Post Office and Snail Mail

Some of us have moved beyond paper mail

 

How very narrow-minded. I probably use email more than you but still, important stuff comes through paper mail occasionally.

 

the u.s. mail is still very important to may people and especially to businesses. we send and recieve most of our invoices by mail and most of our customers are not yet ready to move to email. why don't they just raise the price of a stamp if necessary? has it kept up with inflation? we bought a ton of lifetime stamps a few years ago, i'm not sure what the advantage of selling those was?

 

On one had it is a short term solution when you need cash today. On the other hand they are probably doing OK with it if you were looking on it on a return on investment basis - kind of like companies selling gift cards - collect cash now for future sales and know that the redemption rate will not be 100%.

 

i just hope they don't go out of business before i use them up!

 

and here's another problem, (i think). my 90 year old mother in law has, over the past year, had heart by pass surgery, a hip replacement and numerous other hospitalizations. all on the p.o.'s dime for whom her husband (now deceased) worked more than 25 years ago. my wife just picked up a prescription for her today for 67 cents that she says would have cost us $20. under our $15,000. a year medical insurance.

 

The USPS is running in the red....by gigabucks.
This debt is being serviced by someone of something.

Since they're not a publically traded company I made the perhaps irrational assumption that their debt is being guaranteed by the Chinese....oops! I mean the US Government.

I sling wires for a living, so all of the golly gee-wizz economics is beyond me, but I know how many zeros are in a billion. Depending on who is spinning the story, there are more than one billions involved here.

So...where does that leave us?
Personally, I really don't care if they privatize, delete, modify, or otherwise "fix" the USPS, I'm just pointing out that the flavor of the argument would be somewhat different if they were GM....or maybe not. We also spend some money on that organization, after all.
Why.....I think that was billions too!!!
Gee......they have a bunch of union workers too!
Hmmmmm.....
I'm also specuguessing that it's going to cost somebody a ton of cabbage if they're allowed to continue on their current trajectory....but hey.
It's just money, right?
Just run the printing presses for a few extra hours a day.
No sweat.

 

Source?

Every source I can find shows that the USPS is not running in the red. Their operating costs are less than their revenues. However, when you then are forced to pay additional benefits 75 years out for employees you don't actually have but will have in the future all within a 10 year span, that takes quite a bit out of your revenues.

Ignorance of math is no excuse for blatant misinformation. I know you are under the assumption the post office is a giant leech and bleeding money... However, I assert that you are wrong and would kindly ask you to find a source that contradicts what I am saying. I am not involved in the post office at all, but I do read the news and do homework on these sorts of things so I could very well be wrong. However all signs point to me expressing what is fact.

 

I'm not going to get into one of these daffy "show me yours first" source slingfests.

If you want to state publically that "the USPS is not running in the red", then that's fine. Your opinions, like mine will either stand or fall under the weight of their own merit.
Besides....an organization the size of the USPS (or GM) can run 20-billion bucks in the red over the last four years (source: NYT---not my favorite source to be sure!) and still not be "in debt."
The devil as they say, is in the details, and I've seen allegedly educated economists publically state that the US does not have a spending problem.

MY statement stands….or not depending on your point of view:
The USPS is running in the red....by gigabucks.
This debt (or deficit, if you want to split hairs) is being serviced by someone of something.
Maybe their net worth prevents them from being "in debt", but they're still running in the red.....by billions. They have been for a while....like for years.

GM taught me that the US taxpayer has some exposure on this.

Just sayin'.....

EDIT:
OK......since you "kindly" asked, I'll oblige you a "source". I snagged this on a thirty-second search. It really doesn't amount to much, since I'm sure that you can find just as many articles saying that the USPS is not operating in the red......but since you asked nicely:
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/05/b...levant.html?_r=3&pagewanted=1&ref=todayspaper

 

The main advantage is avoiding large printing runs of low value make-up stamps. It costs more to print and handle the one and two cent stamps than to just eat the difference.

Tom

 

In 2010 the Postal Service put up 8 billion in losses.

Postal Service reports $8 billion in losses - Washington Times

Now-- post YOUR source that says they've never cost the taxpayers a dime.

 

As qbee42 points out, you don't always know what method someone is going to use when mailing a package to you. That's when the problem arises.

 

Ha ha ha, like what? Something some other luddite sent you? You don't still have oil lamps do you? (not a personal dig mate, just a wee poke).

The postal service is obsolete and expensive whichever Country you're in. Its time has come and gone.

 

I just got my annual car registration letter in the mail yesterday. It included the registration form which goes in my glove compartment, and the registration sticker that I put on my license plate. Please tell me how I was supposed to receive that otherwise.

You're completely mental (as they say in your country) if you think the postal service is absolutely obsolete.

 

I do use the phone book, but one of my pet peeves is that there are now TWO competing phone book companies. Since they duplicate each other, and I don't get to tell one of them not to give me one, twice as much paper is wasted as needs to be. And advertisers are stuck with having to pay TWICE if they want to be in both books, since some folks will have one book and some will have the other. That's a real rip-off scam!

An excellent example of something the snail mail is needed for!

And there are people who cannot afford a computer and internet service. I know a few people who cannot afford internet and a few who cannot afford a computer.

 

Both Yellow Pages publishers are private companies - do you think that they would actually still print them if they were loosing money and future prospects were dim? I believe that many states require telephone companies to distribute the white pages so that is a cost of doing business, but I do not believe that the same requirement exists for the yellow pages - they still make a ton of money from all of the advertising.

 

They didn't realize until too late what business they were in. They thought they were in the film, paper and chemical business when in reality they were in the image capture and display business.