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Amazon Opposes Plan To End Saturday Mail Delivery
theodp writes "Online retailer giant Amazon.com has come out against a US Postal Service proposal to end Saturday service, part of efforts to address the USPS budget deficit. 'Amazon's customers have come to appreciate and expect Saturday delivery,' explained Amazon VP Paul Misener. 'If the five-day delivery proposal is not withdrawn,' he added, 'we ask that Congress ensure that Saturday delivery be maintained.' In the past, Amazon has argued that it should not have to help support public services in states in which it has no physical presence." The article adds, "Interestingly, online DVD service Netflix is backing the plan to end Saturday mail delivery, arguing that a 'well functioning' Postal Service is more important than 'maintaining current delivery frequency.'"
The difference between Amazon and Netflix is that Netflix product fits comfortably in a mailbox.
Why not just have a increased rate for Saturday delivery like Fedex and UPS? I don't see a reason for something to run on a loss. If Amazon's customers appreciate or expect it, either they or Amazon can pay extra for it.
This space for rent.
In the past, Amazon has argued that it should not have to help support public services in states in which it has no physical presence.
I'm having trouble seeing exactly why this is relevant, other than innuendo. State taxes don't pay for mail delivery, that's a federal function. Amazon's stance is consistent. (Whether it's morally right or wrong is a separate issue, mind you.)
If there are fewer delivery days in a month, then you get fewer movies per month if you turn them around every other day. This would help Netflix's bottom line to cut delivery down to 5 days a week.
Ok, I give up, why you?
Monday through Friday, I leave for work before our local Post Office opens and leave from work after it closes.
Netflix benefits from less frequent mail delivery. (Lower costs for them)
Amazon loses big from less frequent delivery (I frequently choose them because I can have a package here before I'd have time to go get the item in Manhattan myself).
As for the postal service, I frequently find myself waiting in 20 minute lines, at any time of day, to pickup a package that they were incapable of delivering correctly to my residence. I'd love to see someone that has a clue about business run the postal service rather than it being run with the competence level of the DMV.
Keep the Saturday delivery or go the way of the dodo, guys. (add Sunday delivery and be super-cool)
I cannot recall ever getting anything from AMAZON via USPS, it is always UPS.
what do they ship via USPS?
I like microcars
It's generally their junk mail drop with just flyers and other non-addressed answers.
And just have alternating days. That way one postal worker can take care of two routes. Let's face it, mail is only going to decrease. So let them do M-W-F on Route 1 and T-Th-Sa on Route 2, and flip that the next week. Express mail can be an exception. Priority mail not so much, depending on logistics.
The USPS has been good to me and my internet business, so I'd prefer them to do well in return. IMO, this is the only way to really future proof the service. People will bitch but the rest of society just has to adapt, imo.
Which corporation is going to win this battle?
I would prefer to see them drop say Thursday deliveries and deliver Mon-Wed, Fri-Sat.
In a communist State (there's never really been one that actually met the standard to be called that) there wouldn't BE a FedEx, UPS or DHL. Your point is moot.
End of Line.
Same reason, except that I work for 6 days a week.
Or I guess I could settle with stocking up stamp (or printing it online) and droping it in the USPS drop boxes.
USPS filed suit against BP last Saturday in an attempt to get BP to pay for USPS Saturday delivery. The reasoning proposed is with the decrease in tourism in the gulf states fewer vacationers are sending postcards north. BREAKING NEWS: Consortium of postcard manufacturers expresses interest in joining suit.
the days bills come.
Geek used to be a four letter word. Now it's a six-figure one.
The United States Post Office is self-sufficient
Support a few technologists in Washington.
I love it... They demand access to an external service that directly profits them, but they then turn around and say they shouldn't have to support that service.
This cliche corporate attitude would be comical if it wasn't so harmful.
Do they think important services like the post are run by magical fairy slaves or something?
Not Canada Post, not FedEx, not UPS, not DHL, not Purolator. Nobody delivers on saturday except pizzerias.
