Losing my town

[quaddriver]

Twice.

In 1974 the town where my house is ceased to exist, according to the govt - when they closed the post office and gave us all addresses for the next town over.

Today the USPS released a list of 3700PO's and once again, I am on it. I assume I will get an address for a town many miles away.

They state as reasons that most people prefer to do postal business online. OR travel to some kiosk.

Really? I am one of a handful of people here who pay/paid big bucks to have cable internet brought in from far away.

We have no cell coverage so smart phones do not come into play.

Most, if not nearly all of my neighbors are gadget unsavvy blue collar workers who place value on having the flag on the pole mounted mailbox and knowing your mail carrier personally.

Perhaps I need Andrew to write a rant on how they discriminate against those who choose to have wooded land far away from urban blight. On those who choose to be mostly, if not fully self reliant (all my true neccessities are 'home grown' - I chose to have electric and cable/phone)

If the US needs to get out of the mail business - then get out of the mail business. Not engage in it half assed. (and the reality is, with the content delivery possible in urban areas and proximity to business, urban areas dont need postal service. Rural does.)

[Long Run]

You could write a letter of complaint, but given the state of things, it might not get there.

[Gob]

Similar situation in the UK, with postal services being hit hard. The village post office, like the village shop and pub, were all once the heart of the community. Inevitable I suppose that Post offices go. Most village shops have gone, and pubs are on their way out too.

[The Hen]

If most people do not visit their local post office, then of course it will close.

I visit mine at least once a fortnight. I try and proactively keep these services going.

Some people don't get that until the service no longer exists.

[Sean]

Similar situation in the UK, with postal services being hit hard. The village post office, like the village shop and pub, were all once the heart of the community. Inevitable I suppose that Post offices go. Most village shops have gone, and pubs are on their way out too.

Often enough the post office was also the village shop and pub...

[Aard Vark]

The Post office in Forest Hill is also a restarunt that has a top cheff and fantastic food.
They sell lots of small tacky stuff but some good art and craft by locals. Sadly no room for kilts but that might change as now our bucher wears one .. Yes we have a local butcher.

Suport your local shop and they will stay open. There is a campain on here that says "Together we shop together we prosper" After the floods it is the best way to rebuild may be that is what you need to do to save your PO?

[The Hen]

Yay for your Local!

[loCAtek]

...supported by taxes.

If you're poor, you don't pay'em and lose a PO in the process.

[Joe Guy]

Most, if not nearly all of my neighbors are gadget unsavvy blue collar workers who place value on having the flag on the pole mounted mailbox and knowing your mail carrier personally.

It sounds like you live in Mayberry RFD.

You're a lucky person.

I wouldn't complain if I were you.

[Long Run]

Being an constant optimist, I bought postage stamps recently, in the firm belief that I would be able to use them despite the threat of postal shut down. What is the future of the USPS? The volume of mail continues to drop. Worse, much of the formally highly profitable mail continues to go away as electronic mail and other delivery sources become better. Similarly, catalogs and other advertising mail are off as companies find other ways to sell their wares. These types of mail historically subsidized the unprofitable rural mail and weekend deliveries, which is why so many offices have closed.

Will it move toward a private model, with some subsidy from the govt. to ensure reasonable rural delivery? Or will things just get tinkered with, band-aid style (close offices, inevitable layoffs, rate hikes, service reductions), as in the past? Other ideas on how it can continue to serve without being an albatross on the taxpayers?

[quaddriver]

I oft wonder if the post office is to be for profit. As an example I use amtrack. I recently read something from one of the draftees of the legislation that created amtrack - it was to be run as "if it were" a for profit business, but it did not have to make profit (indeed as we look back we note that the social changes in the US made passenger rail travel a losing proposition and the decline is carefully graphed) - yet people look at the budget outlays each year and clamor for black ink.

was the post office ever created the same?

If we have decided that intercity rail is a govt item (like in other countries where it runs deep red every year, paid for by high tax rates) and that mail delivery is a govt item (like in other countries where it runs deep red every year) then perhaps we would do better to hush up. eliminating mail carriers or silver red and blue trains will have no effect on the US' bottom line.

I maintain, the largest albatross on the taxpayers is the near $2T social program bill.

[Crackpot]

about 20 years ago the postal service crossed the threshold of price vs. percived value and eince then with every sucessive rate hike they've just driven more and more people away from their services.

At this point I don't think you can turn the ship around.

[Miles]

You all do realize that the USPS is not run by the government don't you. It is a seperate entity that ralies entirely on monies collected for postal charges. Taxes have nothing to do with it.

[Long Run]

Miles, that is my question -- can that continue. Before the 1980s, USPS was subsidized by taxpayer dollars. USPS is supposed to operate on its own merits. It is given a monopoly on many types of mail delivery and has to provide certain services as mandated by Congress, but is intended to not need direct tax subsidies (by not paying corporate taxes, excise taxes, property taxes, etc. you can argue it receives indirect subsidies). It may not be funded by taxpayers directly, but its obligations are certainly backed up by the federal government, and it is a governmental entity for most purposes. How can it continue its mission, without direct subsidies or without major changes in the way it does business?

