My brother is a postal carrier and the complete destruction of it caused by REPUBLICANS really pisses me off. This is a polarizing issue for me but is very insignificant to most. Please read this to know what is happening.

Fact 1 - The Post Office is a power listed in the Constitution.
Fact 2 - The Post Office is completely funded through stamp prices and uses no tax dollars. None.

It is an incredibly efficient system that should be celebrated by Democrats and Republicans. "If its so efficient than why is it failing?" you may ask.



The PAEA also prevents the Post Office from using any of its savings to pay off debt. It is now unique in that its the only government agency that must pay into future retirement accounts years early. It has been forced to pay $5 billion+ every year to fund this and they are now coming up broke. Well they're not broke, they have a huge savings account for future retirees that they are not allowed to tap into. Its complete sabotage.

The only reason I can find for the Republican disdain is the Postal system is (was) a very good example of our government operating efficiently. If Republicans can cripple it, they can point to it as an example of government failure and try to privatize it for profit. Again, sabotage.

Those damn Republicans, and their pesky e-mail! If they'd have outlawed e-mail, people would be able to continue to send letters via post and avoid such a situation.

Fact of the matter is that for the past ten years or longer, the Post Office has been a doomed entity, and everyone has known that. Even as recently as five years ago, during that awful Bush administration, the Post Office was little more than carriers of hard copy spam. Now, with almost everything from paychecks to bills fully automated and digital, the only thing most folks get in the mail is junk mail.

It wasn't operating efficiently back then, and it certainly isn't now. And if you think that's the fault of Republican-controlled government rather than the failure of the organization to adapt to a quickly advancing technological society, I'm not sure what I can do for you.

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I blog, I tweet. When I'm not writing or goofing around on Seahawks.NET.

No, you're wrong Sailor. Like flat, dead wrong. This is something I know a lot about. It was operating efficiently, and it still would be if they could tap into the retirement savings, which are well over funded. UPS and FedEX can't effectually deliver rural mail like the USPS can. E-mail hasn't stopped UPS or FedEX and the USPS is more efficient than both when it comes to letter delivery. E-mail has not killed the Post Office, Republicans have.

"As Truth-Out.org’s Allison Kilkenny recently reported, by passing PAEA, Congressional Republicans mandated that within ten years the United States Postal Service would have to fully fund retirement healthcare benefits for the next 75 years. Or to put it more plainly, the Postal Service had a decade to fully fund the retirement healthcare benefits for future employees that will not even be born until 2057 at the earliest."


Makes no sense.

Since the law was passed in 2006, 75 years into the future will be 2083. Someone born in 2057 will not need retirement benefits until 2124 (based on current retirement age of 67).

Now assuming 40 years of retirement benefit, using 2083 as end of paid up benefits, it would cover anyone retiring in 2043.

Is there anyone who truly believes the postal service will still be in operation 30 years from now?

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That's weak sauce!

Even if that's the common belief, why in God's name would anyone require a business or agency to fund 75 years of future retirement now, in a span of 10 years?!

Just guessing:

Because there is a contractual obligation to pay for these benefits, they believe that 75 years will cover all possible retirees lifespan, and they want to make sure they can fund it now while there is income sufficient enough to do so. There may not be the revenue even 10 years from now to do so.


*And they want the money set aside so they can raid it when needed?

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That's weak sauce!

Well, without looking very hard, I found a source that was - hey - not a right/left-wing slanted job, but rather an overview of their business situation: http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/11_23/b4231060885070.htm

Facts stated there include:

- USPS executives have been slow to grasp how swiftly the service's financial condition is deteriorating, and did not have a plan for the future of the organization.

- The postal service's business model was so badly broken that collapse was imminent.

- With the rise of e-mail and the decline of letters, mail volume is falling at a staggering rate.

- First-class mail volume is steadily declining and fell below junk mail for the first time back in 2005.

- The USPS needs three pieces of junk mail to replace the profit of a vanished stamp-bearing letter.

- The USPS is the US's second largest civilian employer, but holds only 15% of the express ground shipping market.

