Slashdot Mirror

~~~~~~~~ http://about.usps.com/publications/pub300a/pub300a_tech_021.htm A company sends you a gift in the mail — a tie, a good luck charm, or a key chain. You didn’t order the gift. What do you do? Many people will feel guilty and pay for the gift. But you don’t have to. What you do with the merchandise is entirely up to you.

If you have not opened the package, mark it “Return to Sender.” The Postal Service will send it back at no charge to you. If you open the package and don’t like what you find, throw it away. If you open the package and like what you find, keep it — free. This is a rare instance where “finders, keepers” applies unconditionally. Whatever you do, don’t pay for it — and don’t get conned if the sender follows up with a phone call or visit. By law, unsolicited merchandise is yours to keep. ~~~~~~~~~ Gift - something bestowed or acquired without being sought or earned by the receiver.

There's a difference between an unsolicited shipment and a solicited, but erroneous, shipment:

Q. What should I do if the unordered merchandise I received was the result of an honest shipping error?

A. Write the seller and offer to return the merchandise, provided the seller pays for postage and handling. Give the seller a specific and reasonable amount of time (say 30 days) to pick up the merchandise or arrange to have it returned at no expense to you. Tell the seller that you reserve the right to keep the merchandise or dispose of it after the specified time has passed.

Also:

Gifts don't have to be intentional

This is entirely incorrect. By definition, a gift must be intentional:

In order for a gift to be legally effective, the donor must have intended to give the gift to the donee (donative intent), and the gift must actually be delivered to and accepted by the donee.

"but you are required by law to return the product if they request it. "
no, you are not.
from USPS( http://about.usps.com/publications/pub300a/pub300a_tech_021.htm ) bolding done by me:
A company sends you a gift in the mail — a tie, a good luck charm, or a key chain. You didn’t order the gift. What do you do? Many people will feel guilty and pay for the gift. But you don’t have to. What you do with the merchandise is entirely up to you.

If you have not opened the package, mark it “Return to Sender.” The Postal Service will send it back at no charge to you.
If you open the package and don’t like what you find, throw it away.
If you open the package and like what you find, keep it — free. This is a rare instance where “finders, keepers” applies unconditionally.
Whatever you do, don’t pay for it — and don’t get conned if the sender follows up with a phone call or visit. By law, unsolicited merchandise is yours to keep.

~~~~~~~~
http://about.usps.com/publications/pub300a/pub300a_tech_021.htm
A company sends you a gift in the mail — a tie, a good luck charm, or a key chain. You didn’t order the gift. What do you do? Many people will feel guilty and pay for the gift. But you don’t have to. What you do with the merchandise is entirely up to you.

If you have not opened the package, mark it “Return to Sender.” The Postal Service will send it back at no charge to you.
If you open the package and don’t like what you find, throw it away.
If you open the package and like what you find, keep it — free. This is a rare instance where “finders, keepers” applies unconditionally.
Whatever you do, don’t pay for it — and don’t get conned if the sender follows up with a phone call or visit. By law, unsolicited merchandise is yours to keep.
~~~~~~~~~
Gift - something bestowed or acquired without being sought or earned by the receiver.

Gifts don't have to be intentional

I do not know what UK laws are in this area, but I do know that US laws specifically state that unsolicited merchandise is legally considered a gift. Think about it: if things didn't work this way, you could wind up being billed (and having your credit report dinged) for "debts" you never agreed to! Alternatively, if companies could get away with sending you more expensive merchandise than you actually ordered and then billing you for it (or demanding, after the fact, that you take the time and trouble to send it back to them), then you'd be opening the door to merchants committing all kinds of bait-and-switch scams.

This seems to have been a genuine accident, and sucks for Zavvi, but they should not be allowed to threaten or instigate any legal action against the receivers. Even demanding the recipients mail it back with postage paid by the company is still requiring them to perform unpaid work (packaging, driving to the post office, etc.) for something they didn't do and aren't responsible for.

I remember the USPS advertising Sunday delivery for Express Mail quite a long time ago -- ten years or more, I think.

Still advertised today: http://pe.usps.com/businessmail101/classes/express.htm. A bit more digging indicates that there's a $12.50 surcharge for Sunday/holiday delivery.