[rubato]

By law, postal rates are always lagging behind increases in expenses. Not a sensible way to maintain revenues to meet costs.

They should allow the USPS to increase rates prospectively .

yrs,
rubato

[rubato]

But overall, it will have to change and evolve just as every other human institution does.

In the era when population was growing nearly everywhere and the volume of mail was increasing we came to assume that the natural order of things was for service to expand, more POs to be built, more letter carriers hired &c. It was a self-inflicted illusion. The natural order of things is for the number of offices, letter boxes, routes, and carriers to be scaled with the level of business. As 'hard copy' mail is used less and less it will have to contract, and it may increase costs as economies of scale are reduced.

The USPS has been a huge success, the best in the world at what they do, by far. But as the world changes they will have to as well.

yrs,
rubato

[Miles]

I do agree that the postal service is going through a rough time. I am on the longest route in town and we have no regular carrier. Several carriers retired recently and were not replaced due to the intention of the postal service to reduce deliveries to 5 days per week. Now we sometimes don't get our mail until well after 5 pm. Not that it matters all that much but it makes one wonder just how far this trend will go.

[loCAtek]

HIya Miles, good to see you're rising above the floods


USPS is trying to get laws changed to save itself;

US Postal Service seeks reprieve from Congress to avert 'default'

Congress must act by Sept. 30 or the US Postal Service, running out of funds, will default on a $5.5 billion payment for retiree health benefits, US Postmaster General Patrick Donahue said Tuesday.

By Husna Haq, Correspondent / September 6, 2011

In a Senate hearing that once again rang an alarm bell on the dire straits the US Postal Service is in, US Postmaster General Patrick Donahoe said the institution is on “the brink of default.” He also told Congress that without legislation by Sept. 30, the Postal Service would default on a mandated $5.5 billion retiree health benefit payment due this month.

Mr. Donahoe told Congress that unless lawmakers enact emergency measures, the Postal Service (USPS) could shut down entirely this winter and completely run out of money to pay salaries and contractors by August or September of next year.

“We are at a critical juncture,” Donahoe said Tuesday afternoon in testimony prepared for a hearing before the Senate’s Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs. “Action from Congress is sorely needed by the close of this fiscal year.”

He urged Congress to approve measures that would loosen regulations by which the Postal Service must currently abide, and allow it to operate more like a business.

“The Postal Service requires radical changes to its business model if it is to remain viable in the future,” Donahoe told Sen. Joseph Lieberman (I) of Connecticut, chairman of the committee. “The Postal Service is in a crisis today because it operates with a restrictive business model…. [Its survival rests on its] ability to operate more as a business does.”

Donahoe reiterated a list of cost-cutting measures he has been proposing in recent months to erase the agency’s deficit, which could reach up to $10 billion this fiscal year. They include eliminating Saturday mail delivery, closing as many as 3,700 postal locations, and laying off 120,000 workers – nearly one-fifth of the agency’s work force. (This doesn’t include another 100,000 jobs lost to attrition that the agency does not plan to replace, for a total of 220,000 lost positions.)

The Postal Service will handle an estimated 167 billion pieces of mail this fiscal year, down 22 percent from 2006. E-mail communication, electronic bill payments, and the economic downturn have taken a toll on the USPS, which is facing its second straight year of losses of more than $8 billion.

The Postal Service is also hampered by high personnel costs and contractual promises made to unionized workers, including a no-layoff clause and the prefunding of retiree health benefits. In fact, wages and benefits for its 571,566 full-time employees account for 80 percent of the Postal Service's operating budget, compared with 53 percent of UPS's and 32 percent of FedEx’s, two of its biggest private competitors.

The Postal Service is asking Congress to allow it to break union contracts to lay off workers and to loosen a requirement to prefund future retirees’ health-benefit costs.

[Gob]

Several carriers retired recently and were not replaced due to the intention of the postal service to reduce deliveries to 5 days per week.

We've been on a 5 day delivery service as long as I can remember.

Now we sometimes don't get our mail until well after 5 pm. Not that it matters all that much but it makes one wonder just how far this trend will go.

I can see it going down to a central collection point where you turn up in person to collect your mail, either over the counter or from a postal box.

We have nearly all bills coming by e-mail as it is, if it wasn't for my addiction to buying DVDs from Amazon UK we'd get virtually nothing.

[BoSoxGal]

I feel badly for having contributed to the demise of the USPS, primarily by paying bills online (you just cannot beat the convenience of same-day credit for payments made electronically) and by having my address removed from junk mail lists, due to which fact there are several days in a week when I receive nothing in the postal mail, as I've also got all my student loan and other accounts set to paperless ebilling.

About the only thing I receive by mail are a few magazines and Netflix dvds. Recently I've tried to make amends by sending more snail mail to friends/relatives 'just because', as I think getting 'real' mail is so rare for all of us these days, it's a real treat to get an actual letter/card in the mail.

I can't fathom how anyone can think that spending 47 cents to have someone pick something up at your house and deliver it to a house 2500 miles away within 2-7 days is anything but an incredible bargain. I have never understood the protests over postal rate increases.

I do think we could live without Saturday delivery, at very least. I think it will be terrible if the USPS goes out of business.