Is our country ready to let it go the way of the dodo? It would require everything to be digital, up to and including not having to carry a physical credit or debit card (app for that?) and even documents that are important and/or sensitive enough to be sent registered mail needing a secure digital conduit. Passports come in the mail. Driver's licenses etc. All of those physical documents would need to be eliminated. All of which needs to be paid for.

Granted it would be nice to block junkmail or at least not have to deal with the paper waste it generates and mail box baseball would become a thing of the past, but is the postal service, along with all those jobs, something we can afford to let go? One could probably write a whole book on how the postal service closing would put a real hurt on rural and lower income customers. The whole country would have to urbanize the majority of the population in order to ditch the post office IMHO.

Discuss!

along with all those jobs,

Key phrase right there! not to mention a violation of Article 1 section 8 of the constitution, you know the sacred document of the tea party that must be adhered to at all times.

Automation and technology are truly the second front on the war against workers.

Before Congress went and made the change requiring the Postal Service to withhold 10 years worth of future retiree health benefits, the USPS was actually consistently profitable - even in the worst recession in decades. Not only were they running in the black, but they made more in 2010 than they did in 2009. Mail volume is also reportedly not declining as much as you would think - while we may be sending less snail mail letters and banking more online, we are certainly buying more items online (which all need to be shipped) and there are far more circulars and direct mail advertisements than ever before. Automation has saved plenty more money than the supposed decrease would cost (if there really is any, which depending where you look seems questionable at best). The USPS hasn't received a single penny from the taxpayers in over 30 years.

The long and short is, if Congress in their infinite wisdom didn't require them to pre-fund 10-years worth of health benefits for not only current employees but also future employees that may or may not be hired, they'd be running in the black right now and making taxpayers money. This is a practice no company in the entire country does but Congress felt it was a good idea. They of course have an 100% fully funded pension (actually over-funded by $50 billion) and no problems paying for any of their current health care needs.

Why does Congress want them in the red while disallowing them from using that $50 billion pension surplus to pay the mandated future retiree health benefits?
Probably because they're a bunch of fucking morons.

Probably because they're a bunch of fucking morons

Probably?

Definitely

Because of the things in the original post about passports and the like, there is a need. I think the bulk rates that the junk mailers are able to use to send out the things we waste most of our mail on should be eliminated or changed.

Billing/Utilities has merit for bulk discounting but we need to get rid of the unsolicited mailings that just end up filling garbage cans and the easiest way is to make them pay higher postage.

Kelraz summed up the situation quite well; it is due to Congressional mandate that we are losing money the last 5 years.

What is happening now is the process that President Reagan and Marvin Runyon (Reagan's Postmaster General appointee) put in place; the goal is to have the postal service become a private enterprise with no government affiliation. There were a number of "deals" made including taking the hundreds of millions owed to the postal service by Congress for franking privileges and non-profit mailings and making it a long term interest free loan.

Two independent audits have shown the postal service to have in excess of $50 billion in surplus; the inaccurate formula Congress used to exact monies for the Civil Service retirees has been found to have overcharged the postal service by approx. $70 billion, but to repay that money would be to add to the national debt, so ......

As for the advertising mail that so many dislike, we do offer the most cost effective means for advertising, and are the only source that can guarantee the material will be put in the hands of every postal customer. Also, if that "junk mail" were to disappear, the cost of Grey sending a letter from his new home to friends in his old area (within a few days) would go from less than 50 cents to $2 - $3, most likely.

Also, jobs being such an important issue at this time, look at all the jobs that would be impacted beyond just those postal employees: paper mill workers, printing businesses, contract truck drivers, garment workers, uniform outlets, mechanics, and the list goes on.

The current solutions being put forth by the newly appointed Postmaster General are short-sighted: laying off up to 120,000 employees, cutting back service, pulling out of all health insurance plans but their own that is yet to be created (with higher employee premiums), and basically reneging on a contract that resulted from both negotiations and arbitration. He has included nothing regarding publicizing the role of Congress in the USPS' woes.

He is a shill of big business, just like Runyon was. September 15th is the date given to learn exactly what he plans for the service.

I hope some of those home bound seniors that rely on the postal carrier to provide them contact with the outside world, those who receive and pay their bills via "snail mail", will speak up loudly to their elected reps.

The Teapublicans are not going to be happy until the government is nothing but a private corporation. Hell, Ron Paul wants to do away with air traffic control. thats scary.

I the USPS infrequently, but even I don't think we're ready to eliminate the service.

At the same time, I do hate the jobs vs. progress argument. Does anyone mourn the loss of typewriter repairmen, farmhands, or the horse-drawn carriage industry? All of those careers/jobs were obsoleted by advances in technology that allow us to all enjoy a better standard of living.

If our society manages to modernize as much in the next 100 years as it has in the previous 100 years, can anyone really imagine the current USPS or moving tons of paper advertisements, bills, and account statements around having a meaningful role in that society? I sure hope not.

