U.S Post Office is Defaulting

U.S Post Office is Defaulting

news.yahoo.com

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. Postal Service posted a net loss of $3.1 billion in its third quarter and warned again it would default on payments to the federal government if Congress did not step in.
Total mail volume for the quarter that ended June 30 fell to 39.8 billion pieces, a 2.6 percent drop from the same period a year earlier, as consumers turn to email and pay bills online.
The mail carrier, which does not get taxpayer funds, has struggled to overhaul its business as mail volumes fall. It has said personnel costs weigh heavily and is facing a massive retiree health benefit prepa

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wow, what a week. As an american I enjoy receiving mail on the weekends, but I really doubt if this will continue in the near future. I am surprised how much lack of care the Post office is getting from the government. interesting enough, no one is helping.I am very unsure now what will happen, and only time will tell if we are in trouble

news.yahoo.com
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reply to post by Jordan River


Well HELL! There goes THAT job application.

And on to the next business.

reply to post by TDawgRex


The Royal Mail in England have strikes every other week and what not. How can you not pay a man enough to ride round in the morning on a bicycle posting mail?

A lot of people do it for free. Bloody hussies!

reply to post by VraxUK


It sounds a lot easier than it actually is, trust me

Well...it makes sense when you look at, Congress has mandated the U.S. Postal Services spend 9 Billion per year in pensions. Doesn't leave much left over for profit does it.

I've got some links somewhere I'll find and post...

ETA: For my new business, I order a lot of product that I choose USPS as the carrier to save money...I've found in the past few months, when tracking shipments, the postal services is using Fedex or UPS for part of the leg in shipping. Why...because it's CHEAPER for them to do so.

Des

I've been waiting for this... even my cellphone and car insurance company gives me discounts to receive my bills thru e-mail, which I pay over the phone and over the internet.

I use the U.S. Mail about 3 or 4 times per year, and only buy stamps as I need them.

The US Post Office lost Billions when they bought those Xray machines to scan the mail at post offices.


After they did that....they lost Billions in revenue....but have to fork out lots of money to maintain those Xray machines.

Plus with the military cut to nothing....they had to expect severe cuts in mail cross country.

The big ban on Christmas by Corporations....well that cut US Post Office revenue as everyone lost the Christmas spirit.

Maybe Corporations wanted the US Post Office to collapse so they could run it...like they did to Japan.

The old European/German generation is out the door and the cheap Latino is now the majority in America....

The US Post Office will be no more.

I have a question for anybody. With the changes in the internet "collecting more personal information from people who buy and sell on the internet" Is it possible that people will go back to using the USPS just for privacy issues?

for those who buy and sell on eBay they have to use the post office to ship items as a lot of people object to using couriers it can get pricey, especially for shipping over a international border.

I would think that once Junk Mail stops or vastly slows down, the USPO will be a dead-duck.

Even the IRS has implemented E-Filing for income taxes, P/R taxes, and any other tax that they have. Same at the state and local level. They would rather ACH your account, than process (deposit) and post your payment.

It's so sad. Lately I see them misplacing or losing my mail trays (I do lots of bulk mailings to properties). I have written, signed confirmation that they received my tray(s) and yet they will look me in the eye and simply say that I did not deliver the trays to them - despite my written signed document showing when they got it. Thier position is that "if I had brought them my mail it would have been delivered".

It is futile to argue. I would rather argue with the wall. At least I can punch or kick the wall and it won't get me in trouble or argue back.

How can anyone win or even run a business with that kind of losing mentality? No wonder they are going down.

All of this leads to this big question: Will the government bail them out too? (I hope not!)

My last big question: Where is my bailout? I'm still waiting?

-E2

Let the USPS fold and allow the private sector take over the mailing issue. People pay bills online, mostly, anyway... or they deliver the bills themselves (i.e. rent, phone bill), so really the USPS is mainly used for junk mail anyway. Let FedEx and UPS take this one. It is for the best, as the Free Market always is.

The U.S. Postal Service isn't hiring anyway, but you wouldn't get benefits if they were.

