No more Saturday mail

[Clone]

The P.O. processes a lot more than letters and bills.

I somewhat regularly order from two retail operations that send the pkg UPS to the Grants Pass post office which delivers it.

How many folks out in remote locations pay their bills and do banking online?

If you don't think there are still remote areas, take a drive across this land.

The whole thing is a mess....when the p.o. first went private, Congress insisted that the p.o. pay their veteran employees benefits and pensions instead of the veterans administration. That was a huge mistake and was overturned, the p.o. finally recovered.

Then congress came up with the idea of pre-funding pensions 75 years in advance. I keep repeating myself because some don't seem to realize the implications of this. The P.O. is being forced to fund the pensions of people not even born yet.

Believe me or not. Just know that the United States Postal Service is provided for in the United States Constitution.

They tend to have really crappy supervisors, but your typical hardworking carrier and/or clerk works hard to "Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night stays these couriers from the swift completion of their appointed rounds."

During the heat waves, the hurricanes, the freezing storms when power lines are down, the mail still comes through.

Ever think what would happen if we had a solar flare or some kind of conflict which took electronic communications down?

Where would we be without a postal service?

The Post Office is not broke.

The Post Office receives no money from the federal government.

[Wonky]

It will be a sad when when we no longer have mail delivery by U.S. Postal Service workers.

But that day will come.

The sentence above, "The post office is not dying a natural death, it's being killed by Congress", if true, is only true by a slim margin of fact. Email is killing the Postal Service.

Before calling me a liar, check your facts instead of blabbing away about email, rural delivery and how bad,not badly you feel for the workers.

If it sounded as if I called you a liar, I am truly sorry. I think we disagree about the details. (Congress is struggling with the coming retirement funding; the operating budget has been hit hard by the lack of first class mail)

But this is about more than my poor use of language or our differences in understanding the problems of the Postal Service.

And I'm not gonna play.

[csrowan]

It's hard to exchange ideas and views on a particular issue when people would rather attack the person who introduces the topic than actually start a discussion about it.

Jeezz Rowan did your bus just arrive, That ground was covered this morning.

And yet, people are still doing it...

[tvguy]

Wonky was right, put this in your pipe and smoke it Ponder



The United States Postal Service is the backbone of a mailing and shipping industry that employs more than 8.5 million people and supports almost $1 trillion in economic activity every year.

Since its founding in 1775 as the United States Post Office, with Benjamin Franklin as the original postmaster general, the service has focused mainly on one thing: delivering the mail. But mail volume, particularly first-class mail, has dropped sharply, to 168 billion pieces in 2011 from a peak of 213 billion in 2006, because of vast changes in the way Americans communicate, move money and even buy books and music.

Meanwhile, the agency has had a tough time cutting costs to match the revenue drop, with a history of labor contracts offering generous health and pension benefits and no layoff provisions, and laws that restrict its ability to cut the frequency of deliveries.

As a result, the service in 2012 was losing a staggering $36 million a day, after having generated an annual profit as recently as 2006.


Did you see the part that said revenue drop??? Long live common sense and Logic. You either got it or you aint.

[csrowan]

with a history of labor contracts offering generous health and pension benefits and no layoff provisions, and laws that restrict its ability to cut the frequency of deliveries.

[tvguy]

with a history of labor contracts offering generous health and pension benefits and no layoff provisions, and laws that restrict its ability to cut the frequency of deliveries.

I never argued that point dude, did you think I didn't see what you posted??

I simply deduced that a lack of snail mail revenue was most likely hurting the USPS just like Wonky said.

For that Ponder had a shit fit and said the real problem was specifically being caused because the post office alone of all quasi-federal agencies is being required to fund retirement benefits decades before they ever happen

and said...... You two seem to love being uninformed but having something to say about it anyway.

So who's uninformed now?

[Larry]

I think what Wonky overlooked was the 'history of labor contracts offering generous health and pension benefits'. In other words, the UNION bleeds them dry.

[csrowan]

with a history of labor contracts offering generous health and pension benefits and no layoff provisions, and laws that restrict its ability to cut the frequency of deliveries.

I never argued that point dude, did you think I didn't see what you posted??

I simply deduced that a lack of snail mail revenue was most likely hurting the USPS just like Wonky said.

For that Ponder had a shit fit and said the real problem was specifically being caused because the post office alone of all quasi-federal agencies is being required to fund retirement benefits decades before they ever happen

and said...... You two seem to love being uninformed but having something to say about it anyway.

So who's uninformed now?

You claim it is the drop in revenue that's causing the problems, EVEN THOUGH your own quoted source goes on to explain that the revenue drop is a problem BECAUSE of
specific issues that makes it more difficult for the Post Office to adapt to a revenue drop. Other companies, not tied down by the same issues, would not be in the same boat.

