dagblog - Comments for "Postal Service Reports $15.9 Billion Loss"

There are many government

ocean-kat — Fri, 16 Nov 2012 06:16:06 +0000

In reply to Postal Service Reports $15.9 Billion Loss

There are many government agencies that provide services to the public that are not profitable but for some reason the government expects the post office to at least break even. No private company could do what the government requires the postal service to do and remain profitable. We have allowed private companies to take all the profitable services of the postal service away leaving just the most expensive and therefore unprofitable services to the postal service. If we decide we want those services we'll have to pay for them with tax dollars. Its as simple as that.

Yes to postal bank!

erica20 — Fri, 16 Nov 2012 05:09:01 +0000

In reply to For nearly a year, the agency

Yes to postal bank!

For nearly a year, the agency

EmmaZahn — Thu, 15 Nov 2012 21:44:17 +0000

In reply to Postal Service Reports $15.9 Billion Loss

For nearly a year, the agency has been urging Congress to pass legislation that would allow it to save costs including cutting back the number of days it delivers mail to five days a week, reducing annual payments required for its future retiree health fund and entering into new lines of business like delivering beer and wine by mail.

Thinking is too small here -- simply survival level. There are a couple of things that the post office could do that would bring their existing services fully into the 21st century.

One is a no brainer -- simply provide many of the same services for e-mail as they do for snail mail. People pay for physical po boxes and I think they would pay for online boxes (e-mail accounts) that have the same legal protections. I know I would. Also, there is no reason they could not provide e-versions of often legally-required registered and certified mail plus return receipts. Plus, anyone who wants to send me spam aka junk mail would have to pay the post office to do so, just like they do the physical junk.

Another is to reinstate or recharter the Postal Savings Bank as a full-service, retail national bank.

A legitimate role of government is to keep us connected whether by roads, wire, fiber or mail. Letting the USPS die is something we would eventually regret.

Comments: 1) That's a lot of

artappraiser — Thu, 15 Nov 2012 19:44:48 +0000

In reply to Postal Service Reports $15.9 Billion Loss

Comments:

1) That's a lot of money

2) There's the possibility of a lot of immediate job losses

3) Do people want a postal service or not? I suspect many young folks don't care (excepting the ones that have to send care packages to grandma in the Dominican Republic or Senegal and need money orders to pay bills) as UPS brings them their Amazon purchases and delivers their one-click gifts, they don't know from USPS or sending a handwritten card or a gift wrapped and packed by their own hands, or publishing a catalogue that you can look at on the toilet, for that matter. It's true that a private company would have to go out of business if they had not foreseen an unexpected decline in business that would make them unable to keep their pension-type obligations. So the question really is do we want them to go out of business or not? Cutting this or that service here or there is not in the end going to help, just another factor in the spiral downward in not being able to pay their obligations.