U.S. Postal Service: salvageable or doomed?

Ours were the same skinny machines you see at the gas station and handed out twenties only.

is iatee gabbneb?

no gabbneb loved heartland america

he would always give people vacation tips

i haven't read enough of yr posts to get that joke sorry, not sure i'd noticed you until ppl above pointed there's this guy and he's got this schtick and i thought 'o hey, gabbneb'. but apparently gabbneb went beyond insider baseball centrist mystery pollster stuff to full on loathing and trolling, which doesn't settle it (if dude or you snapped a username change would make sense right?), and responding in the negative doesn't clear it up either (which begs the question why'd i bother to ask...). anyhow better luck next time you try to buy stamps or whatever the fuck happened.

there's this colin cowherd commercial where you just pay for yr postage and print it on yr computer or some shit maybe try that.

wait a minute.

JESUS CHRIST.

are you colin cowherd?

you should read ilx more I guess

YES DEFINITELY

CLEARLY

even after reading colin cowherd's wikipedia I am not sure how offended to be

he's named "cowherd", so...

Colin Cowherd is the worst person in America, no joke. So worshipful of power and prestige, he'd eagerly man a gas chamber just to please his substitute daddy.

I've seen iatee shit up some threads before but this is really a bravura performance. "flag post" deeply unsatisfying in situations like these imo

i dunno, i think iatee was arguing in good faith here and wasn't trying to be a pest or a troll.

'first-class mail, which is the post office's most important and profitable service, is in an inevitable decline, this is true even before you factor in the health care mandate'

'we're already at a point where the majority of what the post office handles is paper trash and there is no reason to expect that ratio to ever get better'

'a shift to flexible pricing and non-postal services could not only save the post office, but could provide the country w/ a massive, trustworthy banking system, that's actually a fantastic opportunity'

I prob said something trolly somewhere but none of those statements is particularly controversial:

http://about.usps.com/news/national-releases/2011/pr11_124.htm

first class mail dying, flexile business, hey wow postmaster general has some good ideas

like maybe I should have said "I care deeply about the fate of rural america and its proud residents such as jjjusten and balls, but it's really not that hard to find something foreboding in this trend"

http://about.usps.com/who-we-are/financials/10k-reports/fy2011/images/mail_volume_trends.gif

the post office, incidentally, read the tea leaves and attempted to set up a system for online bill paying long before it was popular:

http://www.cnbc.com/id/47126893/What_Really_Keeps_US_Post_Office_From_Making_A_Profit

I didn't say he was trolling, I said he was shitting up the thread, which he was & will continue to do. iatee with his hi-density living schtick is like when I bring up the war on reproductive rights on the thread that was supposed to be Siouxsie and the Banshees: Classic or Dud?

lol, did you really do that?

not as of yet

well now you have a task for today

"The Sweetest Chill" is the best song on Tinderbox - NOW GO!

iatee-underaero-jjjusten beer summit at my apartment

I straight up don't understand how you can look at the post-office's long-term finances w/o bringing up the rural issue but I think it's sorta related to how you like to bring up abortion rights w/o factoring in the political power of half of america. this thread, which actually started from a conversation where I was telling morbs 'it's a shame the post office can't diversify its business, that's why it's fucked' is not about the post office's finances, its about ~american values~

When I was a kid, we'd go to Cothern's Grocery to get our mail. All the mailboxes were lined up on a wall facing the cash register. I'd reach into the cooler and pull out a bottle of Coke while Mom would go talk to the postmaster behind the window. I remember she'd make me finish it in the store so we could get the deposit back on it.

About 20 years ago, I noticed that all these little brick post offices out where I was raised were being replaced by these chic glass and mortar buildings. I never understood why the usps went in that direction and not consolidating with a local business like it was at Cothern's. I agree with you iatee that maybe rates need to be pro-rated by distance, but eliminating a post office in the sticks isn't going to save money because a truck no longer has to drive up there to deliver the mail. It only means that a township of 300 people are now going to send 300 cars down the highway to the big postal center to get their mail.

