U.S. Postal Service: salvageable or doomed?

There are definitely some good things about the USPS recently. Their newly introduced Ground Advantage rate is cheaper and seemingly quicker for sending packages domestically. When I have to ship CDs, I'm paying about a dollar less per package than I used to and things are arriving in the same amount of time.

xp I'm not a fan of DeJoy's austerity plan - it's going to needlessly slash jobs and delay service - but he was also instrumental in getting the Postal Service Reform Act passed into law. That codified six-day delivery into law and ended the disastrous federal mandate that the USPS pre-pay the health plans for retirees, neither of which is a small thing. So right back at you.

I feel like there's been a crazy spike in postal crimes in general.

A lot of mail boxes have vanished here, like months ago. I think it's because crooks figured out a way to wash signatures off of checks, so they were stealing from the boxes in search of those (and who knows what else). Supposedly more secure replacements are on their way, eventually.

I actually talked with a carrier about this - there have been cases where they found boxes sawed or cut-through. So in addition to upgrading locks (like maybe a double-validation system), they're hoping to make the physical mailbox tougher to slice or puncture. It's really crazy how it's come to this.

he doesn't have the power to do so unfortunately

The Postal Board where he's nominated the majority does, tho

“checks”?

<cheques notes> yep.

Some people get paid via actual checks in the mail — idk if that’s what’s in question but checks in the mail are a v real thing fwiw

Also my mom got frauded via a check recently. It’s not insignificant imo.

Literally waiting on two important ones right now.

And for every pension I administered, there was 10% of our population who got paper checks