USPS potential downsizing (2 Viewers)

Chawks45

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Interesting read here on the current state of affairs and grumblings of looming downsizing at the USPS.

https://time.com/5873514/u-s-postal-service-downsizing-mail-in-ballots/

Just thinking out loud and the heavy political tone of the article aside: If any of the USPS downsizing and possible closures occur sooner than later, could affect the chipping industry for fast delivery when considering the mailing aspect of buy-sell scenarios.
 
For a long time, I've thought it would make sense to make deliveries twice a week or something. For most people, daily delivery isn't needed. Sometime I go days without looking at my mailbox, unless I am expecting something. Businesses could be daily or their could be some tiered levels of service if you pay more. With all of the politics involved, who knows what will actually happen.
 
The biggest problem as I see it is that while regular people see the post office as a normal regular business, the post office is actually a federal government entity. While it remains a government entity, it will always have the possibility of being a tool used for a political agenda. Maybe it is time to have a serious discussion about the old idea of privatizing the US Postal Service. This is not the 1800's, when you needed the weight of the federal government to have any chance of postal delivery making it safely from point a to point b.
 
There just isn't the demand for postal service today like there was even 10 years ago. I am like @tyrion1705. Unless I have a package coming, I pretty much only check the mail once or twice a week. The USPS is also one of the few federal agencies that it is entirely self-funded. I would think there is a solution to this. Just off the top of my head: close some of the small post offices that are redundant and/or don't serve enough people; have mail and packages delivered to the post office as usual but only delivered to homes a few times a week; require people to pick up all non-packages from the post office and only have packages delivered a few times a week; raise prices; provide government funding for it; or even privatizing it like @tabletalker7. I am not advocating for any one of those, but there are options available if they are willing to move from the status quo.
 
USPS has been charged with delivering mail to every home and business in the U.S. no matter how remote, while its private competitors are not required to service unprofitable areas. Moreover, congressional approval is required for price increases. The congressional mandate for USPS to prefund retirement benefits made matters worse -- significantly worse. Add to all this the inability to borrow and congressional reluctance to provide adequate funding, the outlook is grim. Oops, I almost forgot to mention that the volume of first-class mail has plummeted.

USPS losses are not because of its deal with Amazon, which is probably profitable at the margins. Its financial problems have long preceded the deal with Amazon. It was set up to provide a government-sponsored service, not to be profitable.

More important, in addition to all this, the Washington Post is not fair. :tdown:
 
USPS has been charged with delivering mail to every home and business in the U.S. no matter how remote, while its private competitors are not required to service unprofitable areas. Moreover, congressional approval is required for price increases. The congressional mandate for USPS to prefund retirement benefits made matters worse -- significantly worse. Add to all this the inability to borrow and congressional reluctance to provide adequate funding, the outlook is grim. Oops, I almost forgot to mention that the volume of first-class mail has plummeted.

USPS losses are not because of its deal with Amazon, which is probably profitable at the margins. Its financial problems have long preceded the deal with Amazon. It was set up to provide a government-sponsored service, not to be profitable.

More important, in addition to all this, the Washington Post is not fair. :tdown:

So true...same goes for public transport
If you let free market take the cherries in public utilities (says google translate ?) then forget about 100% coverage & spread of real cost
 
USPS has been charged with delivering mail to every home and business in the U.S. no matter how remote, while its private competitors are not required to service unprofitable areas.

The USPS has relationships with the other carriers because the USPS is the “last leg” for FedEx, UPS, etc. for those remote areas. If the USPS stopped service then those residents would have no access to deliveries.
 
The USPS has relationships with the other carriers because the USPS is the “last leg” for FedEx, UPS, etc. for those remote areas. If the USPS stopped service then those residents would have no access to deliveries.

Eventually they would...in a hub about 80 miles from home [if only money/business would do the talking]
 
Cutting out Saturday deliveries should be the obvious first step. That can reduce the number of part time employees dramatically. Every carrier works M-F only.

I also like the idea of a tiered system when standard deliveries may only come 1 or 2 times per week and for and fee they will still deliver 5 days. Priority mail/packages would be the exception to that rule.

First class mail is still the greatest value around. Being able to send a letter across the country for 50c is incredible!

UPS/Fedex don’t have anything even close in price.
 
Eventually they would...in a hub about 80 miles from home [if only money/business would do the talking]

Not necessarily. There are other possibilities. And if so, it could be considerable time. But they could also just establish regional “pick up” stations.
 
Not necessarily. There are other possibilities. And if so, it could be considerable time. But they could also just establish regional “pick up” stations.

the hubs i'm talking about are exactly what they call regional PU stations...greedy business thinks with overhead glasses...80 miles is local
 
First class mail is still the greatest value around. Being able to send a letter across the country for 50c is incredible!

Is it? I can send an email quicker and cheaper. And I can send it around the world, and have it delivered any time of the day or night. From my phone.

There's just not a need for sending letters any more.

