U.S. Postal Service: Too Big to Mail?

[Big Don]

U.S. Postal Service: Too Big to Mail?

22 Jun 2009
Posted by Pete Davis
 Capital Gains and Games.com EXCERPT


Do we need the U.S. Postal Service? Today's Washington Post editorial offers a well-researched and thoughtful wake-up call suggesting the answer may be no unless USPS can "reinvent itself for the 21st Century." The Post estimates the USPS will lose between $6 and $12 b. this fiscal year, and cutting back deliveries to five days a week seems inevitable. Mail volume has declined for seven years in a row, and it plummeted 14.9% in the first quarter alone.
If you're like me, you wonder why you have to sift through so much junk mail to find the few pieces of mail you want. I rarely mail anything anymore. Most of my payments are made electronically. On the rare occasions when I need postal service, I usually stand in line for 10 minutes or more despite all of USPS's efforts to improve customer service. When I want to mail a package, I go to the United Parcel Service (UPS) store.
END EXCERPT
The US Postal Service bleeds money. UPS and FEDEX both earn profits providing similar services.

 

[Bob Hubbard]

Mailing a letter at US Post office is 43c
Mailing same letter at UPS is $3.

If USMail raised the price of a stamp to $1, they'd see a profit, and we'd see our taxes go up...because who do you think pays for all those political fliers we get in the mail?

 

[Carol]

The U.S. Mail is also correspondence protected by law. The government cannot open your first class mail without a warrant, for example.

Not so with the "common carriers" such as FedEx, UPS, and the like.

 

[CanuckMA]

Raising prices would help. That junk mail also pays for a significant part of the Post Office. Going to 5 day a week delivery is nnot the end of the world. Besides being protected, USSP also delivers to places private business may not want to. What happens when UPS does not deem it financially feasible to deliver to that small 500 person town, 100 miles away from the nearest large centre?

 

[Archangel M]

If you are loosing business you downsize and try to discover profits through other means. You don't just keep hiking up stamp prices.

 

[CanuckMA]

Problem is, USPS has a mandate to deliver mail everywhere in the US. Downsizing might be good. Easy way to do that is to cut weekend deliveries. Are people really going to miss mail on weekends?

It may always be a money loser. Delivering mail throughout the US at a single price is never likely be a money maker.

 

[5-0 Kenpo]

Mailing a letter at US Post office is 43c
Mailing same letter at UPS is $3.

If USMail raised the price of a stamp to $1, they'd see a profit, and we'd see our taxes go up...because who do you think pays for all those political fliers we get in the mail?

There's a reason for those prices. The U.S. Postal Service is the only ones who can deliver First Class Mail. 18 U.S.C. Sections 1693 - 1696 and 39 U.S.C. Sections 601 - 606 (also known as the Private Express Statute) mandates that first class mail be delivered only by the U.S. Postal Service. There are exceptions. However, the government mandated a price of a minimum of 3$ or First Class or Priority Mail would cost. The package must even be labeled "Extremely Urgent".

Those political fliers that you see are not sent First Class, so even if the rate was increased to 1$, they don't pay that rate. There is a "Bulk Mail" rate offered by the USPS which is less then that of First Class mail. So the rate of that would have to change, not that of First Class mail.

My father retired from the Post Office. In speaking with him, First Class mail has never been a source of revenue income for them. It has always been the Bulk Mail and packages which serve to give them the majority of their revenue. The scam of raising the First Class mail rate is that the government is not going to make businesses pay for any mail rate increases.

Aren't you glad that the government has a monopoly on these things, even if it's a legislative monopoly.

 

[Mark Jordan]

The Postal Accountability and Enhancement Act was made to provide flexibility and respond to the changing customer needs. So why not stop delivering mails on Saturdays. If the other couriers were required by law to deliver to every house 6 days a week then they wouldn't have a profit -same goes with USPS.

The government ought to operate the USPS like a business and not a federal jobs program.

 

[5-0 Kenpo]

The Postal Accountability and Enhancement Act was made to provide flexibility and respond to the changing customer needs. So why not stop delivering mails on Saturdays. If the other couriers were required by law to deliver to every house 6 days a week then they wouldn't have a profit -same goes with USPS.

The government ought to operate the USPS like a business and not a federal jobs program.

That's the problem though, "the law". Private companies like UPS and Fed-Ex deliver on Saturday and still make a profit, without the law mandating that they do so.

I would presume that if the services from a private company that I went to went down, then the price of those services would go down as well. However, with the government, that is not the case. Even still, if I as a consumer see that there is another company that will offer me like services for less, I will use them instead. Such is impossible with a government monopoly.