They stopped hiring full-permanent employees back in 2003, although it was required they keep a one-third "permanent" employee base.

I was hired and trained on a "temporary" basis (360 day terms w/no benefits) as a Data Conversion Operator @ a Remote Encoding Center in Bowling Green, KY for about 2.5 years. We transcribed unreadable (by Optical Character Recognition machines) mail into machine readable bar code so it could be delivered instead of rejected and sent back. 'N yeah, Christmas was fun...lol.

They were always closing other sites and giving us more city's responsibilities. We did the mail for most of the south-east until Indianapolis took over all operations, just as we took others. And that was back in 2002-2003.

Incidentally, while I was there, they kept telling new temps that the U.S. Postal Service was NOT affiliated with the federal government "in any way". Like the federal reserve, it's a privately owned business.

There were 302 of us on "the floor" typing away all day (some ladies could type over 200 w.p.m.). Two-thirds of which was $11.57/hr + shift differentials (about $12.75/hr), and 1/3 permanent. They never told us how much the perms made.

But of course, I can only remark on the Remote Encoding aspect. I'm sure they still have plenty of families to care for, and are probably still hiring carriers and sorters n stuff.

reply to post by crappiekat


I wouldn't. My bank account is drained on payday anyway, paying the bills by phone or internet that are due before next payday, so there's no money in my checking account anyway within 3 days. My savings account, if I have money left over is nowhere on the internet (balance is a whole $3 right now). I use cash only basis-no credit card balances, so no credit card #'s out there to steal.

So, I have no need for the post office unless I'm mailing original signed documents or shipping something I sold on ebay. Shipping is still cheaper through the post office than thru UPS

reply to post by tinker9917

Well I was thinking this. If I wanted to purchase something from a business in texas, instead of giving my personal information on the internet " checking account numbers, credit card info" I would instead contact the business by phone and then send my order through the USPS. Some businesses won't do business with you unless you give them credit card info. I just don't do business with them. I have read some news articles that google, yahoo etc... keep track of what you purchase in order to advertise to you goods they think you would be interested in. It just makes me nervous that my personal info could get into the wrong hands by hacking websites. Maybe I'm just parinoid.

Originally posted by iforget
reply to post by VraxUK

 

It sounds a lot easier than it actually is, trust me

No it isn't, trust me. I have seen some of the idiots they have doing this job.

Originally posted by Modern Americana
Let the USPS fold and allow the private sector take over the mailing issue. People pay bills online, mostly, anyway... or they deliver the bills themselves (i.e. rent, phone bill), so really the USPS is mainly used for junk mail anyway. Let FedEx and UPS take this one. It is for the best, as the Free Market always is.

The post office is technically a private company. That's why they didn't get bailed out. They will be part of the government if they get bailed tho... as the auto industry saw. USPS does do a lot of junk mail. It also does certified letters, packages, registered mail, insured mail, express mail etc etc.

Originally posted by Destinyone
Well...it makes sense when you look at, Congress has mandated the U.S. Postal Services spend 9 Billion per year in pensions. Doesn't leave much left over for profit does it.

I've got some links somewhere I'll find and post...

ETA: For my new business, I order a lot of product that I choose USPS as the carrier to save money...I've found in the past few months, when tracking shipments, the postal services is using Fedex or UPS for part of the leg in shipping. Why...because it's CHEAPER for them to do so.

Des

edit on 6-8-2011 by Destinyone because: (no reason given)

It's more expensive if you ship through UPS. You are paying for them to ship it to the USPS to deliver it. The reason they use them to ship part of the leg is because they signed a contract together to help each other out.

Originally posted by sonofliberty1776

Originally posted by iforget
reply to post by VraxUK

 

It sounds a lot easier than it actually is, trust me

No it isn't, trust me. I have seen some of the idiots they have doing this job.

Yes it is. Trust me. I'm a mailman.
There are idiots in every profession.

This does not sound good. It sounds like the government does not care about the post office and how impotent it is. It also sounds like because of the internet, the post office is starting to run out of business.