So, since USPS was already offering Sunday delivery, the news here must be some favorable pricing terms for Amazon. Which, of course, they're not going to specify in detail.

I got a Sunday package delivery via USPS from Newegg.

https://tools.usps.com/go/TrackConfirmAction_input?origTrackNum=4200705492748901015478100001164480

the 10th(yesterday) was a Sunday, kind of weirded me out when I got a knock on my door and a package was dropped off.

In the USA, it is illegal to deliver first class mail unless you are the USPS, unless it is delivered at a cost of 6x the current USPS delivery rate.

http://about.usps.com/who-we-are/postal-history/universal-service-postal-monopoly-history.pdf

We have laws preventing exercise of free enterprise in the delivery of standard mail. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Private_Express_Statutes

Companies in the past have attempted to circumvent these restrictions and have been run out of business by the government through legal means. The competing company was quite successful financially. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Letter_Mail_Company

Dump the unions, pay the low skill workers what they're worth (~minimum wage) and get rid of the pensions.

According to http://about.usps.com/who-we-are/postal-facts/ every two weeks 1.8 billion is paid in salaries and benefits. That is 46.8 billion dollars. They get 65 billion dollars in revenue according to that same page. So 72% of revenue goes directly into compensating workers.

If the USPS has 522,144 career workers, that means the average compensation per worker is 89,630$ - but this number probably doesn't account for the wages paid to temporary and seasonal workers, so it is likely the average cost per worker is somewhat less than that number. I can't find any specifics for the overall amount of compensation spent on seasonal workers but from personal experience they pay between 10-14$/hr and you get zero benefits.

In the long term, keeping all the unionized pensioned senior people longer is just going to increase the amount of money they'll have to pay them later when they retire/get laid off. Make a change they don't like, let them all strike, and fire everyone who violates the attendance rules just like walmart does. Boom, done. http://thinkprogress.org/economy/2013/06/23/2200081/labor-group-walmart-fired-five-workers-for-participating-in-strikes/

Yeah, it'll never happen. Instead the USPS will slowly wither away and die. Private corporations will end up picking up any profitable service USPS loses with service cuts and price hikes to support their massive employee base. Ultimately everyone loses.

If it weren't for republicans passing that fucked up bill requiring USPS to pre-fund retirement 75 years out, the USPS would be making a profit.

No, they wouldn't. To be sure the losses would be smaller, but the USPS would still be loosing money. According to the 2012 annual report to congress, The USPS lost 13.8 billion. Of that total, the pre-fund on their pensions cost 11.1 billion (2 years worth). That means that without paying a single penny for pensions costs, the USPS lost $2.7 Billion on 67 Billion in revenue. That's pretty crappy, especially considering they just came out of a re-org, and overall mail volume has been increasing slowly. More than likely, the problem is that their expenses are fixed largely due to having to deliver everywhere everyday almost regardless of volume, and their income is fixed due to congress setting their prices for them. high density urban mail is subsidizing rural mail. First class mail (e.g. mail that counts) is also subsidizing bulk rate mail. This is pretty stupid if you ask me. We are all paying to subsidize the junk mail.

If you don't want to drive miles to a mailbox cluster, the USPS doesn't want to drive those miles to deliver a bulk mail envelope that only earned them 25 cents.

So raise bulk mail prices $0.01 per unit; they delivered 84.7 billion units last year http://about.usps.com/publications/annual-report-comprehensive-statement-2011/html/ar2011_financial_2.htm ... not including 7 billion periodicals. The post office gets their 26 cents instead of 25 cents, and congress gets to keep the excellent Mail Handlers Health Insurance which the post office subsidizes for them, since it's basically what every GSA employee gets, despite the name. The postal carriers get to keep their rather inflated pensions. Everyone is happy.

Junk mail is what has traditionally kept the USPS afloat.

Yes and no. The statistic is a few years old, but in 2010 roughly 2/3rds of the mail delivered was bulk mail with First-Class Mail bringing in $34 billion while mail termed “Advertising” brought in $17.3 billion.

Interesting fact. The USPS has 1/3 the number of Post Offices that it had in 1900, primarily because the introduces rural delivery and people weren't forced to have a PO box.
http://about.usps.com/who-we-are/postal-history/pieces-of-mail-since-1789.htm

How sad.

They could instead, go to MULTIPLE door-to-door deliveries per day.

