How Would U Fix The Post Office?

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

Its poised to lose 13 Billion this year, and they wanna up stamp prices to 50 cents.

Is USPS worth what it costs?

How would you fix it?

 

[BoyNextDoor]

Its poised to lose 13 Billion this year, and they wanna up stamp prices to 50 cents.

Is USPS worth what it costs?

How would you fix it?

Start with Congress getting out of the way and stop micromanaging it. Let them end Saturday delivery for example. Forward funding of the healthcare liability is another. Let a CFO manage the cash like any enterprise.

Next - have to address the stupidity of the union contracts that have the "no fire / no reduction" clauses. If you can't manage labor then you cannot balance the books.

That would be a pretty good start. It would at least remove some of the the artificial barriers to determining what it really takes to operate it.

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

Start with Congress getting out of the way and stop micromanaging it. Let them end Saturday delivery for example. Forward funding of the healthcare liability is another. Let a CFO manage the cash like any enterprise.

Next - have to address the stupidity of the union contracts that have the "no fire / no reduction" clauses. If you can't manage labor then you cannot balance the books.

That would be a pretty good start. It would at least remove some of the the artificial barriers to determining what it really takes to operate it.

My mailman used to get pissed at me cuz I had a PO Box and never checked my apartment box. It was always packed with ads. I suggested he ignore it but he couldnt. So he complained to management, they whined to me, and I said STOP DELIVERING CRAP I GOTTA DISPOSE OF.

 

[JohnnySavage]

My mailman used to get pissed at me cuz I had a PO Box and never checked my apartment box. It was always packed with ads. I suggested he ignore it but he couldnt. So he complained to management, they whined to me, and I said STOP DELIVERING CRAP I GOTTA DISPOSE OF.

Sometimes you are right, and I do give credit where credit is due.

I have all my bills and such delivered to my office, where the secretary can deal with em. My home mailbox gets dumped into the recycle bin every two weeks or so.

And don't get me started on the jerks that throw the local 'newspaper'/gossip rag on my driveway every Thursday. If I could catch them doing it, I'd throw it right back at them - unfortunately they do it at some ungodly hour in the morning.

 

[unregistered]

 

[unregistered]

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

Sometimes you are right, and I do give credit where credit is due.

I have all my bills and such delivered to my office, where the secretary can deal with em. My home mailbox gets dumped into the recycle bin every two weeks or so.

And don't get me started on the jerks that throw the local 'newspaper'/gossip rag on my driveway every Thursday. If I could catch them doing it, I'd throw it right back at them - unfortunately they do it at some ungodly hour in the morning.

Ted Williams and DiMaggio did okay hitting around .400

Yep. Rather than quarrel I toss it all in my compost barrel. My neighbor's trees fill my yard with leaves that go in the compost barrel, too.

If USPS had a few country boys and fewer Harvard Brainaics they'd offer a low cost broadband service that delivers email, spam, files, etc. And subcontract the parcels to UPS.

 

[VaticanAssassin]

with a match and a gallon of kerosene....

about the same way I would fix VA hospitals

 

[bumlicker]

how about starting out

how about having a starting wage for deliveryman start at say 15 an hour versus 22.50/hr dont give them 5 weeks vaca after 5 years on the job how about making them pay a little for health care. thats for starters or we could raise gas taxes 50 cents a gal and and make the price of a stamp 1.00$ GET RID OF OLD SHIT THAT DONT WORK HOW ABOUT THAT!!! FUCKING POST OFFICE AND LIBRRYS ARE NO LONGER NEEDED IN THIS WORLD

 

[NeverEndingMe]

Its poised to lose 13 Billion this year, and they wanna up stamp prices to 50 cents.

Is USPS worth what it costs?

How would you fix it?

86 Saturday
terminate 40% of usps workers
86 the fat pension plan for usps workers

 

[clutch1]

I have a mind to send them a strongly worded letter about it.

 

[mercury14]

My mailman used to get pissed at me cuz I had a PO Box and never checked my apartment box. It was always packed with ads. I suggested he ignore it but he couldnt. So he complained to management, they whined to me, and I said STOP DELIVERING CRAP I GOTTA DISPOSE OF.

