• Welcome to OGBoards 10.0, keep in mind that we will be making LOTS of changes to smooth out the experience here and make it as close as possible functionally to the old software, but feel free to drop suggestions or requests in the Tech Support subforum!

USPS - Still a money pit

"Fuck'n A" (thanks be to Lawrence). Great synopsis.

DCDeac said:
The USPS was profitable (despite trying to be profit-neutral) from the 80's until 2006.

I'd also like to know how this is "costing taxpayers money." I mean that literally, because previously the USPS has not been funded at all with taxpayer money. The only money they get from the government is to cover things like free military absentee ballots for voting and free world mail for diplomats - basically wherever the government is using their service.

It's a massive entity. It has to adapt and it'll take a while and a lot of losses and lots of borrowed money to do so, just like many other companies. Plus out of the $8 billion it lost last year for it's 600,000 employees, only $500 million had anything to do with operations. The rest were all government mandates for health coverage changes and crap that jumped their payouts to retired employees. That's against $70 billion in revenue.

Compare that to something like the SunTrust bailout. They employ 30,000 and do $12 billion in revenue and got cash straight from taxpayers of over $4 billion all told.

It's hard to believe the "concern" for USPS is anything other than anti-government folks trying to get a rise out of people.
Click to expand...
 
If you want to send a letter by FedEx, you can.
 
DCDeac said:
The USPS was profitable (despite trying to be profit-neutral) from the 80's until 2006.

I'd also like to know how this is "costing taxpayers money." I mean that literally, because previously the USPS has not been funded at all with taxpayer money. The only money they get from the government is to cover things like free military absentee ballots for voting and free world mail for diplomats - basically wherever the government is using their service.

It's a massive entity. It has to adapt and it'll take a while and a lot of losses and lots of borrowed money to do so, just like many other companies. Plus out of the $8 billion it lost last year for it's 600,000 employees, only $500 million had anything to do with operations. The rest were all government mandates for health coverage changes and crap that jumped their payouts to retired employees. That's against $70 billion in revenue.

Compare that to something like the SunTrust bailout. They employ 30,000 and do $12 billion in revenue and got cash straight from taxpayers of over $4 billion all told.

It's hard to believe the "concern" for USPS is anything other than anti-government folks trying to get a rise out of people.
Click to expand...

It lost $5.1 billion in 2007, $2.8 billion in 2008, $8 billion last year, and is sinking again this year. And, as you point out, the main problem is the type of losses, because they aren't purely operational losses, they are retiree/union-caused losses. It is exactly the same issue that sunk the auto industry - not enough revenue to cover both current operating expenses and keep paying people who retired decades ago. To many bad promises made 20 and 30 years ago are now coming home to roost.

And, yes, part of the concern is "anti-government", as it should be. Our government is spending the nation into bankruptcy sooner rather than later. To ignore that is simply to put your head in the sand. To fix that problem, there needs to be a major restructuring of what the government should be doing and what the government should not be doing, so that the revenues are directed to where they are needed most. A forthcoming taxpayer bailout of the post office is not where funds are needed most.
 
PhDeac said:
If you want to send a letter by FedEx, you can.
Click to expand...

But FedEx is prohibited from charging you anything less than twice what the USPS charges you, and FedEx can't use your mailbox. Where that comes into play is that the USPS also doesn't pay property taxes, so FedEx is effectively priced out of creating enough local distribution centers to handle door-front delivery at a price competitive with the post office. Even if they put in the infrastructure to do it (which would be at a higher cost due to the property taxes), they are still barred from competing on price.
 
Focus your outrage on Amtrack. Subsidized heavily by the government and couldn't sustain itself outside the Northeast Corridor.
 
Marietta Deac said:
Focus your outrage on Amtrack. Subsidized heavily by the government and couldn't sustain itself outside the Northeast Corridor.
Click to expand...

They aren't mutually exclusive. My outrage is focused on both. Neither business model is successful without being subsidized by the tax payer.
 
I'm still trying to figure out how some of you all get trash pick up twice a week. Mrs. 1976 doesn't pick it up more than once a week.

