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If you think about the USPS as an independent corporation, it would be crazy to think about these results: a government approved monopoly, massive tax-shields

If you think about the USPS as an independent corporation, it would be crazy to think about these results: a government approved monopoly, massive tax-shields (no business income tax, no property tax on post offices). Then, you contrast that with their one big weakness - they can't set their own prices. Congress sets the postage rates. Talk about an incredibly inefficient way to run a business - seems a great counterpoint to anyone who thinks government should be more involved with business. Here's a quick and drastic solution to the USPS problem. 1) Give them the ability to set their own prices. They have competition in the form of UPS and FedEx for large packages delivered to your door. Chances are those prices wouldn't change. The rate for a stamp would potentially double. Is that a bad thing? Seriously, what percentage of the stuff you get in the mail is actually useful? 10%? 5%? Yes, there are some businesses who depend on cheap mail, but in effect the US taxpayer is subsidizing their business then. It's no different than the US bailing out the car companies in that regard. This price increase would probably decrease mail volume considerably. 2) Reduce delivery to 3 days a week. Would anyone complain about this? How many people even check their mail every single day without fail? Again, this may hurt mail-based businesses, but they are already existing in an artificial business environment skewed by government subsidies. Going from 6 days to 3 wouldn't cut costs 50%, but I think 20-25% cut in costs is reasonable to expect, considering the volume decrease. These two things would quickly make the USPS profitable. As everyone here has pointed out, it's not 1980 any more. There's better way to transmit information from one person to another.

