The Postal service is going to HELL, just like everything else with the initials US in front of it. Why would they eliminate all stamp machines at post offices, I would rather pay more for stamps from a machine than to wait until Monday to get some if it's a profit thing. I am sure that I am not alone when I say that I would rather pay $0.50 each from stamp machine and be able to get them any time of the day or night, than have them be available ONLY when the PO is open.
And as for getting rid of their vehicles, that would be a kick in the teeth. Is there no one who thinks things through at the US Postal Service? People are already complaining about mail being later and later all the time, I didn't get my mail until 5:30 pm one Saturday, and it's mostly because you have more routes than you do carriers.
You expect the carriers to split up the excess routes in stead of having 1 carrier per route. These guys work their BUTTS off and the people who are making these stupid decissions could never carry a GOOD mail man's bag. They are paid to find ways to save money, and that ALWAYS means eliminate some of the luxuries for the lowest man on the totum pole. You have some of the MOST dedicated workers in the entire United States and I don't know HOW you plan to keep them when you want them to bear the cross of the Ecconomic situation we are in. In MY humble opinion, you should hire a shagg person to cater Lemonade and Hot Chocolate to them, depending on the Season, Right out to their routes, and they should have some form of communication back to their post office in case of Emergencies, there are two way radios that have the capability of reaching 20 miles and each carrier should carry one. I have always felt that when you have an employee who is doing a GREAT Job
you need to do EVERYTHING in your power to keep them happy, you need to REWARD good workers, NOT take things away from them, they put up with a lot of crap that most people don't realize. And by the way, I do not work for the Postal Service, nor do I have any family that does either, but it don't take a Rocket Scientist to see what these Route Carriers have to go through 6 days a week. When the ecconomy calls for cut backs, you need to TRIM FAT at the top, that's where the TRUE waste is comming from, it is well known that the people who make the most money do the least work and have the MOST benifits. Common sense business practices need to be observed because, Without Carriers, there IS no US Postal Service, carriers are the GLUE that keeps the system together. PERIOD !

Steve-O

It's about time they figured this out. The USPS is a joke. I had a neighbor that bragged about all the overtime he got while working a mail route. He bragged about how he would take extra long lunches, even going home to take a nap at times and then "working" an extra 15 minutes to get double or triple pay. What goes around comes around....

I am disappointed with the postal service. It use to be one of the jobs that I held great respect for. However, since they started sending our mail to KC it has gone extremely down hill. There was a shift of some sort almost a year ago that I (a business) was lucky to receive my mail. Some days they just didn't deliver it at all. Which goes against the very being of the post office. Upon calling the postmaster would not answer the phone. I finally got ahold of the route manager who sent down a carrier we had built a friendship with, who explained it was going to get worse before it got better. I have been working on my patience. It has some what leveled out but it has never gone back to the respected position once held. Cutting the carriers is not the answer for the postal service. Eliminating the expensive sorting machines is the answer, that is where it all went wrong. As a business who sends out lots of mail I have spent a good amount in putting stop pays on checks that never make it to there distination or back to me. And I love the ones that come in a baggy torn in half, or same address different state. The topper is the one you send out that comes back to you because of the glare on the windowed envelope causes the machine to read the top address. Come on people in charge give the carriers a break.

Big deal...

I don't care. Thanks for delivering my mail though.

devinbrocs...exactly.

They erased my message because I critiqued their writing ability, and misuse of proper grammar!!!!

Steve, I really don't want to pay .50 for a stamp. I bank at US and I can get a book of stamps from the ATM any day or night of the week.

Just some food for thought . . .

In the early 1800s, Lysander Spooner challenged the efficiency and pricing of the USPS by starting his own mail delivery service, the American Letter Mail Company. As a result, the USPS was forced to drive down their prices drastically in an attempt to put the other carriers out of business, and the postal service finally succeeded in having a law passed in the 1850s to protect its monopoly on private mail delivery. The results of those years of competition, however, were undeniably lower prices. (The Pony Express, if I’m not mistaken, was essentially a government contractor.)