If the postal service is losing money, it needs to charge more. I am one of the folks that thinks a lot of small businesses that contribute meaningfully to the economy rely on the postal service, and that $10B is not that much in the scheme of things. Is there a country (other than Cuba) that we don't give at least that much money to each year in one form or other other? Hell, I wonder how much the sugar industry in this country alone is subsidized now.
 
1976Deac said:
I'm still trying to figure out how some of you all get trash pick up twice a week. Mrs. 1976 doesn't pick it up more than once a week.

If the postal service is losing money, it needs to charge more. I am one of the folks that thinks a lot of small businesses that contribute meaningfully to the economy rely on the postal service, and that $10B is not that much in the scheme of things. Is there a country (other than Cuba) that we don't give at least that much money to each year in one form or other other? Hell, I wonder how much the sugar industry in this country alone is subsidized now.
Click to expand...

I could think of a few billion going to Osama's former home country.
 
68 billion — revenue in 2009, in dollars
177 billion — total number of mail pieces processed in 2009
584 million — average number of mail pieces processed each day
24 million — average number of mail pieces processed each hour
405,000 — average number of mail pieces processed each minute
6,761 — average number of mail pieces processed each second
40 — percentage of the world’s card and letter mail volume handled by USPS
2.1 billion — dollar amount paid every 2 weeks in salaries and benefits
596,000 — number of career employees
218,684 — number of vehicles in our fleet the largest civilian fleet in the world
1.1 billion — dollar amount spent on fuel in 2009
1.25 billion — number of miles driven each year by our letter carriers and truck drivers
444 million — number of gallons of fuel used in 2009
36,400 — number of postal retail locations nationwide
14 — percent of the nation’s population that moves annually
43.8 million — number of address changes processed in 2009
1.1 million — number of people who visit usps.com each day
222 million — amount of stamp and retail sales online at usps.com
390 million — total revenue from Click-N-Ship label purchases
7.3 million — number of passport applications accepted in 2009
135.1 million — number of money orders issued in 2009
252,000 — number of daily transactions processed on 2,500 APCs
548 million — amount in revenue generated from APC transactions
58,288 — number of stores, banks and ATMs that sell postage stamps
923,595 — number of new delivery points added to the network in 2009
0 — tax dollars received for operating the Postal Service


Let's say the USPS does lose $8B in 2011. This would be about 11-12% of sales. If they did like most businesses would do and raise prices, the problem would go away.

If they raised prices 15% across the board and did some cost cutting, they'd be set for several years to come.
 
RJKarl said:
If they raised prices 15% across the board and did some cost cutting, they'd be set for several years to come.
Click to expand...

This is pretty much what I'm advocating. They still have plenty of options to pursue before the whole program needs to be scrapped.

Raise prices 15%.

Cut delivery from 6 days/wk to 5 or even 4 days per week.
 
You can't cut delivery without legislating longer grace periods from companies who send out bills.
 
Unnecessary really.

What difference should it make if you get your bill one day later when you already get a 15 day grace period?

If there are companies out there that give such a short grace period that a single day makes a difference, then the problem exists whether or not delivery schedules are changed.

I do think if a company is sending out bills in the hopes that mail delivery causes payee's to be late and incur fees, then those companies should be dealt with immediately.
 
Companies could delay sending bills out until Fridaday afternoons. Thus they may reach your until the end of the following week costing you days on each end.

There needs to be some consume protections. Banks aren't in the business of lending money that much any more. They are in the business of collecting fees.
 
I'd investigate the savings of cutting delivery before raising the rates. Go with my plan and they'll make additional revenue from people paying for 6 day service. An overall rate increase would probably hit small businesses the most anyway.
 
Liquid Karma said:
Unnecessary really.

What difference should it make if you get your bill one day later when you already get a 15 day grace period?

If there are companies out there that give such a short grace period that a single day makes a difference, then the problem exists whether or not delivery schedules are changed.

I do think if a company is sending out bills in the hopes that mail delivery causes payee's to be late and incur fees, then those companies should be dealt with immediately.
Click to expand...

Who would "deal with" those companies -- Ayn Rand?
 
Please go back to DS and stay there.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top