I just made a reservation for a campsite on a beach in Maryland. Your friendly neighbors from the north of the Potomac River would like to thank BP for all they're doing for helping you discover our beautiful state.
Wh47 d1d j00 541, 31337 15n't t3h r0xor5 ne m0r3???
No one, James No One
If Amazon wants Saturday delivery for its clients then it can continue to offer it using third parties like FedEx. That is what happens in the UK - you get letters six days a week but only parcels five days a week; if you want parcels on a Saturday then you have to pay a private company to do the delivery which Amazon EU/UK offers.
The US Constitution, motherfucker! have you read it?
"Section 8 - Powers of Congress
The Congress shall have Power To lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises, to pay the Debts and provide for the common Defence and general Welfare of the United States; but all Duties, Imposts and Excises shall be uniform throughout the United States;
To borrow money on the credit of the United States;
To regulate Commerce with foreign Nations, and among the several States, and with the Indian Tribes;
To establish an uniform Rule of Naturalization, and uniform Laws on the subject of Bankruptcies throughout the United States;
To coin Money, regulate the Value thereof, and of foreign Coin, and fix the Standard of Weights and Measures;
To provide for the Punishment of counterfeiting the Securities and current Coin of the United States;
To establish Post Offices and Post Roads
; To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries;
To constitute Tribunals inferior to the supreme Court;
To define and punish Piracies and Felonies committed on the high Seas, and Offenses against the Law of Nations;
To declare War, grant Letters of Marque and Reprisal, and make Rules concerning Captures on Land and Water;
To raise and support Armies, but no Appropriation of Money to that Use shall be for a longer Term than two Years;
To provide and maintain a Navy;
To make Rules for the Government and Regulation of the land and naval Forces;
To provide for calling forth the Militia to execute the Laws of the Union, suppress Insurrections and repel Invasions;
To provide for organizing, arming, and disciplining, the Militia, and for governing such Part of them as may be employed in the Service of the United States, reserving to the States respectively, the Appointment of the Officers, and the Authority of training the Militia according to the discipline prescribed by Congress;
To exercise exclusive Legislation in all Cases whatsoever, over such District (not exceeding ten Miles square) as may, by Cession of particular States, and the acceptance of Congress, become the Seat of the Government of the United States, and to exercise like Authority over all Places purchased by the Consent of the Legislature of the State in which the Same shall be, for the Erection of Forts, Magazines, Arsenals, dock-Yards, and other needful Buildings; And
To make all Laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into Execution the foregoing Powers, and all other Powers vested by this Constitution in the Government of the United States, or in any Department or Officer thereof."
Delivery of mail is defined as a function of the Federal government in the U.S. Constitution.
The truth is that all men having power ought to be mistrusted. James Madison
That's 17% fewer movies sent and received by Netflix every week. I would expect them to also want more public holidays in a year as well
They don't need to. From their current Terms and Conditions:
We reserve the right to process orders and otherwise allocate and ship DVDs among our members in any manner that we, in our sole and absolute discretion, determine. In addition, we will, in our sole and absolute discretion, determine the quantity of DVDs we purchase for any particular movie, their location within our distribution network and the level of staffing and number of shipments to be processed at each distribution center.
Every new Terms and Conditions, they're putting things in their agreement that allows them not to give you "unlimited" whatever ....
There's verbiage in it that limits your "unlimited" online viewing too now.
RIP America
July 4, 1776 - September 11, 2001
Abolish the postal service completely.
I don't think that's necessarily the way to go. However, as I understand it, Federal law is currently structured to give the USPS a monopoly on letter delivery. The Congress has the power to change the law authorizing non-government entities from directly competing with the USPS in that area. If it did so, then the USPS would have to compete on its own merits and it would either fail or succeed on those merits. Either way, we win.
It is being subsidized by it's competitors FedEx, UPS, and DHL. Why should anyone have to subsidize there own competition?
