Postmaster General Ends Saturday Mail Delivery

It needs to happen, regardless of who is in office.

The challenge about the USPS is it has been so poorly managed over the past several decades and is plagued by incompetence it will ultimately have to be much smaller or cease to exist. Saturday mail is silly anyways. In the transition to a digital economy the USPS still serves an important role because not everything is digital. However, it needs to be better managed and this is an important first step.

Between Amtrak and the USPS, Congress has a lot of money going into public businesses that it needs to keep afloat because of the loads of employees on the payrolls coupled with the heavy investments in infrastructure. I like the USPS, but they need to change with the times. FedEx and UPS operate much more smoothly and produce better profits for a reason, a lot of which begins with the kind of workforce it employs and how it motivates them.

There is little excuse for the continued ineptitude in the Postal Service.

 

The reports are that the postal service is having so much financial trouble because of all the retirement benefits.

 

PreachinJesus, you are right about Amtrak. If private enterprise thinks that passenger trains are obsolete for the most part, why is the government still running them?

As for the post office, business doesn't get much mail anymore. Business packages are delivered by private carriers. Accounting firms generate some mail but lawyers have little mail compared to the old days. People don't send Christmas cards anymore. You just telephone people to stay in touch. Or e-mail.

All I get in the mail is utility bills and the occasional mail-order delivery. I live in a high-flauntin zip code, so I get a lot of junk mail. Some say the junk mail is delivered so cheaply that the post office just breaks even on it. I could live without it, but the carriers are keenly aware that they have little else to deliver some days. I am so old that I clearly remember the three-cent stamp for first-class mail.

 

You need to stick to commenting about your chosen profession. It is quite obvious you have no idea what plagues the Postal Service.

You talk about ineptitude of management on several occasions. How do you know this, and can you give specific examples that effect an organization that large? No you cannot, because you have never worked for them.

For your information, Congress has no money going into the Postal Service. The Postal Service is a quasi-independent government entity that generates its own revenue. In fact, they pay Congress money every year for the health benefits of future retirees.

With an organization that big, there is going to be some mismanagement. However, the fact they deliver to every address in America six days a weeks for 46 cents regardless of where the letter is going is quite an accomplishment. I would like to see you on the work room floor of a midnight shift of postal workers sorting the mail for the next day and see how you would do meeting deadlines. It is quite different than eeking out a sermon a week and managing a church budget where the revenue is generated by members who give and tithe. My guess is that you would last about two days.

The correct reason for the Postal Services problems is the use of the internet to pay bills, send cards, and general communication. Postal ineptitude is a very small part of the problem.

It takes more training starting with a BS in electrical engineering with added postal training of several years to maintain and repair their OCRS, bar code sorters, remote encoding, address recognition, flat sorters, parcel and bundle sorters, ink jet printers, and the advanced networking that connects all of this than it does for your average Baptist pot bellied pastor to go to seminary.

The Postal Service earns its own way. If you do not like its product, do not use them.

 

It seems that Congress just doesn't have the heart to cut anything no matter how wasteful and extravagant:

http://news.yahoo.com/post-office-retreats-eliminating-saturday-mail-161215313--finance.html

I knew a former postal union leader and he always said that too many people get prescription medicine through the mail to abolish Saturday delivery. I don't know how we can solve that problem.

 

Very simplistic view. The advent of electronic communications has done a lot to reduce high-profit personal mail and bills. About all the USPS has left is "junk mail" delivered at a discount under bulk mail rates.