And I have no idea what you thought I posted, because I haven't even talked about this subject until you just now ignored what was in front of your face.

[tvguy]

I think what Wonky overlooked was the 'history of labor contracts offering generous health and pension benefits'. In other words, the UNION bleeds them dry.

And yet the USPS was turning a PROFIT as recently as 2006.

So you too refuse to admit there were vast changes in the way Americans communicate, move money and even buy books and music.


The New York times article specifically mentions WHEN the revenue dropped and why.


http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/...index.html

[PonderThis]

The post office could still handle these fluctuations in volume just fine if they weren't being bled dry by having to pre-fund their retirements. The fact remains.

You remain stuck on the side show.

[Clone]

Damn, tv...I guess you challenge Ponder instead of me because you want a pissing contest. I know about this. My livlihood depends on it. You, a supposed union man, should be able to understand the desire of politicians to get their fingers into the pension pie...just as they did to social security. Turn on your listening ears. USPS can save itself, but congress won't let it. They eye those pension funds and want to take them. You should be standing up and fighting for the postal workers. Your union just may be next. Ya never know.

=========================================

Both the news media and a number of politicians have claimed recently that the U.S. Postal Service (USPS) is in “crisis,” and that it is necessary to lay off thousands of workers or reduce service in order to make the post office fiscally stable. And the Post Office itself has proposed laying off as many as 120,000 employees and withdrawing from federal health care plans in order to navigate upcoming fiscal crunches.

It is true that USPS is facing fiscal challenges — it lost nearly $20 billion over the last four years and is at risk of not being able to meet a $5.5 billion mandated payment to the Treasury at the end of this month (which has been put off six weeks thanks to the last continuing resolution in Congress).

But what has been lost in the political debate over the Post Office is why it is losing this money. Major media coverage points to the rise of email or Internet services and the inefficiency of the post model as the major culprits. While these factors may cause some fiscal pain, almost all of the postal service’s losses over the last four years can be traced back to a single, artificial restriction forced onto the Post Office by the Republican-led Congress in 2006.

At the very end of that year, Congress passed the Postal Accountability and Enhancement Act of 2006 (PAEA). Under PAEA, USPS was forced to “prefund its future health care benefit payments to retirees for the next 75 years in an astonishing ten-year time span” — meaning that it had to put aside billions of dollars to pay for the health benefits of employees it hasn’t even hired yet, something “that no other government or private corporation is required to do.”
As consumer advocate Ralph Nader noted, if PAEA was never enacted, USPS would actually be facing a $1.5 billion surplus today:

By June 2011, the USPS saw a total net deficit of $19.5 billion, $12.7 billion of which was borrowed money from Treasury (leaving just $2.3 billion left until the USPS hits its statutory borrowing limit of $15 billion). This $19.5 billion deficit almost exactly matches the $20.95 billion the USPS made in prepayments to the fund for future retiree health care benefits by June 2011. If the prepayments required under PAEA were never enacted into law, the USPS would not have a net deficiency of nearly $20 billion, but instead be in the black by at least $1.5 billion.

In order to remedy this problem, Rep. Stephen Lynch (D-MA) has introduced bipartisan legislation (which has 193 co-sponsors) that would allow the USPS to spend more of its own money to pay down its deficits, including $6.9 billion in pension overpayments or other overpayments that may total as much as $25 billion to $50 billion. These are Post Office funds, not taxpayer dollars.

Meanwhile, Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA) has been pushing for legislation that would lead to widespread layoffs and break the back of the postal workers’ unions to defuse the “crisis” that Congress created. Yesterday, thousands postal workers and the Americans who value their contributions to our society held hundreds of rallies at congressional offices across the country to support Lynch’s bill and to protest against Issa’s

http://thinkprogress.org/economy/2011/09...ve-itself/

[Wonky]

Wonky was right, put this in your pipe and smoke it Ponder



The United States Postal Service is the backbone of a mailing and shipping industry that employs more than 8.5 million people and supports almost $1 trillion in economic activity every year.

Since its founding in 1775 as the United States Post Office, with Benjamin Franklin as the original postmaster general, the service has focused mainly on one thing: delivering the mail. But mail volume, particularly first-class mail, has dropped sharply, to 168 billion pieces in 2011 from a peak of 213 billion in 2006, because of vast changes in the way Americans communicate, move money and even buy books and music.

Meanwhile, the agency has had a tough time cutting costs to match the revenue drop, with a history of labor contracts offering generous health and pension benefits and no layoff provisions, and laws that restrict its ability to cut the frequency of deliveries.

As a result, the service in 2012 was losing a staggering $36 million a day, after having generated an annual profit as recently as 2006.


Did you see the part that said revenue drop??? Long live common sense and Logic. You either got it or you aint.