madaxe 16y ago
Very well put - and it'd have the additional bonus of increasing interest in non-physical informational transit (i.e. the internet) for urgent documents (and perhaps even help instantiate a shift away from things such as paper contracts), further aiding growth in the tech sector. The future of the postal industry lies in the transit of physical goods - if they want to survive, they need to become very efficient at moving parcels and packages, and forget about the fiddly business of letters and bulk mail.
baddox 16y ago
I don't think the junk mail that takes up the majority of your inbox costs the price of a stamp to send. Surely bulk mail like that is much, much cheaper.
duncanbojangles 16y ago
"2) Reduce delivery to 3 days a week. Would anyone complain about this? How many people even check their mail every single day without fail?" I check the mail every day, religiously. Going to the mail box, waiting for the street to be clear of traffic, peering in, and returning with the mail brings me immense satisfaction. All this, even though I very rarely get mail addressed to me. I wouldn't complain, I understand the need for cuts, but the loss of my routine would sadden me greatly.
- jonhendry 16y ago
  Just pretend you're still getting mail delivered every day.
jacoblyles 16y ago
I'm surprised there is still so much agreement that we need a public monopoly postal service. The creation of FedEx and UPS to compete with the USPS in package delivery was the best thing to ever happen to package delivery.
Judson 16y ago
I think you missed one of the more obvious ways to fix the problem. Allow them to set their own rates, and allow other companies access (Permits, Licenses, whatever) to put letters in your mailbox. The USPS has no incentive to figure out how to deliver mail better when it is the only game in town.
- ahi 16y ago
  The USPS has managed to improve service while dealing with a postage rate increasing less than the rate of inflation.
  - Judson 16y ago
    I'm sure its all relative, but if you are talking about customer service, my local USPS always has a line of 30 people waiting to pick up a package that the driver was too lazy to bring to the door (Sometimes they come to the door, sometimes they don't). The counter is also staffed by 1 or two people - out of an available 5 - and there is typically a manager standing idly with his hands in his pockets. If you are talking about improving service, as in the actual shipping service, you must be talking about their achievement of going from "losing a lot of packages", to "losing less than they used to". I've never understood it. I have NEVER lost a UPS or Fedex package. Yet, it is routine for a USPS package to just go "missing", just ask any big ebay seller. Its also interesting that you assume prices must always go up to match inflation. If USPS was innovating in the right areas, they could drive down costs and deliver more efficiently. Also, I just suggested the US government allow other approved companies the ability to put things in your mailbox without going to jail. Never said anything about their service.
philwelch 16y ago
Reduce delivery to 3 days a week. Would anyone complain about this? Netflix addicts. I might only receive a Netflix 2-3 days a week, but making sure those days line up with 3 days of delivery per week would drop throughput to maybe once a week. Netflix is seriously the only killer app left for the mail system. Everything else I get is either spam or bad news--before Netflix I only checked once a week.
commandar 16y ago
It's not just operational inefficiencies that are slowly strangling the USPS. There are also factors like Congress' bizarre mandate that the USPS fully prefund their retirement and health benefits programs[1], which is something not required of any other federal entity nor something done by private enterprises. That's a huge portion of the USPS's revenue stream poorly tied up. [1] http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/06/24/AR2010062405902.html http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/06...
- grandalf 16y ago
  Why is that bizarre? It sounds like a very practical way to avoid the sorts of issues that have befallen so many other pension plans. It most certainly should be done by public and private orgs, since we can't trust the mechanisms intended to free the cash b/c they are corrupt (this is one reason GM was bailed out... it looks better than everyone realizing the PBGC was bankrupted by one firm's demise).
  - commandar 16y ago
    >The American Postal Workers' Union says this is a "phony crisis" caused by the Postal Accountability and Enhancement Act, which requires the Postal Service to pre-fund retiree health care costs. >No other government agency - or private business - bears this kind of burden. >As a result of the pre-funding mandate the USPS begins every fiscal year more than $5 billion in debt. In fact, the act requires the USPS to pre-fund 75 years' worth of retiree health care costs in just 10 years. >If the pre-funding requirement weren't in place the Postal Service would actually have a $3.7 billion surplus - over $1 billion each year for the past three fiscal years - despite declining mail volume due to increased use of electronic mail and an economy in crisis. http://www.peoplesworld.org/deficit-hawks-take-aim-at-postal-service/ http://www.peoplesworld.org/deficit-hawks-take-aim-at-postal... Emphasis mine. It's just a generally insane burden that's not getting enough attention.
    - grandalf 16y ago
      The act also removed $27B of pension obligations from the postal service's books, and used this and other benefits to smooth the transition away from a "pay-go" pension program. Pay as you go retirement programs are fraudulent because if the firm fails the retirees get nothing. I don't have a problem with the postal service being in debt or unprofitable, I just don't think the service is needed, and it's troubling to me that there are laws preventing other firms from offering letter delivery services that compete with the USPS.
rwl 16y ago
"If you think about the USPS as an independent corporation, it would be crazy to think about these results..." I agree. But why should we think of it that way? The Postal Service was originally conceived as an essential piece of national infrastructure. Why should we think of it as an "independent" entity that needs to turn a profit? Does the highway system turn a profit? How about the Federal Reserve, or the National Institutes of Health? What's important is that the USPS continue to have enough funding to provide its service in an accessible, timely, and reliable manner. That is what makes it a critical piece of infrastructure. Like it or not, it is still essential to be able to communicate with hard copies. (Why? For one thing, we don't, as citizens, all have an official electronic mail box. Physical mail also bears information about its transport -- where it went, whether anyone else read it along the way, whether it was delivered and read -- in a way that most electronic communication doesn't. We don't have a unified way of finding out how to communicate with someone online, and the means we do have are all owned by private corporations that cannot be relied on to provide that information in perpetuity. And so on.) I agree that, for many things, there are ways to communicate that have advantages the Postal Service doesn't offer. But I cannot imagine having to sacrifice what makes that service valuable in the name of making it profitable, or always having to rely on alternative services, especially for critical or official communication. We're going to need a public post office for some time yet. And as communication continues to move online, the need for a reliable, public system for delivering that communication will grow even further.
- gojomo 16y ago
  For one thing, we don't, as citizens, all have an official electronic mail box. A $8.5 billion subsidy to cover this last year's losses could have bought 20 million Americans iPads/netbooks. If we're going to subsidize universal service, let's do it in a modern fashion. And let's focus on those people and regions that would get left out otherwise. There's no need to federalize things everywhere -- including in cities where competing alternatives would be eager to operate -- to cover a few edge cases for poor and rural delivery.
  - rwl 16y ago
    A $8.5 billion subsidy to cover this last year's losses could have bought 20 million Americans iPads/netbooks. What, exactly, would that achieve? Not the same function that the USPS does. Sure, 20 million more people would have a device, but they wouldn't have a "U.S. Email address" in the same way that they have a "U.S. Mail address". They would just have a way to use someone else's privately-owned infrastructure. Who knows how long that would last, or how reliable it would be? If we're going to subsidize universal service, let's do it in a modern fashion. I agree. But that means what we should be doing is building public infrastructure for new forms of communication, not farming it out to private infrastructure (which decides whether or not to deliver mail, first and foremost, on the basis of whether it is profitable) in order to save a buck. Let's have a national electronic service that: - provides an "address" [1] to every citizen, with a directory that allows people to find each other - provides guaranteed, reliable, on-time delivery at minimal cost to the sender - guarantees secure communications - provides a channel for official communications, from voting to tax forms to jury duty summons [1] I'm not sure if "address" is the right metaphor or not. Certainly, a mere "government email address" wouldn't be sufficient. The basic point is that every individual citizen ought to have some sort of secure repository where they can receive communications of all kinds: email, documents, whatever. And it should be at least as easy to access this repository as it is to walk out your door to your mailbox. That means that, if people need a computer and Internet connection to access it, they must be provided with one; their hardware, software, and network connection must work at least as reliably as mail delivery does.
webgambit 16y ago
> 2) Reduce delivery to 3 days a week. Would anyone complain about this? How many people even check their mail every single day without fail? If my own sphere of influence, I only know 1 person who _doesn't_ check their mail daily.