I agree in principle, but I think you've got your facts mixed up. While we all subsidize the USPS whenever we buy postage stamps and the like, and if Congress authorizes additional subsidies to prop it up, FedEx et al are all in the same boat, so I'm not sure what point you're trying to make here
Oh, that's right the dumbocrats and rethuglicans prefer a large, communist style government rather than a constitutional government.
Except that same Constitution to which you are referring gives Congress the explicit authority to establish a Postal service. I agree the way it currently exists is braindead, but they have the authority to do it. Oh, and I thought Dumbo was an elephant.
Remember, Priority Mail is just a marketing name for first class mail. There's no extra priority on it. It's just a marketing push to get people to send packages first class instead of 4th class.
Many USicans only have Saturdays free to run errands. Ending services on Saturday is a burden to them. Ending delivery on any other day of the week would be preferable.
[signature]
I find it interesting that the USPS is SOOO slow in innovative thinking.
First off, the bulk of their costs is in the cities. Why? Because so many of the routes are door to door. Simply have that changed to large postal boxes.
Likewise, I found out that the majority of postal routes are about 25 miles. This is the IDEAL situation for companies that want to offer electric cars. Create a CJ type vehicle that gets about 40-50 miles on a charge (radio, heater, ac).
It is really sad how little thought goes into solutions here.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
Yeah! That shows how hard those postal people work! What, working bankers hours with good salary, bennies and only high school diploma! Priceless!
I don't see how being free to ruin errands correlates to Saturday delivery.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
That remark in the summary was completely irrelevant to the story. The USPS is entirely self funding - it gets all its money from postage and none from taxes, including all the money spent to support sparse rural areas as mandated by law. Since postage is paid on every item Amazon ships they pay their fair share of it's operating costs just like everyone else who uses it.
Furthermore, I am paying taxes that pay for roads in my local state, Amazon is paying taxes that pay for roads where their warehouses are located, and gasoline taxes along the way are used to fund federal highway system. They are paying taxes on all the resources they use.
You can criticize me for not paying sales taxes I owe but tell me again why a company on the opposite side of the country should fund our local parks and schools?
The USPS has been periodically proposing to cancel Saturday delivery for years. It means they want something -- some subsidy, an increase in rates, whatever. In order to get what they want, they claim that as an alternative to getting it, they'll eliminate something highly visible and desired; Saturday delivery in this case. This ensures they'll get what they want.
This is called the Washington Monument strategy after the (possibly apocryphal) story of the National Park Service claiming that if it didn't get a certain budget increase it would have to cut costs by closing the Washington Monument.
I don't get it. If they are not satisfied with shipping company offer, they should just switch to another shipping company. Vote with wallet.
:wq
If they want to make USPS more profitable, eliminate all the discounts for bulk/junk mail and make them pay first class rates.
The post office is there to maintain good communication. The bigger your country, the more important it becomes.
70 years ago you could get a letter that says:
"Dear Son, Father is ill. Please come home as soon as you can make arrangement, Mother."
Those days are gone. Any critical information you need comes vie electronic device.
We no longer need Saturday service. Cut it. I would also cut Tues and Thurs, make smaller routes, and get postal workers out of the car and walking again. I would also have the carry a few stamps to sell. Mail 3 days a week is enough to get you everything you need. Emotionally Americans aren't ready for that. We have a lot of pride in the postal service, as it is the best in the world. Cutting Saturday won't change that.
At some point we will only need package delivery service. Maybe then they won't be needed. That's still years away.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
If you need Saturday free to run errands, then you should be IN FAVOR of ending Saturday mail delivery.
That way you can go run your errands, instead of sitting at the house waiting for the mailman to come.
The argument is common, and one that even Obama has poked fun at -- the Post Office loses money.
Let's take a step back in history folks -- and realize that the Post Office was not *designed* to make money. It was designed to facilitate the communication between long distances in a organized, logical way. It's a great reason why we have become the powerhouse that we have, because we knew we could rely on legal documents being delivered, because contracts could be signed and sent back, and the legal code behind them was always upheld.
