased to send first-class mail is a primary source of revenue for the USPS.

The American Postal Workers Union blasted the move.

“The Postal Service should be urging Congress to address the cause of its problems – not slashing service and demolishing its network," union president Cliff Guffey said.

And lawmakers responded to the announcement by repeating their calls for legislative action to help shore up those ailing finances.

"Congress and the administration must act quickly to help the Postal Service save itself," Sen. Tom Carper (D-Del.) said. "Failure to act will result in the Postal Service being insolvent within a year, if not sooner, bringing more pain to communities across the country and wreaking havoc on our already fragile economy."....snipped

http://thehill.com/blogs/on-the-money/1007-other/181819-postal-service-faces-grim-new-reality


Clearly the USPS is facing a decline in snail mail, but why the grim scenario? One inefficient management, featherbedding union rules, and the inability & unwillingness to change. Add in the US Govt management or a quasi-private company by Congress and you have a mess.

But what is actually causing this financial problem now? Funding the pension requirements. It is rather complex with both sides arguing over-payments or under payments. We are talking many billions.
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Baldo
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For USPS to survive, it needs to act like a business

No CEO of a struggling business would propose a turnaround that hinged on degrading the service of its flagship product, but that's essentially what the U.S. Postal Service is doing with its cost-cutting proposals that include eliminating Saturday mail delivery and virtually eliminating overnight delivery of first-class mail.

"The changes the Postal Service announced don’t make the essential issues go away," says Michael Crew, director of the Center for Research in Regulated Industries, and CRRI professor of regulatory economics at Rutgers University. On Thursday, the USPS acknowledged it was facing a "new reality" as it continues to lose business to electronic forms of communication.

"It'll probably result in the further decline of the postal service," Crew predicts, as customers ranging from consumers who still pay bills via snail mail to companies that depend on overnight mail turnaround like Netflix alike seek out electronic alternatives more aggressively.

The problem, say experts, is that the USPS isn't run like a business. "The essential problem is that the law does not create a framework for the Postal Service that gives them sufficient flexibility to adjust to a changing market," says James I. Campbell, an attorney and consultant on postal policy.

Although the USPS isn't funded by taxpayer dollars, it still has to follow a host of Congressional mandates on its operations.

"What's costing them is their business model doesn't encourage them to innovate," Crew says, "So all they can think of is cut, cut, cut — and that's probably the only option that's available to them under current law."

Other industrialized nations have mail-delivery systems that aren't bleeding red ink; the difference is that those are run like corporations (some are entirely privatized). And in business, cutting costs is only half the solution to an underwater balance sheet. What's even more important is stimulating demand.

The USPS could do this in a few ways, experts say. First, it could ramp up parcel delivery. Market research firm comScore says online retail spending in the second quarter of this year alone was $37.5 billion. That adds up to a lot of goods that need to be transported around the country. Now, though, the USPS only handles around 15 percent of this market, with the rest handled by UPS and FedEx...sniped

http://bottomline.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2011/09/16/7796452-for-usps-to-survive-it-needs-to-act-like-a-business
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Deleted User
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I would suggest it should get rid of some of the "dead weight" we observe in their day to day operations.
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cks
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Sep 18 2011, 01:42 PM
I would suggest it should get rid of some of the "dead weight" we observe in their day to day operations.
That would be a beginning. Second, I would suggest that the USPO hire people who can read so that the correct mail is delivered to its intended recipient.
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wingedwheel
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Instead of eliminating Saturday mail they should eliminate Wednesday or Thursday mail.
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cks
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Mail service is an important function of the government. It should not be eliminated for any day but it should become more efficient.
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Deleted User
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It deeply concerns me that our mail can be "hijacked" by union work stoppage. If the gov't continues intrusion into the internet, and closes down the PO, it can virtually control all communication... unless you call the MSM "communication".
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MsMissouri

I frequently mail boxes to my son in Europe. As of last year, postal clerks are required to enter all customs form information into their computer—name and address of sender and recipient, list of items enclosed and their value.

Some months back one of the clerks was quite flustered when the computer asked for the sender’s country. She huffed and puffed, then loudly stated, “You not in no country. You in Chicago!” I gently suggested that she try entering “United States” but she indignantly refused, again informing me, “You in Chicago!” Her frustration mounted over twenty minutes as the line built up behind me and she repeatedly announced to all and sundry that I was in Chicago. By that time all present believed her. She finally typed in “United States” and my package did make it to its destination.

Last week I mailed another box to #1 Son. There were only 7 items (all everyday things) listed on my customs form but it took the clerk more than 30 minutes to type in the information. She was very pleasant but, like almost all the clerks I have encountered in the Chicago branches of the USPS, had no mastery of the keyboard. The line was quite long behind me by the time I left. What are their hiring criteria and where do they get these people?????

There are some excellent postal worker but they are in the minority. No business can be successful with incompetent employees. The USPS is a great example of unionization’s failure.

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