Rant on - No more post office

[lakelover]

Re: Rant on - No more post office

Agreed LL. But that is more an economic problem than age related. A significant portion of our population is below the poverty level, young and old both. And that is one good reason for maintaining the USPS system. because it does serve young and old, rich and poor. Besides an E-card at Christmas just plain sucks. LOL

You're right, economic problem. And Christmas is about the only time we ever send a paper card!

 

[45Auto]

Re: Rant on - No more post office

Where will either company deliver anything for 44 cents?

Into the trash can next to the counter where you hand it to them ....

What's the MINIMUM it costs to send a letter by UPS or FEDEX? $10? No wonder they're profitable!

 

[rbh]

Re: Rant on - No more post office

I think the last thing a country wants to loose is its public (owned by the people) postal system.



That would rate right up there with selling off the highways to private companies just to have them rent them back to you.

 

[RogersJetboat454]

Re: Rant on - No more post office

I'm sure we will soon be seeing this in my area too. I find it interesting that private companies like Fed Ex and UPS are profitable and the USPS isn't......

Again, it's not about making a profit. It's about covering the costs of operation.

I say let the market decide an get the bureaucrats out of it. Government cannot fix that which it broke in the first place.

Well it only started it back in 1775... It's been working pretty well up until the recent years. I say it's time to re-organize, and trim the fat, not throw up hands, and say forget about it.

The world no longer needs buggy whips, so should we subsidize buggy whip manufacturers? It's not going to happen overnight, but some entrepreneur will come up with a solution...but not until the government competition is gone.

No the world doesn't still need buggy whips. Yet the world still depends on receiving mail and packages at a reasonable cost/time.
According to Wikipedia the USPS employs close to 600K people (second only to Walmart). Completely shuttering the doors of the post office would leave allot of people that need to be subsidized.

Maybe they'll solve the junk mail problem while they're at it.......I'll bet I get less than 10 pieces of actual mail each month

...

While junk mail may be an inconvenience you glance at and toss, do you believe that the end of the post office will end marketing all together? If all the company's couldn't send out mailers cheaply, I would be willing to bet there would be an explosion in companies purchasing e-mail addresses and phone numbers so they can stuff your email box with junk, and call or text you about their service. This is not an argument to keep the post office so much as a statement that someone who wants to sell you something will find a way to do it by any easy means necessary. The 10 pieces of significant mail you may receive a month may be allot more for the another person.

mostly bills that we can't pay on-line yet. I think the biggest obstacle is the rural areas that are still behind technologically with few options for Internet access. I live in a rural area and the only reason I still have a land line is for Internet access via DSL.

It isn't all about bills and junk mail though. And the computer does not solve the issue of receiving magazines, catalogs, large envelopes, small packages, certified mail, unless you have some kind fancy printer I've never seen before.

 

[bruceb58]

Re: Rant on - No more post office

Maybe they'll solve the junk mail problem while they're at it....

That's actually one of their biggest money makers.

 

[GA_Boater]

Re: Rant on - No more post office

The Post Office has been trying. The "If it fits, it ships" boxes comes to mind. Flat rate regardless of weight. Gold or feathers same price.

 

[StevNimrod]

Re: Rant on - No more post office

It really is an economic theory problem.

Basically, if you can produce things faster, you produce more (assuming you can still sell it) or you need less people to produce the same amount. So as technology grows you would actually expect to first see more production, then less jobs as output stabilizes.

I expect that as time goes on, we might see the disappearance of some things we'd thought would always be around. And simply because nobody's using them. I think the USPS will be around for awhile because it's actually in the best interest of their competitors. For instance, certain FedEx packages actually travel on USPS equipment depending on the route because the USPS has a competitive advantage on that particular route. In that respect, it will be almost exactly how a lot of large companies made it through the early market crashes - they just "flattened," getting rid of a lot of (in this case) middle management folks who were perceived by the company as sucking up a lot of resources but not contributing a lot of value.

My last bit of economic theory rant:

Productivity increases are supposed to increase what is known as your "real resource endowment". It's a lot like comparing the buying power of today's dollar against the dollar of, say, 1900. To illustrate, imagine that my waking hours are spent of 8 hours at work and 8 hours of leisure which means I have an endowment of 16 hours. I increase my productivity so that I can get 8 hours worth of work done in four. This means that I can now do all my work (worth 8 hours) and devote an additional four hours to leisure (now 12 hours). My real endowment is now 20 hours.

The issue is that most employers don't set up an incentive program that aligns productivity increases with what an employee wants. That is to say it's seldom to get paid for an 8 hour day even if you can get it all done in four. It's even more seldom to get paid for 16 hours of work that you were able to get done in one 8 hour day.

In practice this means that managers often say they want to maximize productivity, but do everything they can (in terms of policy decisions) to not give incentives to productive employees. The reason is pretty straightforward: if I can convince you do give me 12 hours worth of work, and I can get away with paying you for 8, why wouldn't I?

 

[ezmobee]

Re: Rant on - No more post office

The Post Office has been trying. The "If it fits, it ships" boxes comes to mind. Flat rate regardless of weight. Gold or feathers same price.

I'm currently selling off my model train collection on ebay. With a cheap postal scale and a tape measure, I can pay for and print out my shipping labels at home. It's fantastic. I agree, they are trying.