Until the 1950's the USPS *did* do multiple residential deliveries per day. In the 80's, I worked at a business that had 2 deliveries/day and sometimes we could send a letter across town the same day - send it out in the morning pickup and the other business would receive it in the afternoon. (didn't always work out that way, so we still had to courier documents that had to be there the same day)

http://about.usps.com/publications/pub100/pub100_018.htm

Carriers walked as many as 22 miles a day, carrying up to 50 pounds of mail at a time. They were instructed to deliver letters frequently and promptly — generally twice a day to homes and up to four times a day to businesses. The second residential delivery was discontinued on April 17, 1950, in most cities. Multiple deliveries to businesses were phased out over the next few decades as changing transportation patterns made most mail available for first-trip delivery. The weight limit of a carrier’s load was reduced to 35 pounds by the mid-1950s and remains the same today.

They DO have a working tracking system for both letter sized mail and packages. You just have to build your own interface, all they do is upload a file with scans to your FTP server. They give quite a bit of data on a letter, here is an example from a mailpiece I sent a few weeks ago. It was scanned five times over two days, and they will send scans as frequently as once per hour.

Oh, and the example I provided was a First Class letter. Tracking cost me nothing more than printing a barcode on the envelope before dropping it in the mailbox. Too bad they don't provide an easy way to use this service.

I'm sure you have a citation for this "obligation to postmark".

Mind providing it?

Let me help you with a link to start from:
"Postmarks are not required for mailings bearing a permit, meter, or precanceled stamp for postage"

Part of USPS privacy policy (Law Enforcement and Security) https://about.usps.com/who-we-are/privacy-policy/intelligent-mail-privacy.htm#H6

Easier, and the labor market was tight which should have made it easier still, but it still took *years*.

There's a great series of posters -- WPA? American Legion? -- hammering on the theme that the USA is fighting to be unlike the racist Axis and we'll win when everyone is working. This is the only one I can find offhand:

http://about.usps.com/who-we-are/postal-history/images/government-poster-1942.jpg

But, I never said it would only take one letter. A little bit of persistence is required, but either way you'll waste a lot less time mailing it than phoning.

At 46 cents(USD) (source: https://www.usps.com/business/prices.htm) per stamp just how many letters (stamps) we talking to reverse a $14.64 (61 cent * 24 months) charge? Looks like the crossover is at 32 stamps (.46*32=$14.74)(USD).

Basically, if you make minimum wage (or somewhat over minimum wage) its worth your time to fight it. If you make substantially more, just what are you willing to volunteer to 'free the world' from their tyranny.

Is what they are doing right and proper? Probably not.
Is there much you can do about it? Again, probably not.

What's the solution then? Inundate your state's Attorney General's office with complaints. One .46 cent letter (per person) * 10000 complaints will get his attention. Contact your Congress critter, too. Then the local news stations.

OCCUPY ATT!

(Sorry, that was silly of me.)

The key word here is "unauthorized."

=Smidge=

"Unauthorized markings not designating price, class, address, handling, content, or extra service are not permitted."

Seems pretty clear to me. Yes, they ALSO require that any old labels or markings on reused boxes be obliterated or removed, but explicitly so that any legible markings accurately reflect the contents and service required. Basically ANY marking on the box which is not approved is subject to fuckwittery by postal workers. Since these guys want to use custom decorative boxes for their wares, maybe they should talk to someone at the USPS about it or just put the decorative box inside a plain box for shipment.
=Smidge=

But it wouldn't cost the spammers anything, just like snail mail

Right now, you and I pay $0.46 per letter we want to send. How much do you think PennySaver, Best Buy, etc pay to send you spam? Check out the USPS Price List, paying special attention to page 28. You'll notice that bulk mail classified as Carrier Route, Saturation mail costs the sender $0.032. Just a bit over three freaking pennies.

If the USPS wants to make more money, charge Snail-Mail spammers full stamp price.

203 billion pieces of mail, the vast majority of which is 1oz envelopes.

Bzzzt..

