U.S. Postal Service: salvageable or doomed?

wait only 'sure'ing the last part, 'would set up a system guaranteeing its perpetuation' is nonsense

if the government got tax revenue from every pizza coupon and crate & barrel catalog sent, you can bet they'd do whatever they could to keep the paper flowing

that might be hyperbole. hmmm... let's just say that it would reduce their incentive to stop junk mail.

In a country where we can't even get a gas tax that even approaches the true cost of driving, and where people will pay Amazon.com $70 a year just to get free shipping on all their $15 DVD orders,I wish iatee great success running for office on his "make cheap crap more expensive to transport" platform. (Not to mention his glib dismissal of how far we are from a paperless/everything online society when I can't even get decent cable internet speeds or non-throttled 4G wireless data in a major city, let alone In Buttfuck, Montana.)

'cheap crap for all forever and always' platform is pretty hard to run against I agree, I do not think I will run for office

yeah, one or the other of the two major "cheap crap for all forever and always" parties has won almost every major american election in the last few decades

everyone is invited to the cheap crap for all forever and always party

the great gasby

Alls I'm saying is we're all fucked anyway so please do not take away my first class mail in the meantime. My Aunt Lottie has sent me a birthday card every year for 42 years and I kinda enjoy it.

Netflix will take over USPS. Subscription based model.

anyway countries that offer postal banking:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Postal_savings_systems

france! germany! brazil! korea! japan! america until 1967!

it's not a super crazy idea

and we have a country filled w/ amazingly shitty banks

They should put banks in Waffle Houses since they only accept cash anyway.

Chik-fil-A was another good idea. After all, them and the post office are already shut down on Sundays.

Waffle House takes credit.

If I could get a Waffle House Visa, though, that would be the only card I ever used.

Big move on their part. I guess they figured out that keeping an ATM on the premises wasn't the wisest thing to do.

But the Waffle House atm only put out credit vouchers (or at least that's how it went here.)

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.