The Insanity of the United States Postal Service

Quote: Gandler

https://www.congress.gov/bill/117th-congress/house-bill/3076

So they are trying to fix part of the retirement situation, that I havd been warning about. If this passes and USPS becomes profitable again (even with being forced to keep money losing routes), the right will have nothing that they can say.

Personally, I mailed something overnight through USPS on Tuesday, by Wednsdsy afternoon it arrived in Philadephia and they even emailed the signature receipt from the agency. Its pretty impressive (especially because they warned be that it was not going to be delivered for two days, for it was a day early). I have never had a bad experience with USPS, if anything, I am usually impressed.

Quote: DRich

The USPS impresses me that they can deliver a letter across country for $0.54 and I wouldn't even walk it to my next door neighbor for that.

Quote: Gandler

Exactly and often in just two days.

And, their overnight delivery is half of UPS and FedEx. (And, they are the only ones who can overnight to PO boxes).

Their rates are great.

Quote: DRich

The USPS impresses me that they can deliver a letter across country for $0.54 and I wouldn't even walk it to my next door neighbor for that.

Quote: kenarman

Their rates probably should be free since it loses $9 billion per year. That works out to costing about $25 for every man, women and child in the US.

Quote: Gandler

Except they are not taxpayer funded. Also, the new bill will allow them to turn a profit (no longer require absurd prepayment of benifits).

Quote: kenarman

The only reason they aren't broke is a $10 billion 'loan' from the government. It only semantics to say they aren't government funded.

Quote: Gandler

Not true, the only reason they lose money is the prepayment of benefits for 50 years.

Nobody seems to realize how absurd of a requirement this is.

Getting rid of this requirement alone would make them profitable.

This is one of the great features of the new postal bill (if it passes). Once the post office become profitable, has more features, and charges half the prices of private competition, nobody can bash it.

They are not government funded, in fact they are specifically designed to be self supporting (and have been profitable the vast majority of years of existence until this benefit requirement came to be).

Quote: rxwine

How will the removal affect attracting the necessary employment?

Quote: Gandler

I don't think it will negatively impact them.

No other government agency does this (forget private sector). So it's not like some key facet to employment stability.

It's just an artificial requirement that serves no purpose, even proponents of it can't really seem to explain why it came to be.

https://ips-dc.org/how-congress-manufactured-a-postal-crisis-and-how-to-fix-it/