First of all, the USPS delivered 160 billion total items last year. It would seem your 203B comes from 2008 (page 5), so I'll use that year's data for the rest of this response. Of that 202.7 billion, it breaks down as:
17.5% (35.4B) "real" first-class items (stamp-bearing single item)
1.6% (3.3B) packages
27.8% (56.3B) spam (first-class presorted, 91.7B total first class minus 35.4B single-item gives 56.3B )
48.9% (99.1B) outright crap (3rd class advertising)
4.2% (8.6B) other - periodicals? (they don't break this out here but do elsewhere)

Now for fun, let's compare that to how they describe their revenue (page 4), shall we? (For 2012 instead of 2008, but we can likely assume the overall ratios tend to hold steady over time):
44.5% ($28.9B) first class mail (including presorted which actually costs less than "real" first class, but they don't separate that out for revenue)
25.2% ($16.4B) advertising mail
17.8% ($11.6B) shipping
2.6% ($1.7B) periodicals

See a trend there? Almost a perfectly inverse relationship between "I want it" and "how much the post office charges to send it". And you wonder why I won't cry to see them cease to exist?


You DO know you can opt out of junk mail right?

You DO know you can't opt out of mail from companies with whom you have an "existing business relationship", right? So that order you placed with LL Bean 15 years ago makes you their bitch forever. And, the DMA "opt out" doesn't actually work like the telemarketer opt-out list - It has essentially no teeth. Want proof? Send in a new opt-out request (even while having one already in effect) - You'll get a huge batch of crap from "member" companies taking advantage of a verified-good address in the "60-90 days" it "may" take before your request goes into effect. And I say that from personal experience.


or did you just complain about something you actual know nothing about so you can be a whiny bitch?

You mean, kinda like responding to Slashdot posts just to sound clever while spouting factually incorrect nonsense? So, do you work for the APWU, or just belong to it as a member?

I happen to have a link handy. only has stats up to 2011, but still very enlightening.
http://about.usps.com/who-we-are/postal-facts/welcome.htm#H2

1) Pre-funding the retirement is a lot better than the companies that don't fund it and screw their employees when they go under. It also has an advantage as the USPS is shrinking its employee base (mostly by contracting out jobs and routes to avoid paying outrageous benefits for smei-skilled labor)
2) Overall mail volume is dropping 2-3% per year. Advertising still accounts for over 1/2 of the revenue.
3) Overall revenue is declining about the same rate as the mail volume.

It doesn't help that Congress is basically stealing $5 billion a year from the post office

You're right that Congress is taking about $5.5 billion from the USPS each year.

If it wasn't for the budget shenanigans that Congress pulled, the Post Office would be doing fine.

Nope. It wouldn't be doing as badly, but it would still be losing tons of money. The USPS' 1st quarter deficit was 3.3 billion. If that continues (which projections say it will), the USPS will be losing over $13 billion this year. Ignore the $5.5 billion in pre-funding the pensions, and it's still an $8 billion dollar loss.

The USPS needs to get its house in order quickly. Their move to confront congress is probably a good one. If congress won't allow them to cut services, then they need to start handing them money to pay for the services congress wants them to provide.

Only on certain types of mail:

http://pe.usps.com/text/qsg300/Q602.htm

(those qualifying for reduced rates for being non-profit, &c.)

If one pays full postage, no return address is necessary.

This is a urban legend. Attaching "Business Reply Mail" envelopes and cards to parcels is an invalid use of those mailings and will be discarded. You are either lying (this incident never happened) or your postman has never worked in sorting and has no clue about this.

See here and here.

If you want to piss them off, send them something nasty that will gum up the letter-opening machines at the CC company. Of course you may well end up being sued or charged with a crime, depending on the circumstance.

All criticisms aside, it seems to me that the immediate problem can be addressed with a price adjustment on retail services. This PDF provides some interesting rough figures to play around with on page 4. I am specifically looking at the first figure ($66B in revenue), the second figure (167.9B "pieces of mail" delivered), and comparing with the reported $15.9B loss. Adding $66B revenue (all spent cash) plus the additional $15.9B loss gives us a total of $81.9B operational expenses.

Now divide $66B in revenue by 167.9B pieces of mail delivered and we get an average revenue of about $0.39 per piece of mail delivered - that is less than the current price of a "forever" stamp which is $0.45. That means that some amount of mail is being handled for less than $0.45 which is averaging down the revenue per piece of mail by almost 14%. If we divide our total operational cost of $81.9B by167.9B pieces of mail, we get about $0.49 actual average cost per piece of mail. If we correct for the 14% averaging down, that brings us up to $0.56 per piece of mail.