Fast forward to today -- the need for the post office still exists in a large fashion. I am not arguing against or for Saturday delivery, but it's just a point of annoyance for me, so I am addressing it. What other service in the world can allow you to ship a letter from one remote corner of the country to another for mere cents? The ability for citizens to mail letters and rely on their ability to reach the destination is still hugely important, and one that *should* be subsidized by our tax dollars. Until the time we go fully electronic, the post office will have a need. That time is not now. You are still "served" in person, you still have to sign contracts by hand, and a multitude of other things that have not yet caught up to the pace of technology.
So when you think about what the post office has allowed the US to accomplish over the years of its service, take a moment to think that without it, our country would not be nearly as far along as it is, and we have a lot to thank for that. And to boot -- we still need it for the same reasons today.
The price is always right if someone else is paying.
I've long thought they could really save some money if they only delivered mail every other day. I'd be more than happy to only receive both home an business mail on odd or even days. With no Saturday delivery at all. And if you really need your mail every day get a PO box.
Is buying a Harley Davidson as your first motorcycle since you were 16 at age 49 a midlife crisis issue?
Q. Amazon, can you pay some taxes here? A. No way, we don't want to operate this way. Q. Amazon, what should be we do about the spending problem and the deficit? A. Cut your services. Q. Amazon, we are going to cut the services, happy? A. NOOOOOO!
The USPS is funded solely by the sale of postage, not tax dollars and thus has NO impact on the deficit. .
Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law - Aleister Crowley
Just because Amazon's customers have come to expect Saturday delivery doesn't mean the USPS is obligated to deliver on Saturday for Amazon in perpetuity. If the Sat delivery is cut and Amazon still wants to provide that service, then they will just have to suck it up and use UPS/FedEx/DHL/etc. Cost of doing business.
of-course, and the social security money is not used for anything else ever, it just sits there collecting the interest.
You can't handle the truth.
It's not just my faltering social life, it's everyone in my apartment complex at the same time. I have also lost packages (but never from amazon), and had several incidents of Netflix DVDs that never arrived or arrived open.
Yes I have complained. No, I have not seen any improvement. This has been going on since last year.
Seriously, change the law so Fedex and UPS can stick envelopes in your mailbox. I'm beyond giving a crap about unintended consequences, I just want to get my damn mail on time.
Same reason, except that I work for 7 days a week from dawn until dusk.
Not everything in the world is available as bits on a disk. I hope they just raise rates.
Yes, Jules, I have read it. Maybe my reading comprehension just sucks but it looks to me like, when written out longhand it says: The Congress shall have Power To establish Post Offices and Post Roads. That's a grant of power, not a requirement to exercise it.
I also think it's interesting that they have the power to collect taxes, duties, imposts and excises, but are only required to uniformly apply duties, imposts and excises. Apparently it's OK to tax Mr. Samuel L. Jackson into oblivion if you don't like his tone.
Really? I'd heard that the USPS has been periodically proposing to cancel Tuesday delivery for years, as it's their slowest day.
GLaDOS for President 2016! "Well here we are again. It's always such a pleasure." -- GLaDOS, 2011
Many USicans only have Saturdays free to run errands. Ending services on Saturday is a burden to them.
How does a lack of Saturday delivery interfere with running errands? I find your comment confusing.
For comparison, I offer the Canadian system. While delivery only occurs on Monday through Friday, postal services are often available on an extended schedule. Canada Post maintains a network of service counters (often in drug, convenience, and grocery stores) which provide parcel services, sell money orders, and supply copies of frequently-used government documents (passport applications, tax forms). These local outlets also act as pickup points for parcels which are too large for home delivery (the stuff that didn't fit in your mailbox while you were out).
Many of these counters have extended weeknight hours (beyond typical nine-to-five business hours) and offer Saturday hours; some are even open on Sunday afternoons. (The retailers hosting the counters have probably realized that extended postal hours can attract customers.) In other words, Canadian Saturday-errand-runners have no trouble obtaining postal services, even in the absence of Saturday delivery.