Thanks for your efforts TVg.
I had cut several articles from the NTY,, Washington Post, and the LA Times reporting about the same information as you posted.
I didn't past them in because I wanted to keep the conversation narrowed to the point about what the reduction in service means to us, personally, and to the Postal Carriers who will lose hours. At some point I should have found them and posted it, I suppose. The budget problems are of course at the bottom of all this, but the first effects are felt by us and the Postal Workers.

The simple truth is that discussion of this forum could (and sometimes does) lead to a more complete understanding of the things we debate. It can't happen in the hail of hostility and flaming that we so often do.

Good information will always trump conjecture. Together we could do lots to gain real, and important, information.

[tvguy]

You claim it is the drop in revenue that's causing the problems,

WRONG not "THE" I simply posted the article to show that the lack of revenue was indeed affecting the USPS's bottom line.

I was responding to a couple of people who mocked Wonky and I for daring to not google and for assuming the internet was taking business and revenue away from the USPS

I'm not sure I understood what your point was but I sure as hell didn't miss what you reposed in the article.

Other companies, not tied down by the same issues, would not be in the same boat.

Fine, OK, so what? I didn't claim anything different.

[Larry]

I think what Wonky overlooked was the 'history of labor contracts offering generous health and pension benefits'. In other words, the UNION bleeds them dry.

And yet the USPS was turning a PROFIT as recently as 2006.

So you too refuse to admit there were vast changes in the way Americans communicate, move money and even buy books and music.


The New York times article specifically mentions WHEN the revenue dropped and why.


http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/...index.html

I'm not refusing to admit anything, I agree with your assessment, as a PIECE of the problem. I simply added another PIECE.

[tvguy]

I think what Wonky overlooked was the 'history of labor contracts offering generous health and pension benefits'. In other words, the UNION bleeds them dry.

And yet the USPS was turning a PROFIT as recently as 2006.

So you too refuse to admit there were vast changes in the way Americans communicate, move money and even buy books and music.


The New York times article specifically mentions WHEN the revenue dropped and why.


http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/...index.html

I'm not refusing to admit anything, I agree with your assessment, as a PIECE of the problem. I simply added another PIECE.

All rightly then. I admit to not knowing crapola about it. I just went with Wonky's comment about the lack of mail and thought it made sense and was a part of the problem. It is.

[Clone]

All rightly then. I admit to not knowing crapola about it. I just went with Wonky's comment about the lack of mail and thought it made sense and was a part of the problem. It is.

Bullshit.
I try to intelligently explain and you purposefully ignore me.
If there was ever a time to say f*** you, this would be the time.
I point out where the p.o. can save itself but you refuse to listen.
You should check your ego at the door sometime and learn something.

[Scrapper]

You should check your ego at the door sometime and learn something.

[Wonky]

All rightly then. I admit to not knowing crapola about it. I just went with Wonky's comment about the lack of mail and thought it made sense and was a part of the problem. It is.

Bullshit.
I try to intelligently explain and you purposefully ignore me.
If there was ever a time to say f*** you, this would be the time.
I point out where the p.o. can save itself but you refuse to listen.
You should check your ego at the door sometime and learn something.

Well.
Maybe you could mail the "intelligent explanations" to us. Better yet, you might present yourself to Congress and offer to fix the whole thing.

Like most problems this one is loaded with problems. We have talked about lack of revenue, the money necessary to fund the future retirements, and the real problem of competition from electronic media.

There is no easy fix. At some point the future retirement benefits will have to be adjusted. Mail services will have to be changed to allow more efficient delivery, and the work force will have to be reduced. This is not our grandfathers Post Office, just as it was not his grandfathers Pony Express.

It will be painful.

And that, is the "Intelligent explanation", without course language or insulting prose.

[tvguy]

All rightly then. I admit to not knowing crapola about it. I just went with Wonky's comment about the lack of mail and thought it made sense and was a part of the problem. It is.

Bullshit.
I try to intelligently explain and you purposefully ignore me.
If there was ever a time to say f*** you, this would be the time.
I point out where the p.o. can save itself but you refuse to listen.
You should check your ego at the door sometime and learn something.

I didn't refuse to listen to anything. This is just one more example of you thinking everyone is picking on poor Clone .
You need a shrink if you feel I purposely ignored you.

ANYONE can go look see... Wonky said that email killed snail mail. I agreed with that assessment and was attacked by your boy ponder who claimed Wonky and I were uninformed and said we say whatever we are feeling without bothering to check.

So I DID Check and yes indeed the lack of letter writing is indeed one big reason for a loss of revenues for the USPS.

End of story, Dramatize it all you want Clone but it's bullshit.

[tvguy]

You should check your ego at the door sometime and learn something.

Yeah like she said, yeah like he said, yeah like anyone but me said... Derrrrr