In the late 1970’s, the USPS, under pressure, “voluntarily” decided to exempt “extremely urgent letters” from its monopoly. Since then, it has been estimated that private companies, such as Federal Express (which is not “federal,” by the way – anymore than the Federal Reserve is “federal”) have usurped up to 90% of overnight deliveries.

Government agencies and services are, by their very nature, monopolistic. Not only that, they are funded (subsidized) with government (taxpayers’) money. They do not encourage or require efficiency, nor are they forced to comply with the demands of consumers – because consumers have no other choice. (Anyone been to the DMV lately?)

None of this is intended to detract from the hard-working carriers mentioned by an earlier poster (Steve-O). These individuals provide an invaluable service. It is a service, however, which could, in my opinion (and that of prize-winning economists), be provided more efficiently (cheaply) by a competitive market . . . a market whose participants would have to compete for employees (carriers) AND customers (consumers), benefiting both.

Just something to think about next time you’re in line behind 20 or 30 people! ;)

Choose Liberty: As a postal employee you are wrong saying that we are subsidized by the government by taxpayers money. We are not.

The problem is: Years ago we were always a non-profit agency and broke even. In the past few years the government has put the civil service retirement obligation (which no longer exists with people hired after 1986)on the backs of the P.O. forcing them to have to escrow tons of money. The headquarter higher ups are the ones turning a non profit agency into a profit making business without any business sense. They are making the craft people do more with less and it ends up ruining the service that we have always given the customer. Mail is very late due to no staffing to process or deliver it. The workers are the true meat of the service and the management fat needs to be cut, not the meat.

Yes, they are a monopoly-but don't think for a second that if someone else started a mailing business that they could do it cheaper than USPS. USPS has made many blunders in the past like giving away the parcel service to UPS because they only wanted to deal with letter mail thinking that would last forever, now they want the parcel service back and it's too late. They are spending tons of $ on expensive machinery to process parcels without having the volume. Same goes with magazines and catalogs which in turn drives up the cost of postage and forces the smaller catalog company to close or take their wares on line. It will only get worse with the economy and the price of gas and the job cuts the Postal Service is making with the craft workers.

The carriers have it tough, same as the processors that are short staffed having to run the machinery at night to get the mail to the carriers in the morning. They have cut their staffing down so poorly (and are doing more cuts every day) which is ruining the service. Are you aware that the Postmaster General and 11 of his buddies got a 39% raise last year while the craft workers got 1%?

We are not overpaid as many claim we are--our competitors earn more--try to get a minimum wage earner to do the the same job as the USPS craft workers do and watch your mail be stolen constantly, or hardly ever delivered. If you think someone else would go out in the elements and put up with what most of the USPS craft workers have to put up with daily your sadly mistaken. So many people in the U.S. have gone generation to generation collecting welfare and living off the government they don't want to work because they can make more on welfare. But remember you could have illegal immigrants delivering your mail, but can they speak english??

I think the USPS does an outstanding job, and if they see the need for reductions, so be it.

Happens in every business that wants to remain viable.

Priority Mail rocks, and I'm more impressed with the USPS now that ever.

chooseliberty,

thanks for a fair and balanced post. Consider a deregulated Post Office. The high mail volume routes would be popular with potential bidders while the folks living in the boonies (who now receive each piece of mail every day that they have mail w/USPS) would be lucky to receive first class service. UPS already restricts their delivery days to isolated areas, there's no reason to think a deregulated Post Office wouldn't do the same.

It is true that their is waste that should be fixed before they cut any jobs, If I mail a letter to my neighbor, it goes to Kansas City before it gets to him, that's a waste of fuel, AND labor. They NEED to fix that right NOW, but I still think the Carriers have a HARD job that they ( Most of them ) do well !
Steve-O

It is sad when a city the size of St. Joseph has a postal service that is shrinking. Yes I understand that volume of mail has dropped. Over the last three years, I have almost stopped using stamps since I e-mail, and pay bills on-line. I do not even subscribe to a news paper any longer since I can read numerous newspapers on-line.