So I propose raising the base price of the forever stamps from $0.45 to $0.56 and proportionately for other lesser cost mail as well (e.g.post cards, flyers, etc.) Is 11 cents really all that much to ask? This doesn't seem like that big of a problem to me. Furthermore, I think this spoiled new generation of citizens has become so accustomed to their daily conveniences that it takes a hurricane Sandy to remind them of the value of a payphone. Will it take a collapsed postal system to realize the value of mail delivery? How much would it cost you to deliver the same piece of mail via an alternative commercial carrier? (hint: a lot more) How much would it cost you to personally deliver it and use none of them? (hint: unbearably more)

The mail delivery companies are not allowed to compete with the USPS by law. The Private Express Statutes are a group of laws under which the U.S. Postal Service (USPS) has the exclusive right, with certain limited exceptions to carry letters for compensation. The Statutes are based on the provision in the U.S. Constitution that empowers Congress “to establish Post Offices.” http://pe.usps.com/text/qsg300/Q608.htm. One of the exceptions is for urgent mail. This is how Fedex and UPS are allowed to compete.

Here their their plan. http://about.usps.com/news/national-releases/2012/pr12_0217profitability.pdf

I would prefer they cut delivery to once a week. Use some savings to implement wider adoption of electronic communication. (Voting, taxes, motor vehicles, etc.) Too bad for NetFlix.

Your heart is true, you're a pal and a cosmonaut.

I heard "confidant". Why would the theme song of a TV series for the U.S. market consider it positive to call someone a member of the crew of a Russian space mission?

You would see the biggest gift would be from me

And this gift would have to be shipped USPS Priority Mail International in order to make it all the way to Russia.

Just to add to this, the shipping and handling is actually the source of profit for many companies on Amazon. I personally knew the owner of a company that sells $0.99 computer games on Amazon, but charges $5.99 shipping on them, which turns into a $5-plus profit on each game sold. I recently fell for this tactic when I bought a copy of the Hulk Video Game for $3.96 and got charged $4.59 in shipping. This is also the case with many used-book sellers on Amazon, who sell the book for a dollar, charge you five in shipping, and then send it using the library book rate, which only costs them pennies.

While I agree with your sentiment, your facts are... inaccurate.

It depends on the category the item is being offered under. Amazon has defined different categories for items, and for most of those categories, Amazon has set the shipping fee that the seller is paid (see http://www.amazon.com/gp/help/customer/display.html?ie=UTF8&nodeId=537734&#rates). There are categories where Amazon allows a seller to specify their own fees, but your example of used books (Amazon category: media) is one that Amazon regulates. The shipping fee is set to $3.99 for domestic sales. As for using Library Mail for shipping -unless the item is going to/from an approved (by the USPS) library/museum/school that is postal fraud (see http://pe.usps.com/text/dmm300/173.htm#1115292). What is typically used to ship used books is Media Mail (see http://pe.usps.com/text/dmm300/173.htm#1113509).

Just to add to this, the shipping and handling is actually the source of profit for many companies on Amazon. I personally knew the owner of a company that sells $0.99 computer games on Amazon, but charges $5.99 shipping on them, which turns into a $5-plus profit on each game sold. I recently fell for this tactic when I bought a copy of the Hulk Video Game for $3.96 and got charged $4.59 in shipping. This is also the case with many used-book sellers on Amazon, who sell the book for a dollar, charge you five in shipping, and then send it using the library book rate, which only costs them pennies.

While I agree with your sentiment, your facts are... inaccurate.

It depends on the category the item is being offered under. Amazon has defined different categories for items, and for most of those categories, Amazon has set the shipping fee that the seller is paid (see http://www.amazon.com/gp/help/customer/display.html?ie=UTF8&nodeId=537734&#rates). There are categories where Amazon allows a seller to specify their own fees, but your example of used books (Amazon category: media) is one that Amazon regulates. The shipping fee is set to $3.99 for domestic sales. As for using Library Mail for shipping -unless the item is going to/from an approved (by the USPS) library/museum/school that is postal fraud (see http://pe.usps.com/text/dmm300/173.htm#1115292). What is typically used to ship used books is Media Mail (see http://pe.usps.com/text/dmm300/173.htm#1113509).