madaxe 16y ago

Very well put - and it'd have the additional bonus of increasing interest in non-physical informational transit (i.e. the internet) for urgent documents (and perhaps even help instantiate a shift away from things such as paper contracts), further aiding growth in the tech sector. The future of the postal industry lies in the transit of physical goods - if they want to survive, they need to become very efficient at moving parcels and packages, and forget about the fiddly business of letters and bulk mail.

baddox 16y ago

I don't think the junk mail that takes up the majority of your inbox costs the price of a stamp to send. Surely bulk mail like that is much, much cheaper.

duncanbojangles 16y ago

"2) Reduce delivery to 3 days a week. Would anyone complain about this? How many people even check their mail every single day without fail?" I check the mail every day, religiously. Going to the mail box, waiting for the street to be clear of traffic, peering in, and returning with the mail brings me immense satisfaction. All this, even though I very rarely get mail addressed to me. I wouldn't complain, I understand the need for cuts, but the loss of my routine would sadden me greatly.

jonhendry 16y ago
Just pretend you're still getting mail delivered every day.

jacoblyles 16y ago

I'm surprised there is still so much agreement that we need a public monopoly postal service. The creation of FedEx and UPS to compete with the USPS in package delivery was the best thing to ever happen to package delivery.

Judson 16y ago

I think you missed one of the more obvious ways to fix the problem. Allow them to set their own rates, and allow other companies access (Permits, Licenses, whatever) to put letters in your mailbox. The USPS has no incentive to figure out how to deliver mail better when it is the only game in town.

ahi 16y ago
The USPS has managed to improve service while dealing with a postage rate increasing less than the rate of inflation.
- Judson 16y ago
  I'm sure its all relative, but if you are talking about customer service, my local USPS always has a line of 30 people waiting to pick up a package that the driver was too lazy to bring to the door (Sometimes they come to the door, sometimes they don't). The counter is also staffed by 1 or two people - out of an available 5 - and there is typically a manager standing idly with his hands in his pockets. If you are talking about improving service, as in the actual shipping service, you must be talking about their achievement of going from "losing a lot of packages", to "losing less than they used to". I've never understood it. I have NEVER lost a UPS or Fedex package. Yet, it is routine for a USPS package to just go "missing", just ask any big ebay seller. Its also interesting that you assume prices must always go up to match inflation. If USPS was innovating in the right areas, they could drive down costs and deliver more efficiently. Also, I just suggested the US government allow other approved companies the ability to put things in your mailbox without going to jail. Never said anything about their service.

philwelch 16y ago

Reduce delivery to 3 days a week. Would anyone complain about this? Netflix addicts. I might only receive a Netflix 2-3 days a week, but making sure those days line up with 3 days of delivery per week would drop throughput to maybe once a week. Netflix is seriously the only killer app left for the mail system. Everything else I get is either spam or bad news--before Netflix I only checked once a week.

commandar 16y ago

It's not just operational inefficiencies that are slowly strangling the USPS. There are also factors like Congress' bizarre mandate that the USPS fully prefund their retirement and health benefits programs[1], which is something not required of any other federal entity nor something done by private enterprises. That's a huge portion of the USPS's revenue stream poorly tied up. [1] http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/06/24/AR2010062405902.html http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/06...