 

[Fishing Dude too]

Re: Rant on - No more post office

What I have heard in the news is the unions fault, they have a no layoff clause in contract (was th postal service fault) that they have many more employees than needed. What ever the cause makes me mad is how the union says they do all their service without TAX dollars yet if they have a bailout where do those dollars come from? Somthing needs to do somthing best bet is do what once was done, if you have a large amount of mail from small post office going to another they sirt it there not at the sort center. Use to have local slot now has to go out and come back.

 

[bassman284]

Re: Rant on - No more post office

I'm currently selling off my model train collection on ebay. With a cheap postal scale and a tape measure, I can pay for and print out my shipping labels at home. It's fantastic. I agree, they are trying.

Good point, ez.

Along those lines, on Wednesday, 9/7, I ordered some stuff from FishUSA (not available at iboats or else...) and at 4:08 pm Wed. they sent me an email saying my stuff had shipped USPS 1st class. Stuff was in my mailbox around noon today, Sat 9/10. 2nd day UPS would have cost me an extra10 bucks. I would have been OK with waiting a week.

More anecdotes: For the last 10 years or so, my prescription drug insurance (various carriers over that period) required that I use their mail orer service for my ongoing scrips. All were shipped USPS and the worst time lag I experienced was 4 days. Once. Usually 2 or occasionally 3.

Point is, the service for the price we're paying is hard to beat.

 

[NetDoc]

Re: Rant on - No more post office

What's a "Post Office"? Is it anything like GMail?

 

[tx1961whaler]

Re: Rant on - No more post office

In practice this means that managers often say they want to maximize productivity, but do everything they can (in terms of policy decisions) to not give incentives to productive employees. The reason is pretty straightforward: if I can convince you do give me 12 hours worth of work, and I can get away with paying you for 8, why wouldn't I?

Because eventually the most talented people will get sick of the BS and walk.

 

[rbh]

Re: Rant on - No more post office

If you are looking for someone to give you better prices at shipping both letters and parcels you cannot find better prices than the posty office.
and if you can, they are lying to you.

 

[lakelover]

Re: Rant on - No more post office

I'm currently selling off my model train collection on ebay. With a cheap postal scale and a tape measure, I can pay for and print out my shipping labels at home. It's fantastic. I agree, they are trying.

Agreed on that. Click N Ship has changed the way I do ebay business as a seller. I used to have to go to the PO almost every day on my way home from work, I'd say it cuts my trips there by 90%. Takes less time, uses less gas. Jut stick it in the mailbox in the morning.

 

[rbh]

Re: Rant on - No more post office

Double post.

 

[slag]

Re: Rant on - No more post office

Couple things come to mind here.

1. USPS has no tracking. They have delivery confirmation which is less than worthless (the package is delivered and 2 days later it shows as being delivered), but no tracking. FEDEX, UPS, they both have it, why not USPS?

2. It was mentioned earlier, but I disagree with the statement that email will start to cost money. No way, no how, that will never happen. People wouldn't stand for it, and something would take its place such as a peer to peer rogue email server or application that handles communications for free. Impossible to charge money to use email--it just won't happen.

 

[bassman284]

Re: Rant on - No more post office

Actually, USPS does have tracking. See link.

http://trkcnfrm1.smi.usps.com/PTSInternetWeb/InterLabelInquiry.do

 

[bruceb58]

Re: Rant on - No more post office

You have obviously not used their tracking before. It only says when they receive information that the package is going to be shipped and then when it finally gets delivered. Nothing in between. Pretty worthless. If someone prints out a shipping label from home and decides to not to ship, you have no idea after 4 days what happened.

 

[bassman284]

Re: Rant on - No more post office

Sorry, I thought the lnk would show my tracking results. It just takes you to the tracking page. I'll try c&p.

Label/Receipt Number: 9400 1102 0079 3034 9017 80
Class: First-Class Mail?
Service(s): Delivery Confirmation?
Status: Delivered

Your item was delivered at 11:52 am on September 10, 2011 in NORTH LIBERTY, IA 52317.



Enter Label/Receipt Number.

Enter Label / Receipt Number.





Detailed Results:

Delivered, September 10, 2011, 11:52 am, NORTH LIBERTY, IA 52317
Out for Delivery, September 10, 2011, 10:06 am, IOWA CITY, IA 52240
Sorting Complete, September 10, 2011, 9:56 am, IOWA CITY, IA 52240
Arrival at Unit, September 10, 2011, 4:09 am, IOWA CITY, IA 52240
Processed through Sort Facility, September 09, 2011, 7:24 pm, DES MOINES, IA 50395
Electronic Shipping Info Received, September 08, 2011

Over the years I've tracked several thousand packages on FedEx, UPS, DHL and Airborne. The biggest difference I see is that it does not show pick up information at the origin so there's a delay getting the shipping info into the system. Somehow this package got from Erie, PA to Des Moines, IA and there is no record of that travel. I got an email Sep 7 at 5:08 pm saying it had shipped.

 

[bruceb58]

Re: Rant on - No more post office

That is more detailed results than I ever got. Most of the time it doesn't show anything inbetween shipping and delivery. I wonder if it is more a regional thing. Maybe they have gotten better.

Edit: I just looked at one of my USPS shipments. Basically you get no details until it gets near your home PO. No details for when it got picked up the first time and for the 4 days that it was in transit so still no idea it was actually on the way.