The Congress shall have Power [...] To establish Post Offices and Post Roads; [...]

Note, of course, that there is no requirement that Congress establish Post Offices and Post Roads or continue to support/maintain them - they are merely allowed to do so. (Just as they have no requirement to "declare war" which is another power granted to Congress.)

However, I'm not aware that the founders, in general, thought that "minimal fees" should be charged for postal services (presumably, meaning that a subsidy would be required if actual costs were above "minimal").

Indeed, postal rates in 1792 for a letter consisting of a single sheet of paper ranged from 6 cents (if being sent less than 30 miles) to 25 cents (if being sent over 450 miles) and a letter consisting of two sheets of paper (still under one ounce in today's scheme) cost twice as much. Therefore, a two sheet letter cost twice as much in non inflation adjusted currency, as it does today. I'm pretty sure that 50 cents was not considered minimal in 1792 - esp. given that inflation makes 50 cents in 1792 dollars equivalent to over 12 dollars in 2011 dollars.

PO Boxes are free if there's no home delivery. See Fee Group E.

The relevant regulations are here: http://about.usps.com/publications/pub542/welcome.htm Private couriers like FedEx and UPS can deliver letters, but only if they're express ("Extremely Urgent Letters" is how the regulation puts it). They're not allowed to deliver regular "I don't care exactly when it gets there as long as it doesn't take too long" letters, which are the "costs a few pennies" referred to in the comment I was responding to. During the 90s, the USPS got worried that people were using FedEx and UPS too much, and was conducting investigations with an eye on cracking down on the practice. My memory is fuzzy, but I think the key allegation they were making was that people were sending letters express that didn't really have a time-sensitive aspect to them. That is, they wanted to step in and say "your letter doesn't need to be there that fast. You can't send it via FedEx, you have to give it to us."

(Error in my original post, and in quote, it should have been "wouldn't have to throw out all that junk mail")

That the USPS has a monopoly on 'first class' (standard) mail is well known. You can read about it at http://about.usps.com/universal-postal-service/usps-uso-executive-summary.txt (the USPS's own website). As mentioned in that document, they also have exclusive access to mailboxes.

Yes, the Universal Service Obligation exists. However, it seems this is somewhat flexible, as noted in http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USPS#Universal_service_obligation_and_monopoly_status the USPS once distributed termination of service notices to an extremely rural area that could only be reached by airplane. The decision was reversed after vocal opposition, but nevertheless it seems that the USPS does not have to guarantee service *everywhere*. Besides, maintaining service to those areas could be done without the subsidies currently granted the USPS. The USPS is running a deficit of $3 billion per quarter , I'll bet individual delivery to every U.S. address not currently serviced by FedEx or UPS would cost not even a tenth of that.

Also, would it really matter if a letter costs $20 to deliver to a remote area? Shouldn't that be expected? With such a huge amount of commerce, banking, and government interaction happening online it seems like it would be more important to guarantee internet access than postal delivery. For those few letters that really need to be delivered by mail (maybe some legal documents based on arcane laws, driver's licenses, and credit/debit cards) the high cost of delivery shouldn't really be that much of a burden.

Even though there is no need for special machine codes for typical personal mail, they have them anyway to reduce the amount of computing that has to be done to process the mail, and continue to develop and refine their standarda.

The previous generation of flat sorting machine. The new flat sorting machine. The mechanical problems of sorting large volumes of flats of varied size and thickness with flapping loose pages have finally been solved. But it doesn't matter. Putting ads on glossy paper and shipping them to people who don't really want them much is a dying industry.

The USPS really wants to get out of the deal for the flat sorting system, because the flats business (mostly catalogs and magazines) is declining. Mail volume overall peaked in 2006, and has been in a screaming dive since then. The USPS doesn't need a new generation of flat sorting machinery. But the USPS signed a firm fixed-price contract for the gear, and they're stuck with it.