I'm not saying anything the prior administration did didn't hurt the long-term financial plans of the USPS, but to blame that single bill for the staggering ineptitude the Post Office has seen over the past decade and a half or more is pretty disingenuous.

I've seen a thing or two regarding this as well. Being a struggling author, I submit queries to agents and publishers as part of my normal routine. I used to go through tons of Manila envelopes, postage and paper, querying novels and short stories. Not anymore. I haven't sent a query out via regular mail in years. Today, the lion's share of that is done electronically. Almost all agents and agencies express the fact they'd much rather receive queries via e-mail now, and many will only accept e-queries.

And that's just a small fraction of the business that has gone this way. Far more business is conducted electronically these days, and the trend is for that to continue. Killing Saturday mail does not surprise me one bit. And it's only a matter of time before they go away completely or re-scale and redefine their business paradigms to those more closely mirroring the other civilian shipping companies.

Also, as far as "funding 75 years of benefits" goes, they are obviously not on the hook this year to finance all 75 years of those benefits. Yearly budgets are still done on a yearly basis. While they need to have the long-term plan in place to fund those retirements when they happen, they're certainly not on the hook for the money right now.

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I blog, I tweet. When I'm not writing or goofing around on Seahawks.NET.

There's a reason why it's not profitable. It's because it serves every American.

You can't expect the USPS to be profitable, you expect it to be efficient, but not profitable.

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RIP ROAD WOES 12/2/2012

Junk mail isn't going anywhere. Neither are government documents or local fliers. As for the annual 5 billion, they defaulted last year and basically said "we can't pay this anymore." They've also tried getting some of the 10 billion SURPLUS they've already paid into retirement back.



Wah, wah. That money is now in a different system, sorry, bye bye.

Do you not believe that the $2 billion in estimated savings by cutting Saturday delivery to packages only increases efficiency? Is there something in the mail that can't wait til Monday?

It cuts jobs. It cuts the competition it has with private companies to make USPS look worse than they actually are.

I'm confused by your question.

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RIP ROAD WOES 12/2/2012

Sucks. Just another American institution going by the wayside. And I look forward to my Saturday mail, seems like I always get my checks delivered that day.

Most of the "competition" is package delivery, not so much on the standard mail stuff. Packages are still scheduled to be delivered on Saturday. As for the jobs, what's the point in paying them if it's going to drive the entity out of business? This may cost some jobs, but it keeps a lot more jobs around longer by being more efficient, which is something you said they should be

Which one?

The first question just asks in response to the statement on them needing to be efficient, if the $2 billion in savings makes them more efficient.

The second question is pretty basic, and that asks what is so important that it can't wait until the next business day for delivery?

$2 billion in savings doesn't have anything to do with efficiency.

I don't know what's important. That seems like an odd question. I'm sure there are a few things that you could think of.

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RIP ROAD WOES 12/2/2012

And, the typical liberal mindset reveals itself. Don't reduce anything that cuts jobs. Doesn't matter what it might save or benefit. I'd be fine with mail delivery one day per week.

The real reason behind this is that the USPS is the largest unionized workforce entity left in the country.

Destroy the Post Office, you destroy millions of jobs.

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Talent can get you to the playoffs.
It takes character to win when you get there.

Is what the Post Office gives us - a handful of people still receiving hard copy checks and bills, the occasional letter from Grandma who doesn't know how to use e-mail yet, a scattering of Christmas cards from half-forgotten relatives, and a deluge of spam - really worth operating the second largest civilian company in the United States? It's that large, that inefficient, for that little of a return?

Or, like our liberal folks say, is it simply about the jobs? If that were the case, why doesn't the government create a huge amount of jobs building massive statues and monuments to itself around the country? Create massive parks and memorial areas in dedication to everything under the sun like North Korea does? Doing that would employ millions.

Dinosaurs are cool as hell, but there is a reason they are extinct.

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I blog, I tweet. When I'm not writing or goofing around on Seahawks.NET.

How exactly does reducing service on saturday "destroy the post office"?