What would you do to improve the U.S. Postal Service?

[WriterDom]

Quasi govermental/private sector ventures like the Postal Service are colossal money eating failures. God help the U.S. if the socialist wackjobs ever take over. If I were Postmaster of the US for a day, I'd shitcan all the fat Elvis stamps, the pine sucking east African butterfly stamps, and immediately sale advertising space on stamps to corporate fucks like Nike, General Motors, and Exxon.

 

[lobito]

Are you saying that the postal service DOES NOT make money? Not quite sure what you mean by your statement, BUT, if you are saying that, then you are WRONG! VERY VERY WRONG!

The U.S. Postal Service makes 10's of BILLIONS of dollars in profit, each year. There is NO reason to raise the price of stamps about every year or so, maybe more frequent, other than to keep the profit margin way up high.

Lo

 

[WriterDom]

Are you saying that the postal service DOES NOT make money? Not quite sure what you mean by your statement, BUT, if you are saying that, then you are WRONG! VERY VERY WRONG!

The U.S. Postal Service makes 10's of BILLIONS of dollars in profit, each year. There is NO reason to raise the price of stamps about every year or so, maybe more frequent, other than to keep the profit margin way up high.

Lo

I'm not only saying they don't MAKE money, but that they LOSE money.

 

[miles]

lobito

Care to find some stats on that? That's kind of a stretch.

 

[Guest]

As long as they don't leave important packages on my door step that I have been waiting for and some nosey kid gets their hands on them their okay by me. Not to mention any other establihments that do *cough cough ups*

 

[SempreAngela]

To improve the United States Postal Service....

...teaching them to read and number sequences would be a great help!!! I seem to get everyone's mail but mine. I do wish that when people got my mail they would pay the ones that are bills.

 

[Thumper]

Actually

Up until this past year they were profitable.(though not by tens of billions of dollars)

A significant drop in 2nd and 3rd class mail(the "junk mail" you get; it's where the USPS makes it's profit) and the events of this past fall have dealt a severe blow to their bottom line. Anthrax contamination shut down several key hubs costing millions of dollars in added expense in rerouting. That's why they were toying with ending Saturday service.

The USPS is one of those necessary monopolies. Your costs would skyrocket if it was broken up. The high volume areas generate enough profit to offset the rural high cost low volume/profit areas.

I still think 34 cents to send a letter all the way across the country and having it delivered right to the door is a pretty good deal.

The airline bailout cost the government more.

 

[WriterDom]

If the U.S. Postal Service wants to compete against FedEx and UPS in the express delivery business, then these private companies ought to be allowed to compete with the postal service in delivering first-class mail.

After all, fair is fair. Even if the USPS lost billions last year and has only turned a profit in 5 of the last 17 years.

 

[Thumper]

They couldn't

You really want three different mailboxes out front? In order to provide some security for citizens it is a federal crime for anyone other than the USPS and the box owner to get int a mailbox.

They would only serve the profitable zones and leave the others high and dry. That is the nature of business, to make a profit. If a venture is unprofitable you cut it loose. Even shipping packages is cheaper with the USPS and just about as reliable.

If you were a regional manager with Fed Ex would you drive 50 or 60 miles out into the country to deliver a few letters?

I have addressed this before. It may not be the most profitable venture but this is one case where service is more important than profit.

 

[Unclebill]

To improve the USPS, all you have to do is

take away the illegitimate coercive monopoly that exists and let UPS and Fedex (and others) compete in the delivery of letter mail. The free market has always driven down the cost of a product or service and will do it again. Government has absolutely no incentive to be fiscally efficient.

Even if the USPS remained only to provide the service to the remote rural areas as Thumper suggests, it would cut the monolith down to a much more economically manageable beast than it currently is.

And as to USPS competing with UPS and Fedex, the USPS even went so far as to advertise fraudulently as to their competitive efforts with UPS and Fedex. And despite the truth in advertising laws, it took UPS and Fedex court action to stop the ads. The government regulators and overseers didn't say a thing about their false advertising.

I guess fraud is okay as long as the government is doing it, huh, Thumper.

 

[sch00lteacher]

I love WriterDom's threads.

Always thought provoking and interesting.

I don't understand the need for commercials on TV.

I agree that all the stupid shit like cartoon stamps, Elvis, etc. is a total waste of time and money.

How much did they just spend to come up with that new logo? I forget.

Just take care of business. Get my mail to the right person, and get my mail to me.

 

[bobo_daclown]

WriterDom:

Love your ideas. I agree completely about the corporate logos on stamps for profit. Now, for the latter and funny half of the post (or the half-funny latter post).

Would you want to "Just lick it"?
And would exxon put oil covered polar bears on their stamps?
And what happens when some GM product goes the way of the firestone tire? We'll have pictures of burning cars on our envelopes.

Anyway,
---Bobo