Paper mail, as a business, is tanking. "We forecast U.S. postal volumes to decrease from 177B pieces in 2009 to around 150B pieces in 2020 under business-as-usual assumptions. Notably, volumes will not revisit the high-water-mark of 213B pieces in 2006 -- on the contrary, the trajectory for the next 10 years is one of steady decline, which will not reverse even as the current recession abates. Expressing the decline in terms of pieces per delivery point highlights the challenge: we project pieces per household per day to fall from four pieces today to three in 2020 -- driven by decreasing volumes delivered to an increasing number of addresses." That's the optimistic scenario - recession over in 2012, no "Do Not Mail" bulk mail opt-out legislation. It's also from a 2010 study that didn't really consider the move to smartphones.

The previous generation of flat sorting machine. The new flat sorting machine. The mechanical problems of sorting large volumes of flats of varied size and thickness with flapping loose pages have finally been solved. But it doesn't matter. Putting ads on glossy paper and shipping them to people who don't really want them much is a dying industry.

The USPS really wants to get out of the deal for the flat sorting system, because the flats business (mostly catalogs and magazines) is declining. Mail volume overall peaked in 2006, and has been in a screaming dive since then. The USPS doesn't need a new generation of flat sorting machinery. But the USPS signed a firm fixed-price contract for the gear, and they're stuck with it.

Paper mail, as a business, is tanking. "We forecast U.S. postal volumes to decrease from 177B pieces in 2009 to around 150B pieces in 2020 under business-as-usual assumptions. Notably, volumes will not revisit the high-water-mark of 213B pieces in 2006 -- on the contrary, the trajectory for the next 10 years is one of steady decline, which will not reverse even as the current recession abates. Expressing the decline in terms of pieces per delivery point highlights the challenge: we project pieces per household per day to fall from four pieces today to three in 2020 -- driven by decreasing volumes delivered to an increasing number of addresses." That's the optimistic scenario - recession over in 2012, no "Do Not Mail" bulk mail opt-out legislation. It's also from a 2010 study that didn't really consider the move to smartphones.

Or maybe you will.
http://about.usps.com/postal-bulletin/2012/pb22336/html/updt_004.htm

read this:
http://about.usps.com/postal-bulletin/2012/pb22336/html/updt_004.htm

secondly note how this some how doesn't impact corporations.

I suspect this is implemented because the USPS doesn't operate it's own fleet of jets. They contract with commercial airlines. And sine lithium batteries have been the cause of two airline crashes, they don't want to rick killing 100's of people.

Effective May 16, 2012, the Postal Service will revise Publication 52, Hazardous, Restricted, and Perishable Mail, to indicate that primary lithium metal or lithium alloy (nonrechargeable) cells and batteries, or secondary lithium-ion cells or batteries (rechargeable), are prohibited when mailed internationally or to and from an APO, FPO, or DPO location. However, this prohibition does not apply to lithium batteries authorized under 349.22 when mailed within the United States or its territories.
International standards have recently been the subject of discussion by the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) and the Universal Postal Union (UPU), and the Postal Service anticipates that on January 1, 2013, customers will be able to mail specific quantities of lithium batteries internationally (including to and from an APO, FPO, or DPO location) when the batteries are properly installed in the personal electronic devices they are intended to operate. Until such time that a less restrictive policy can be implemented consistent with international standards, and in accordance with UPU Convention, lithium batteries are not permitted in international mail. The UPU Convention and regulations are consistent with the ICAO Technical Instructions for the Safe Transport of Dangerous Goods by Air (Technical Instructions). The Technical Instructions concerning the Transport of Dangerous Goods by Post do not permit “dangerous goods” as defined by the ICAO Technical Instructions in international mail. Currently, the only exceptions to this general prohibition relate to certain medical materials, infectious substances, and radioactive materials when they are treated in accordance with additional requirements listed in the Technical Instructions. Lithium metal or lithium alloy batteries and lithium-ion cells are listed in the Technical Instructions as Class 9 Miscellaneous Dangerous Goods. The prohibition on mailing lithium batteries and cells internationally also applies to mail sent by commercial air transportation to and from an APO, FPO, or DPO location.

So it's both primary and secondary cells which are banned – and the decision was forced on the USPS by the UPU and ICAO (the latter, presumably, because of the recent incident where a cargo plane fell out of the sky after a crate of lithium ion batteries caught fire at 35,000ft and couldn't be extinguished.)

The very USPS page that is linked to from this summary says that batteries that are in devices are generally exempt from this. Essentially you can ship all the iPods/iPads/iPhones you want. It is external (ie not built-in) batteries that have additional restrictions, though those are not very severe.