The focus shouldn't be so much on entrenching and resisting progress, but to proactively finding new jobs and careers for people affected by the progress.

As for the advertising mail that so many dislike, we do offer the most cost effective means for advertising, and are the only source that can guarantee the material will be put in the hands of every postal customer. Also, if that "junk mail" were to disappear, the cost of Grey sending a letter from his new home to friends in his old area (within a few days) would go from less than 50 cents to $2 - $3, most likely.

I would happily pay $2 for the occasional first class delivery if it meant I never saw junk mail again.

The Teapublicans are not going to be happy until the government is nothing but a private corporation. Hell, Ron Paul wants to do away with air traffic control. thats scary.

That's incorrect. He was saying that he thought we should transition away from a centralized Federal air traffic control organization, and move toward states handling it, not that we shouldn't have air traffic control. If you think three seconds about it, you must know that's an absurd claim to make.

And really, it's more of a regulatory question than anything. The actual control zones are already very decentralized (much, much more so than just 50 divisions).

The funny thing is, there is actually a real question if the USPS is going to go tits up or not. FEDEX is holding off on air-freighter purchases (they were going to buy more 767s and A330s) because *gasp* the USPS contracts them to ship their more time sensitive parcels and mail in spite of the fact that it is taboo to ship anything from FEDEX/UPS to a postbox. The airlines will take a hit too. Being that I live in the Seattle area and airplane orders are one of the prime movers of the local economy, airplanes not being purchased and the reasons for it pops up on the radar a bit.

If anything, I would not mind Monday/Wednesday/Friday delivery for standard mail with more time sensitive things being able to be subbed out to Fedex or UPS since there is no such thing as a USPS aircraft and delivered directly to a PO box. If it already has to be in the hands of a contractor and pay their mark up, than they can deliver it too! FEDEX for sure has a much better tracking system and would be in a better position to deliver items that require more accountability.

Oh and most all major aircraft vectoring has gone to GPS. It actually allows the plane to fly "as the crow flies" as opposed to flying a vector to a radial node which are not always placed in a direct manner. Typical flight map looks like a 2D rep of Tinker Toys. GPS actually should make air traffic control somewhat easier because it offloads some of the work onto a GPS in the cockpit. Private enterprise actually could handle it as long as aircraft have up to date GPS receivers. No, your Garmin in your car won't work for it either.

As for the advertising mail that so many dislike, we do offer the most cost effective means for advertising, and are the only source that can guarantee the material will be put in the hands of every postal customer. Also, if that "junk mail" were to disappear, the cost of Grey sending a letter from his new home to friends in his old area (within a few days) would go from less than 50 cents to $2 - $3, most likely.


I'd have to echo Herr Chek in that I'd gladly use 5 stamps on both letters I send a year if it meant not cleaning out 5 pounds of bullshit from my box every month -- being that's about how frequently I look at it.

That being said it was only a few decades ago the post office held as a strong example of what separated the United States from the 3rd world portions of the Americas, and hell, even into the 60s Post Offices were banks. I'd personally like to decapitate every one of the privatization motherfuckers with a bulldozer, but that horse is so far gone from the barn that it's grand-foals are hipster horses wearing saddles to be ironic.

Fear not. They're privatizing Social Security next.

Just to add something. My parents are in their 70's and love email as well as using the USPS/Fedex for parcels but have said the heck with sending letters. Granted they are more advanced old folks who believe the grocery line should not be held by by writing a check, but they can't be alone in this effort. Doubtful you can peg this on all the old people as long as they have their marbles. Some probably still send a brand new from the bank 20 dollar bill to grandkids in the mail, but I don't see that perpetuating past the next 10-20 years.

I'm gonna add one thing that may or may not seem relevant to any of you - but there was a period about 3 years ago when I switched from mailing invoices to sending pdf copies over email. Coincidentally that was the same time the recession hit us pretty hard and I probably didn't notice any correlation. One day sitting with a colleague and he said to me that he never sends email invoices because they get overlooked and take much longer to get processed.

A year ago I bought some nice stationary / letterheads, started printing and mailing invoices out again, and sure enough I have had to send 80% less "second notices" and collect, on average, about 14 days faster (and it probably takes 2-3 days longer for the invoice to get there in the first place!). My company is small, but that 14 days still equates to about an extra $10,000 sitting in my bank account instead of out in the ether.

Anecdotal evidence from what is probably the strongest economy in the country right now, but its sure worth the cost of a few stamps that I won't be switching back any time soon.

It probably depends on who you're invoicing too. Most of my clients are paperless (some of them have paid me to be paperless, for that matter), and would not enjoy dealing with a paper invoice. On the other hand, there are probably companies that still prefer paper.

I don't even send PDFs anymore. I email them a few sentences recounting how things went during the billing period and a link to the invoice online. From there, they can review it, save a PDF if they want, and/or print if they want. Never had any trouble with anyone paying late or needing a second notice. I do think the personalized message in the email helps capture their attention though vs. an automated, sterile invoice email.