Along the lines of your whole "paper trash" line, maybe the post office not only needs to eliminate Saturday service, but also eliminate Tuesday-Sunday service. It's funny that I usually get my coupon flyers on Wednesday, the same day I take my trash out. I pull the mail out of the box, sort it out at the curb, and toss what I don't want into the recycling bin, already at my feet.

imagine if USPS partnered with Pottery Barn. You can get mint-scented candles with your stamps.

iatee seems to have no sympathies for the unabomber.

We still have a little brick PO in my Brooklyn neighborhood (w/ the most abominable customer service I have ever experienced at one).

the biggest slut in Babylon

I remember she'd make me finish it in the store so we could get the deposit back on it.

I'm imagining a long, burpy car-ride home.

I'm imagining a long, burpy car-ride home childhood.

We have quite a few brick POs left in Miami-Dade but the one that opened in 2005 literally two blocks away from my apartment looks like a Target and is always crazy full.

Along the lines of your whole "paper trash" line, maybe the post office not only needs to eliminate Saturday service, but also eliminate Tuesday-Sunday service. It's funny that I usually get my coupon flyers on Wednesday, the same day I take my trash out. I pull the mail out of the box, sort it out at the curb, and toss what I don't want into the recycling bin, already at my feet.

saturday's def not gonna be here in a few years, but one problem w/ going beyond that is that it makes the postal service less competitive w/ ups/fedex when it comes to parcels

We already go to the post office to pick up packages -- half the time they either need a signature or it's too big. And no one ever tries to leave a package for pick-up at their home, do they?

Wrt mentioning the French PO, the number of complaints has risen by 47% since 2009. Ironically, the PO says this is because they nopw have a 911-style 4 digit complaint line (80% of the complaints are made this way) and also complaint link on their website.

http://www.lefigaro.fr/conso/2012/05/03/05007-20120503ARTFIG00424-la-poste-mecontente-ses-clients.php

Being France, Le Figaro tends to see this as relatively benign and a union rep says it's 'cause of lay-offs.

My doorman takes all my packages, one of the main reasons I don't wanna move.

We already go to the post office to pick up packages -- half the time they either need a signature or it's too big. And no one ever tries to leave a package for pick-up at their home, do they?

you can order a pickup even w/ usps but I don't think it's worth it unless you ship regularly + live somewhere where you don't mind leaving a package in public. I don't know how the price w/ that service compares to the private carriers.

but basically my point is that outside of places where the usps is the last mile, cutting down from M-F service basically ensures that it won't be able to offer a comparable service to ups/fedex. basically there's either a slow death by cuts where one day a week service could very likely be the endpoint or a radical restructuring of the organization, its finances and long-term purpose. I don't think the first scenario is unlikely, I just don't think its the best one. neither do people who run the post office, which is why they've always been pushing to diversify the business.

Maybe the post office could bring me a pizza with my mail.

You'd probably end up throwing that right into your compost bin

I've never heard it called that.

Are stamps a topping y/n?

I've never heard it called that.

Here in the Utopian Progressive Paradise of SF, we have landfill, recycling and compost bins. Failure to sort properly leads to mandatory stays in Fresno.

today the mailman got out of his truck carrying too much mail and dropped a huge pile of it on the wet street.

and he's driving like a kia soul or something, not an actual mail truck.

the deal, iatee, is that to argue that the USPS is doomed, you point to the chart you posted above re. the decline of paper mail over the last five years & say it's gonna extrapolate out. & "this is true even before you factor in the health care mandate". The USPS is doomed, privatize, diversify it, or shut it down. that's what the market has decided, you can't argue with dollars.

whereas others think "the health care mandate" you poo poo is actually important in explaining why the USPS is doomed right now.

poo poo'ing a right-wing policy, & actually being happy with a right-wing outcome: that's why you come across as right-wing.

"but eliminating a post office in the sticks isn't going to save money because a truck no longer has to drive up there to deliver the mail."

http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/politics/2012/04/senate-passes-postal-reform/

"The Postmaster General last year agreed to delay until May 15 obligatory closings of an anticipated 3,600 post offices nationwide, in order to give Congress the opportunity to help with legislation. The bill splits the number of mail processing centers the Postal Services currently wants to close — from 252 to 125."

except I never said privatize it or shut it down and it lost 5 bil *before the health care mandate* last year and I think the solution is gov't banking ~that's kinda sorta not right-wing~

maybe I 'come across as right-wing' because people read whatever the fuck they want into my argument