If the post office can't deliver crap then you put them in a $23 billion dollar hole instead of a $13 billion one. The fact is they depend on volume to make ends meet and junk mail is volume. The post office has to pay someone to walk to every single house in the country every day. If they do that with several items of mail it's all good. If they do that with one letter, or zero letters they lose money. Decreased volume because of the recession and changes in the way information is delivered means they lose money most of the time.

Here's a list of things that will not do very much to help the post office's budget:

1) Stopping Saturday delivery
2) Trimming salaries a little bit
3) Closing a few branches.


Here's a list of things that will significantly help:

1) Raising the price of postage to compensate for decreased volume. Even if the price of a stamp was six dollars it would still be cheaper than their FedEx/UPS competition. Selling stamps for 44 cents and then bickering over adding a few more pennies is really dumb. FedEx and UPS raise their prices all the time whenever fuel gets expensive or they think they can generate more revenue. You can't restrict the USPS from making similar moves and expect them to be financially sound.

2) Getting rid of Bush's preposterous requirement that they fund retirements 30 years in advance. No other company public or private has to do this, and if they did they would also have solvency problems. And for the record even the American Postal Workers Union has come out in favor of getting rid of this requirement.

3) Letting the USPS lay off workers more easily. But making deep cuts into a 600,000 man work force will throttle the nation's economy. Contrary to right wing mythology, the USPS can cut jobs and has eliminated 110,000 of them in the last four years with more on the way. (source: http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2011/08/12/postal-unions-rip-cost-cutting-plan-to-slash-120000-jobs/)

4) Reducing delivery frequency to areas the USPS loses a ton of money on. Delivering to a densely populated area is cheap and profitable. Delivering to spread-out suburbs and rural areas means driving long distances and paying for a lot of man hours to deliver almost no mail. FedEx and UPS wouldn't be able to survive with daily delivery to every nook and cranny of America either. So make delivery in these places only on MWF unless an additional service fee is paid.

 

[BoyNextDoor]

I

Here's a list of things that will not do very much to help the post office's budget:

1) Stopping Saturday delivery

$3.1 billion per year seems like "much" to me.

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

MERC had a snit when the army dropped the cavalry.

 

[TheOlderGuy]

Its poised to lose 13 Billion this year, and they wanna up stamp prices to 50 cents.

Is USPS worth what it costs?

How would you fix it?

It seems to be working fine: http://forum.literotica.com/showthread.php?p=40010957#post40010957

 

[koalabear]

MERC had a snit when the army dropped the cavalry.

Now he has to produce his own horseshit.

 

[Wobnoid]

Its poised to lose 13 Billion this year, and they wanna up stamp prices to 50 cents.

Is USPS worth what it costs?

How would you fix it?

Treat mail like package delivery. That simple. If it is important to deliver specific paper to hands, price it. Price out or outsource bulk rate mail. Maximize the location value of existing assets (i.e. post offices) to efficiently deliver certain federal services locally. Utilize the inherent 'outreach' of the current service. Don't retract it. The way to fix the post office is to reevaluate what it best now can deliver.

 

[mercury14]

$3.1 billion per year seems like "much" to me.

I stand corrected.

 

[Lord_Steve]

Consolidate the public library systems and the post office. Have all mail sent to the library, where you can go and "check out" the pieces that belong to you. Bada bing bada boom.

 

[mercury14]

MERC had a snit when the army dropped the cavalry.

Dude I'm like fifty years younger than you. WTF is the cavalry?

 

[Sean Renaud]

Dude I'm like fifty years younger than you. WTF is the cavalry?

Those are the guys who show up and save you when the shit hits the fan.

 

[mercury14]

Consolidate the public library systems and the post office. Have all mail sent to the library, where you can go and "check out" the pieces that belong to you. Bada bing bada boom.

Issues with that:

- Not nearly enough libraries
- Many libraries, especially modern ones, are small and do not have a giant room for mail laying around.
- Parking
- A lot of elderly, sick, etc rely on mail home delivery.
- Businesses need to get their mail every day. Paying an employee for a 30 minute round trip every day is a significant cost to small businesses.

 

[mercury14]

Those are the guys who show up and save you when the shit hits the fan.

I thought that was the Air Force.

And I thought he was talking about mail cav.