grandalf 16y ago
Why is that bizarre? It sounds like a very practical way to avoid the sorts of issues that have befallen so many other pension plans. It most certainly should be done by public and private orgs, since we can't trust the mechanisms intended to free the cash b/c they are corrupt (this is one reason GM was bailed out... it looks better than everyone realizing the PBGC was bankrupted by one firm's demise).
- commandar 16y ago
  >The American Postal Workers' Union says this is a "phony crisis" caused by the Postal Accountability and Enhancement Act, which requires the Postal Service to pre-fund retiree health care costs. >No other government agency - or private business - bears this kind of burden. >As a result of the pre-funding mandate the USPS begins every fiscal year more than $5 billion in debt. In fact, the act requires the USPS to pre-fund 75 years' worth of retiree health care costs in just 10 years. >If the pre-funding requirement weren't in place the Postal Service would actually have a $3.7 billion surplus - over $1 billion each year for the past three fiscal years - despite declining mail volume due to increased use of electronic mail and an economy in crisis. http://www.peoplesworld.org/deficit-hawks-take-aim-at-postal-service/ http://www.peoplesworld.org/deficit-hawks-take-aim-at-postal... Emphasis mine. It's just a generally insane burden that's not getting enough attention.
  - grandalf 16y ago
    The act also removed $27B of pension obligations from the postal service's books, and used this and other benefits to smooth the transition away from a "pay-go" pension program. Pay as you go retirement programs are fraudulent because if the firm fails the retirees get nothing. I don't have a problem with the postal service being in debt or unprofitable, I just don't think the service is needed, and it's troubling to me that there are laws preventing other firms from offering letter delivery services that compete with the USPS.

rwl 16y ago

"If you think about the USPS as an independent corporation, it would be crazy to think about these results..." I agree. But why should we think of it that way? The Postal Service was originally conceived as an essential piece of national infrastructure. Why should we think of it as an "independent" entity that needs to turn a profit? Does the highway system turn a profit? How about the Federal Reserve, or the National Institutes of Health? What's important is that the USPS continue to have enough funding to provide its service in an accessible, timely, and reliable manner. That is what makes it a critical piece of infrastructure. Like it or not, it is still essential to be able to communicate with hard copies. (Why? For one thing, we don't, as citizens, all have an official electronic mail box. Physical mail also bears information about its transport -- where it went, whether anyone else read it along the way, whether it was delivered and read -- in a way that most electronic communication doesn't. We don't have a unified way of finding out how to communicate with someone online, and the means we do have are all owned by private corporations that cannot be relied on to provide that information in perpetuity. And so on.) I agree that, for many things, there are ways to communicate that have advantages the Postal Service doesn't offer. But I cannot imagine having to sacrifice what makes that service valuable in the name of making it profitable, or always having to rely on alternative services, especially for critical or official communication. We're going to need a public post office for some time yet. And as communication continues to move online, the need for a reliable, public system for delivering that communication will grow even further.

gojomo 16y ago
For one thing, we don't, as citizens, all have an official electronic mail box. A $8.5 billion subsidy to cover this last year's losses could have bought 20 million Americans iPads/netbooks. If we're going to subsidize universal service, let's do it in a modern fashion. And let's focus on those people and regions that would get left out otherwise. There's no need to federalize things everywhere -- including in cities where competing alternatives would be eager to operate -- to cover a few edge cases for poor and rural delivery.
- rwl 16y ago
  A $8.5 billion subsidy to cover this last year's losses could have bought 20 million Americans iPads/netbooks. What, exactly, would that achieve? Not the same function that the USPS does. Sure, 20 million more people would have a device, but they wouldn't have a "U.S. Email address" in the same way that they have a "U.S. Mail address". They would just have a way to use someone else's privately-owned infrastructure. Who knows how long that would last, or how reliable it would be? If we're going to subsidize universal service, let's do it in a modern fashion. I agree. But that means what we should be doing is building public infrastructure for new forms of communication, not farming it out to private infrastructure (which decides whether or not to deliver mail, first and foremost, on the basis of whether it is profitable) in order to save a buck. Let's have a national electronic service that: - provides an "address" [1] to every citizen, with a directory that allows people to find each other - provides guaranteed, reliable, on-time delivery at minimal cost to the sender - guarantees secure communications - provides a channel for official communications, from voting to tax forms to jury duty summons [1] I'm not sure if "address" is the right metaphor or not. Certainly, a mere "government email address" wouldn't be sufficient. The basic point is that every individual citizen ought to have some sort of secure repository where they can receive communications of all kinds: email, documents, whatever. And it should be at least as easy to access this repository as it is to walk out your door to your mailbox. That means that, if people need a computer and Internet connection to access it, they must be provided with one; their hardware, software, and network connection must work at least as reliably as mail delivery does.

webgambit 16y ago

> 2) Reduce delivery to 3 days a week. Would anyone complain about this? How many people even check their mail every single day without fail? If my own sphere of influence, I only know 1 person who _doesn't_ check their mail daily.