I have noticed my mail coming at all hours during the day, and no longer have the same mail carrier.

Post Office employment has been a good stable job with benefits, sad to see these once stable jobs go the way of most good jobs these days.

Beginning to wonder how this city is going to survive with people earning low wages, no benefits, and the population growing poorer by the day.

This is a really long reply, so I apologize if it annoys anyone! ;) I would like to make it clear from the get-go, however, that I am not advocating “overthrowing” or “shutting down” the United States Postal Service. This is purely theoretical. As I’ve said before, I merely value the importance of evaluating an issue from all sides. I usually take the laissez-faire approach to economic issues.

First, it is important to note that the USPS is an “independent establishment of the executive branch of the Government of the United States.” It is not a traditional “company.”

Crazykathyp: I understand why you would believe me to be wrong about the Postal Service being subsidized; perhaps I am. They do, indeed, claim to receive no direct taxpayer subsidies; but researching their financial statements suggests otherwise, even if it’s just a matter of semantics. Please allow me to share some research on the subject . . . I apologize for the inevitable lengthiness of the quotes (for the sake of fairness and clarity.)

First, after the Postal Reorganization Act of 1971, the reorganized USPS received almost $2 billion in startup capital. From the USPS website: “The equity that the U.S. government held in the former Post Office Department became our initial capital. We valued the assets of the former Post Office Department at original cost less accumulated depreciation. The initial transfer of assets, including property, equipment and cash, totaled $1.7 billion. Subsequent cash contributions and transfers of assets between 1972 and 1982 totaled approximately $1.3 billion, resulting in total government contributions of $3.034 billion.” [http://www.usps.com/history/anrpt07/fstatements_006.htm]

To be continued . . .

(Continued)

The USPS also continues to get “appropriations” from Congress for certain expenses. For example: “Emergency preparedness appropriations are funds we received from the federal government to help pay the costs of keeping the mail, postal employees and postal customers safe and are restricted for such use. . . The emergency preparedness appropriations revenue recognized during the years ended September 30 were $76 million in 2007, $85 million in 2006, and $45 million in 2005. Appropriations that have not been recognized as revenue during the years ended September 30 were $611 million in 2007, $687 million in 2006 and $772 million in 2005.” [http://www.usps.com/history/anrpt07/fstatements_007.htm]

Further, in its financial history summary, it lists “Capital contributions of the U.S. Government” at $3,034,000,000 for all years 2003-2007. [http://www.usps.com/history/anrpt07/summary.htm]

Also, correct me if I’m wrong, but as a government agency, I don’t believe the Postal Service has to pay any kind of taxes.

The important thing to note here is that even with all these advantages – especially the startup capital – the USPS has lost (reportedly) 90% of its overnight business since allowing competition in that area less than 30 years ago. Surely this speaks volumes about the ability of private businesses to provide equal (if not superior) services when allowed to participate in the market. Government agencies are, by design, inefficient – simply because only unsubsidized competition can force companies to allocate resources wisely.

It is also important to note that release of the monopoly, or even privatization, needn’t eliminate the USPS altogether. On the contrary, it would be very difficult for other businesses to begin to gain ground in standard mail delivery service, especially considering that the post office usually does a very satisfactory job. But that doesn’t mean that it shouldn’t be considered or allowed – especially if it better serves the consumer, i.e. the American taxpayer. If there were other companies which delivered the mail, and the Postal Service was not actually part of the government, it could not *afford* to neglect its carriers’ paychecks and cut staffing to the point that it negatively affected delivery, as crazykathyp describes. It would lose workers, and it would lose business. Mail carriers and postal workers are highly trained individuals; in an open market, their skills would be in demand.

Again, just food for thought. I obviously don’t expect the powers that be to be asking for my opinion anytime soon! ;)

It has been brought up before to drop Saturday deliveries. That seems reasonable. Most businesses aren't open on Saturday anyway to recieve their mail. Personal mail could likely wait till Monday. Most of it is junk anyway. Wonder how much it would save to drop one day of service off?