Was the "good job not reading" a reference to yourself? Oh, the irony!

From the linked article (emphasis mine):

According to the USPS, they will prohibit shipping of lithium batteries and any device containing them effective May 16.

And on the USPS page for the restriction, the USPS anticipates that after 1 January 2013 people will be able to resume mailing devices containing lithium batteries to overseas destinations. And that shipping such devices is banned from May 16 this year.

Not also that according to the table (Exhibit 10.20.8 Lithium Battery Mailability Chart). The ones non-mailable are the called primary, which seem to refer to the lithium batteries, not "Secondary" which seem to refer to the Lithium-Ion (rechargeable) batteries.

Am I confused about this?

Fedex does deliver to all addresses. Don't know about UPS. USPS does not.

By law, the USPS is mandated to provide universal delivery. From: Postal Facts

A self-supporting government enterprise, the U.S. Postal Service is the only delivery service that reaches every address in the nation, 150 million residences, businesses and Post Office Boxes.

Yeah, to an official US mail box.

No, the statute applies to all first-class letter delivery via "post routes", which includes, among other things, all public roads. No official US mail boxes need be involved. Private carriers can carry letters if they pay the USPS stamp fees in addition to their own delivery costs, ensuring that private delivery is always the more expensive option. There are a few other less-common exceptions, listed in the linked Wikipedia article, including "special messenger services" and free delivery. On the whole, however, the system is specifically designed to make it impossible to compete on level footing with the USPS for normal delivery of first-class letters.

Don't take my word for it, however. This is what the USPS has to say:

The Private Express Statutes (PES) are a group of federal civil and criminal laws that, for the most part, make it unlawful for any entity other than the U.S. Postal Service® to send or carry letters over post routes for compensation unless appropriate postage is paid in an amount equaling what would have been paid had the letters been sent through the Postal Service(TM).

Publication 542 - 1-1 What Are the Private Express Statutes?

Actually, 0% of the USPS funding is through taxes. As an entity, it is entirely self supporting. See: http://about.usps.com/who-we-are/postal-facts/welcome.htm#H12

Except for the billions of dollars in no interest loans from the fed. The USPS currently owes the fed in excess of USD 13Bn in 0% interest loans. If the USPS goes under, the tax payers get to foot that bill... In the mean time, the USPS is not paying a single penny of interest on that money. Its a subsidy any way you try to hide what its called. Just a few years ago, congress voted to excuse the USPS from $4Bn worth of those loans. Just because they claim to be self sufficient doesn't make it true.

-=Geoskd

I can't say if what you claim is true but they have been shrinking the workforce for a long time, dropping 200,000 employees - 25% of the full-time workforce - in the last decade alone. http://about.usps.com/future-postal-service/postalfacts-2011.pdf , see pg 6

This is being a bit disingenuous. While the USPS is getting screwed via mandates, there are deeper issues too. http://about.usps.com/who-we-are/financials/10k-reports/fy2008.pdf http://about.usps.com/who-we-are/financials/10k-reports/fy2010.pdf If you look at the USPS financial statements, their revenue was $72.7B in 2006 going up to $74.9B in 2008 but then dropping to $68.0B, $67.0B, and $65.7B over the next three years. Even assuming they funded retiree accounts at the 2006 level ($1.6B) they still lose $2.0B, $2.3B and $4.2B over 2009, 2010, and 2011. Falling revenues and being restricted from lowering costs matter just as much.

This is being a bit disingenuous. While the USPS is getting screwed via mandates, there are deeper issues too. http://about.usps.com/who-we-are/financials/10k-reports/fy2008.pdf http://about.usps.com/who-we-are/financials/10k-reports/fy2010.pdf If you look at the USPS financial statements, their revenue was $72.7B in 2006 going up to $74.9B in 2008 but then dropping to $68.0B, $67.0B, and $65.7B over the next three years. Even assuming they funded retiree accounts at the 2006 level ($1.6B) they still lose $2.0B, $2.3B and $4.2B over 2009, 2010, and 2011. Falling revenues and being restricted from lowering costs matter just as much.

Actually, 0% of the USPS funding is through taxes. As an entity, it is entirely self supporting. See: http://about.usps.com/who-we-are/postal-facts/welcome.htm#H12