U.S. Postal Service: salvageable or doomed?

don't see why less mail means usps has a long term problem. it can just ramp down slowly. also stamped, first-class is probably not its key profit center?

like that's def the category of mail that is disappearing most thanks to internet stuff, but is the decline in that particular category key to the ability of the postal service so sustain itself?

first class mail totally was its profit center, now it's shifting to junk mail

the usps is profitable were it not for the pension funding requirement which was basically designed to kill the usps

it still has the best package delivery system around, given the ubiquity of online commerce I say we should save the usps

the problem with a slow ramp down is that your mail carrier bringing you one letter a day isn't half as cheap as your mail carrier bringing you two. it was benefitting from huge economies of scale and a monopoly on a certain service and it's losing both.

what seems most likely is delivery service keeps gets chopped down one day at a time. this limits its ability to compete for parcel delivery, which is where the business is gonna be. ie saving the post office (saving it...from operating as a competitive business) just means killing it slowly.

xp

...or getting rid of the pension requirement and restoring those appropriated funds to the post office

again it's only making money because it's an advertising company now

http://business.time.com/2012/03/22/why-the-post-office-loves-junk-mail/

or a 'jobs mail' company I guess

who cares

i don't really care that it sends me junk mail as long as it also sends me packages and provides me with a way to send packages for cheaper than UPS and also lets me pick up packages at the many convenient post offices located near the places I live

who cares that the government is currently running a program to send 100 billion pieces of junk mail out?

i don't really see what the concern is

The USPS is created as a government agency under Title 39, Section 101.1 of the United States Code which states, in part:

(a) The United States Postal Service shall be operated as a basic and fundamental service provided to the people by the Government of the United States, authorized by the Constitution, created by Act of Congress, and supported by the people. The Postal Service shall have as its basic function the obligation to provide postal services to bind the Nation together through the personal, educational, literary, and business correspondence of the people. It shall provide prompt, reliable, and efficient services to patrons in all areas and shall render postal services to all communities. The costs of establishing and maintaining the Postal Service shall not be apportioned to impair the overall value of such service to the people.

Under paragraph (d) of Title 39, Section 101.1, "Postal rates shall be established to apportion the costs of all postal operations to all users of the mail on a fair and equitable basis."

i mean thats pretty clear

and again any benefit compared to ups/fedex is gonna be going away as this advertising company ends up operating on 4 and 3 day schedules

that's not some impossible problem that can't be solved

get rid of the pension funding requirement and it can remain an advertising company that delivers 5-6 days a week

ya for example we could turn it into a bank, but that's not gonna happen

i don't see what the connection is

that was an xp

currently the taxpayer input into the postal service is about $100 million, which pays for free mailing service for the blind and mail in ballots. good luck getting fedex or ups to take that on for that kind of money.

there are alternatives such as blind people using computers and also voters using computers

yes of course it would cost way less than $100 million dollars a year to ensure that everyone who is blind and every overseas absentee voter has full access to a computerized system that can do everything the postal service does, great point

well as the 3-day-a-week-advertising company post office continues to collapse into irrelevance the costs of replacing its remaining capabilities will certainly go down

lol u r so dumb

yes one could get rid of the free mail for the blind and mail-in ballot services (not that i advocate it but whatever) and at that point it would have a fractional impact on the revenue of the postal service and wouldn't matter about the viability of it one way or the other.

post office is fine. it ships packages good. i like my mail. its year-over-year volume + revenues are actually increasing in "competitive sectors" (i.e. its services that go head-to-head vs. ups etc are gaining). its structurally the "market dominant sectors" that are in a decline. but the extent of the decline remains to be seen. things that go up don't keep going up. things going down don't necessarily go down forever. sometimes they just... adjust.

but fuckit we should all pay landlords half our income and pay the rest to private enterprise because the goverment is just the... worst, man.

iatee you should print out this trenchant piece of advice from noted thinking mans comic "zits" and staple it to your forehead:

http://arnoldzwicky.s3.amazonaws.com/ZitsArguing.gif

why do you think I hate government when I'm suggesting a public option for personal banking

anyway while its true that there might be a bottom, we are at the moment not anywhere close to 'everyone pays and receives all their bills electronically' but we will continue to go down that path and its effects will be felt. iirc the post office actually tried to get involved w/ electronic payment systems and was prevented by congress? again, it's not that it's run by incompetent people, it's that it's not allowed any flexibility.

xp

its true it has its hands crippled by lobbyists yah, that's a huge issue. but the idea that mail is just vanishing is ridiculous. also it wouldn't have needed to be a bank to be a payment clearinghouse anyway.

it wouldn't have needed to be no, but it happens to have locations in every city in america and we have shitty banks so

again most of the arguments I'm making (allow it operational efficiency and to diversify its business) are made by the people who run the post office so the idea that I'm some secret libertarian or w/e is kinda lol

the best way to ensure that it dies is to pretend like the post office in 2025 should or can operate like the post office in 1940

who cares that the government is currently running a program to send 100 billion pieces of junk mail out?

― iatee, Thursday, March 28, 2013 6:39 PM (52 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

i don't really see what the concern is

― 乒乓, Thursday, March 28, 2013 6:41 PM (50 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

i think there are some pretty legitimate environmental concerns tbh

this thread is interesting. my parents worked for the post office. i hope it continues to exist. what could it conceivably look like, other than a PO/bank hybrid? (also, why does this have to be about rural v. urban?)

bcz iatee

because the entire postal service is run as an urban->rural transfer program.

and are the distances between people really at the heart of the matter/the main thing to consider? (not a rhetorical q, just haven't thought about that way)

yes. it costs more money to get things to remote places and to keep offices open in places fewer customers. the post office isn't given much flexibility here to adjust like a normal business.

places with

but the solution must surely be more complicated than asking people to not live remotely?

USPS should become the facebook public option

sry the social network public option

I've asked before it never works xp

People have a right to get things delivered to remote places by the federal government. It is a just use of state powers.

And while we're at it, FedEx and UPS should be penalized more for competing against the state. Their competition lowers the efficiency of the state's economies of scale.

We should outlaw email too, because that really ruined economies of scale for the USPS.

i have no idea if those posts are serious or not

new board description

'competing against the state'

iatee too literal

clover otm