Why USPS Loses $$??

i think you should remove the question marks from the title

 

I worked for the USPS, but that was way back in the mid 1970s. Only lasted 2 years. That place drove me nuts.

But regarding saving money, why are they delivering packages on Sundays? I don't think they are so overwhelmed that they need to be out there on Sundays. And I believe they could cut down home mail delivery days, to 4 times per week? Hardly anything comes... just a few junk pieces.

Who did you order your filter from? How much?

It's all the sky-high health care bennies that is causing them to lose money, or so they claim. That, and so many people don't use mail anymore, obviously.

 

Probably because they and their business partners (FedEx, UPS, Amazon, ...) can charge higher delivery rates when including Sunday deliveries? And most of the actual Sunday deliveries are consolidated to a single partner?

The downturn in business doesn't come with a downturn in their pension obligations. When they didn't prepay enough into the pension funds during their boom days, they financially suffer from the load of retirees when the active employment base begins shrinking. Sears-KMart is suffering the same problem.

 

....along with several US states that I can think of......

 

Oh yeah, here in California I am very familiar with the unfunded pensions mess! We have the two largest pension systems in the country. Public employees, and the Teachers.

The latest report I read, is that the unfunded CA pension obligation is somewhere between $333 Billion... and one Trillion! And my humble paltry pension is right in there. The politicians just keep kicking it down the road.... but the Governor did say that the time may come when he has no choice but to cut pensions. But he's leaving office in a couple months.

 

Last month, I had a USPS package make it all the way to my local PO. From there, it was shipped to another PO 70 miles away, then back to my local PO, then it got delivered.

 

Efficiency at its best!

In my area, and surrounding cities, they removed all the mailboxes several years ago. They even welded shut or removed the mailboxes in front of the post office! I guess they don't want us to mail any letters.

Well, the heck with them! So I just pay my utility bills and my credit card bill using my iPad. Or my cell phone. (I am actually probably 15 years behind the times when it comes to that.)

 

USPS is run by Congress. That is why it's so mess up.

Their fees should be 10-20% higher than they are now, but no, Congress needs their free mail service.

 

Should I stock up on FOREVER stamps now??? lol

 

I'm going to go with the idea that an algorithm was used to route this package based on cost rather than least miles traveled. If they were already on the hook to pay for a container (or a whole plane) to fly from California to North Carolina and another to fly from NC to Washington, then they would have been stupid to waste those resources.

 

Then something like a cabin air filter is more size than weight. So little impact to fuel use when used to fill space on a container.

 

I can't think of any states whose gum'mit 'business volume' and employment base have turned down in the way that USPS and Sears-KMart have experienced. So far, as long as both keep increasing, they have been able to keep kicking this pension can down the road.

Even when I was young, local letters mailed Friday or Saturday were likely to be postmarked a hundred miles away, in a neighboring state. That is where the only processing center was operating on weekends. Local processing would have required either more local staff to work weekends, or longer delivery time because it couldn't be processed until after the weekend.

First Class mail volume has dropped by more than half in the past decade, and a lot of processing centers have been closed entirely. So much more mail is traveling farther before it gets processed and sorted from the Incoming-Collection bins to the Outgoing-Delivery bins.

 

Lately when I've been buying odds-and-ends on Amazon, the seller's in China. The items are dirt-cheap, there's no tracking, there's no delivery charge, no import duty or sales tax. The predicted delivery time is invariably terrible, maybe a month, but they often arrive a bit sooner. Usually in minimal packaging, a plexible shipping pouch. Never had an unfixable problem with them.

From far away:

 

I can sure identify with ya, @Stevewoods! I sent an out-of-production computer component to California for repair. After a week, they hadn't gotten it, so I started hounding the USP"S". ("Service" is really a misnomer.) They eventually found the package in Utah where it had been sitting for several days. It took another week to get it to CA. From Utah!!!!

Another time, I ordered a backpack that got sent USPS from Montana. It took 10 days to arrive rather than the promised four days. That's how long it took the Pony Express to get a letter from coast to coast 160 years ago.

 

USPS could be giving priority to FedEx, UPS, etc. packages.

 

Not to get too political, but try sending that exact package back to China. I guarantee the USPS will charge you at least $12. The Chinese government subsidizes shipping to the US. Any guesses as to why?

 

An interesting read. I did skim a bit.