USPS Fiscal WoesFollow

Granted, that's an msnbc story and is probably over-hyped at least a little bit. So I went digging into the actual Act that was enacted to see how over-hyped the story was. Relevant section is Section 8909a. found on page 55 of 67.

In short, it appears that it is true there is a a provision in place that does require payment from the USPS to a Treasury-controlled account, and it doesn't seem to me that it defines what "payments" are permitted via use of the capital in that fund. That seems pretty obnoxious to me, ontop of being entirely unnecessary. If you're going to cut-off an agency from funding, then do it all the way.

I still write letters to various people and drop them in the mail, usually for a birthday or special occasion. But I'm a romantic sap.

When Ray was deployed, I wrote a letter in the morning and a letter in the evening to him and he got quick chatty emails from me all day long. And he got a care package every other week. His shipmates hated him during mail call. Some guys would get 1 or 2 letters. And then the mail guy would hand Ray about 30 letters and tell him to pick up his care packages down at the hold. Then they would crowd around Ray when he opened up his care packages because there's only so many treats he could eat and magazines he could read.

I love getting mail and care packages while deployed. Most of all it beat overpaying for supplies at the ******* PX.

I don't see why the USPS can't cut back residential deliveries to three days a week.

Businesses receive considerably more mail, generally payments from customers, so daily service (Mon-Fri) would likely have to continue.

They really need to drop the Saturday service altogether. And yeah, residential 3 days a week would be fine, I'm sure. I usually never get mail more than that anyway, and sometimes it's only once or twice a week.

Apparently, some of the first bombs that were dropped on Afghanistan and Iraq had stuffed animals taped to them. Ray won't confirm that, but that's what I heard from someone else.

This could be done, easily. Close half the post offices. Set up groups of 2 adjacent areas. Each group could an 'A' zone and a 'B' zone; A's would get delivery on Mon Wed Fri, B's would get in Tues Thurs Sat. It would mean massive layoffs, but the remaining offices would be able to keep their normal schedule, more or less.

And to think you could have given all those stuffed animals to the kids there, and instead of their parents plotting against you, they might be plotting with you.

Moral point aside, that does sound like a very entertaining way to say good bye. MASH alternate ending entertaining.

Methinks the "shortage" is more one of the accounting persuasion, and not necessarily an actual shortage of cash. But I don't know (or care) enough about it to research more.

Plus, it's a little hard to argue against providing fully for future liabilities like promised pensions when you have states (like Wisconsin) changing pension benefits after they've been earned, and seeing the complete royal mess that the Social Security fund has become (or will become by the time I'm ready to collect).

Replace stamps with pre-printed corporate logos and fund the USPS with advertising revenue.

Every one of the bills that I receive comes with a pre-paid return envelope. I thought this was standard practice.

You know they'll just raise the price of their product then.

Who mails bills anymore anyways? That takes a check doesn't it?

Even though I live in the city and often get my deliveries via UPS because that's what Amazon uses for Prime shipping, it's still nice to know that they're there. I've never had a problem with the post office, but I know that this largely depends on your location. I always get my mail on time and the mail carriers are pretty friendly, and post office workers are also usually pretty nice if you're polite. I know they've put up with quite a bit of my crap when I sent my first package and had no clue what I was doing . I usually get through the lines pretty quickly, and Media Mail is a bargain when I have to send out textbooks that I sell through Amazon (I have enough boxes from them to be set for life). I feel a bit nickel and dimed when I pay a small additional fee for delivery confirmation, but for the packages I send it's still cheaper than a private shipper.

I mean, the establishment of a postal service is something straight out of the Constitution. I'm not opposed to increasing the efficiency of the postal service, but I also don't mind paying taxes for it either. I also shudder to think of what private shippers would charge if they didn't have to compete with the USPS. In fact, UPS actually relies on the USPS to deliver to rural locations because that shit is expensive.

Even with fewer letters being sent, with the rise of online shopping parcel delivery is as important as ever.