Other than chips, I use the USPS for Christmas cards and taxes... And I file my federal taxes electronically. Thus far, I have refused the requests for bills and banks statements to be sent to me electronically, but that change is coming too.

The mailbox is going the way of the home phone... It's mostly solicitation.

So true...same goes for public transport
If you let free market take the cherries in public utilities (says google translate ?) then forget about 100% coverage & spread of real cost

Agreed. Take away the USPS and the private companies will increase their charges for deliveries.
 
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Is it? I can send an email quicker and cheaper. And I can send it around the world, and have it delivered any time of the day or night. From my phone.

There's just not a need for sending letters any more.

Other than chips, I use the USPS for Christmas cards and taxes... And I file my federal taxes electronically. Thus far, I have refused the requests for bills and banks statements to be sent to me electronically, but that change is coming too.

The mailbox is going the way of the home phone... It's mostly solicitation.



Agreed. Take away the USPS and the private companies will increase their charges for deliveries.



I should just ignore this politics-baiting, but this is a ridiculous statement. Republicans would lose the same access... And if Trump loses the election, it will NOT be because of mail-in votes.

I don’t need to mail many letters, but I did need to mail a check to CPC to pay for my set of chips. A 50c stamp was by far the cheapest option! UPS ground would be at least $10 even with my company rates. Paying electronically by CC/PayPal would have cost about $55 more in fees. So yes, the 50c first class letter is the best value by far!
 
USPS losses are not because of its deal with Amazon,
FWIW, the vast majority of Amazon stuff comes to my house via amazon courier. Which is a 180 in the past 12-18 months.
mom sure this varies by region, but my point is that I’m not sure how much business USPS is getting from amazon, at least in my area.
 
I think lots of distribution centers are short staffed because of COVID. Lots of priority mail is taking 4-7 days to get to it's destination when it previously took 1-3. UPS and FedEx have been much more efficient and deviating less from their usual delivery windows as of late.
 
FWIW, the vast majority of Amazon stuff comes to my house via amazon courier. Which is a 180 in the past 12-18 months.
mom sure this varies by region, but my point is that I’m not sure how much business USPS is getting from amazon, at least in my area.

I'm sure that's true in major metropolitan areas like Boston. It's certainly also true here, where there is an Amazon warehouse within 15 miles.

But here, during the holidays, USPS delivered the vast majority of Amazon's packages.
 
I'm sure that's true in major metropolitan areas like Boston. It's certainly also true here, where there is an Amazon warehouse within 15 miles.

But here, during the holidays, USPS delivered the vast majority of Amazon's packages.
How well have you been tracking those Amazon packages? Whenever USPS brings me something from Amazon, Amazon actually moved it to my city and then dropped it off with USPS just for local delivery.
 
Deleting post since half of it was removed
 
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We lose money on Amazon packages. Bad deals set up need to be changed. We have so many packages now, not just amazon, that we need to move them daily. If we stop service to a few days a week, I would be worried about the backup , and never catching up on delivery.
 
Not necessarily. There are other possibilities. And if so, it could be considerable time. But they could also just establish regional “pick up” stations.
There is no USPS “house delivery” in my area, everyone has to go to the post office to get their mail or to mail anything. We only have two postal employees. This is how it is in almost every town here. UPS and FEDEX do deliver to houses here but maybe twice a week.
 
If we stop service to a few days a week, I would be worried about the backup , and never catching up on delivery.
You don't need to stop sorting, just delivery. Break up delivery areas to MWF and TuThuSa. There shouldn't be any delays or backups. You just get twice the junk mail over three days instead of six.

I don’t need to mail many letters, but I did need to mail a check to CPC to pay for my set of chips. A 50c stamp was by far the cheapest option! UPS ground would be at least $10 even with my company rates. Paying electronically by CC/PayPal would have cost about $55 more in fees. So yes, the 50c first class letter is the best value by far!
Agreed that when you need to send a 1 oz letter, there is no better value than USPS first class mail. My point was that for many things that used to be mailed, there are better, cheaper, faster options today.
 
Kramer tried to handle this a while back.
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Kramer tried to handle this a while back.
<iframe width="560" height="315" src="
" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen></iframe>
This is great. Wilfred Brimley player a great hardo but I don’t think he got to do it very often. The only one I remember was when he was the corporate security chief in The Firm.
 
This is great. Wilfred Brimley player a great hardo but I don’t think he got to do it very often. The only one I remember was when he was the corporate security chief in The Firm.
Holy crap, I thought he was dead.
Did I kill him?
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(And of course he was a bad guy in the Natural. How could I forget that?)
 
There is no USPS “house delivery” in my area, everyone has to go to the post office to get their mail or to mail anything. We only have two postal employees. This is how it is in almost every town here. UPS and FEDEX do deliver to houses here but maybe twice a week.
Here in Kansas, every wide spot in the road has a post office. The postmaster job in many of these small towns is often the highest paying job in the town. Thousands of small post offices could be closed to save money.
 

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