Letters and smaller parcels can, of course, be sent at any time simply by dropping in a post box.
~Idarubicin
You seem to be under a misunderstanding of how Social Security works. It has always been pay-as-you-go, namely current workers pay for current retired. People who retired just as the original system went into place paid nothing for their benefits.
But pay-as-you-go doesn't handle so well a population bubble reaching retirement age compounded by increasing longevity.
Privatizing SS would not simply be a matter of shifting resources away from government control into private control. It also would shift from pay-as-you-go, compounding the problem for the pay-as-you-go system.
I don't know why people wish to believe that their tax dollars are being saved away somewhere for use when they retire. It has never been that way. That's simply not how the system works.
I hate to break this to you, wingnut, but the USPS is specifically chartered by the Constiution. You might want to read it some time before you go parroting Rush Oxycontin.
Arrticle 1, Section 8:
Plus, the post office is self-supporting; your statement that FedEx is subsidizing it is just plain incorrect.
Free Martian Whores!
But why don't they just raise prices on mail? The amount of junk mail I get seems to indicate that the cost of mailing things to me is too low. I'd much rather get less mail, more reliably.
Actually they are one of the most innovative organizations, and the other delivery services adopt what the USPS does to a lesser degree.
See this PDF: Postal Electric Vehicles
In December 1899, a letter carrier tested a Winton electric automobile for mail collection in Cleveland, Ohio. He collected mail from 126 boxes along a 22-mile route in two hours and 26 minutes, during a snowstorm. With a horse and wagon, it usually took six hours.
In 1901 gas were more useful.
In 1911, they used electric in New York.
As parcel post began and packages were heavier, more electric vehicles were needed.
However by 1917 nearly all commercial vehicles made in the US were gasoline powered.
I'm guessing you don't remember the 1960s, when they had some electric "mailsters".
Then again in the early 1970s, the Cupertino post office switched their entire fleet to electric until 1983.
I'll leave it to you to read the rest, as there's been a bunch of testing since then too, your preposterous criticism notwithstanding.
However, getting back to the topic at large, eliminating Saturday delivery reduces their relevance, as a primary reason to choose them for delivery IS Saturday. If they get rid of that advantage, the only reason to use them is reliability, and they'll lose even more business to competitors.
I actually do remember the 60's quite well. However, where I grew up, there were no mailsters. The issue is that they WERE innovative. This current round (well since 2000) has been a joke. They simply do not take care of matters. Killing sat. WILL kill them. Instead, they need to switch back to electrics and lower their labor costs.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
Did you miss the first day of economics? There's always downward pressure on prices. Any increased costs may be passed on to the consumer, but not always. The business that finds ways to absorb the tax increase without passing it on is the one that will probably sell more product.
But since a quarter of large corporations - $50m in sales or $250m in assets - don't pay any income taxes at all due to loopholes and offshore sheltering schemes, you're right: if they ever started to pay taxes, prices might go up.
And if corporations had to pay taxes for the infrastructure that enables them to be in business, I don't think that would be unfair. And if a business can't afford the burden of the infrastructure, guess what: they shouldn't be in business unless they serve to lower costs of vital services for the rest of the economy. And even then, since they exist entirely at the grace of tax payers, they should have no right to any amount of privacy.
but are only required to uniformly apply duties, imposts and excises. Apparently it's OK to tax Mr. Samuel L. Jackson into oblivion if you don't like his tone.
Not originally: "direct Taxes shall be apportioned among the several States which may be included within this Union, according to their respective Numbers, which shall be determined by adding to the whole Number of free Persons, including those bound to Service for a Term of Years, and excluding Indians not taxed, three fifths of all other Persons."
Of course, the 16th Amendment got rid of the apportionment requirement.
in 2008. From 2006 to 2008, his salary increased 40%. This despite the post office's constant budget woes, and dire economic warnings causing a freeze in postal employee pay. Life is good at the top!
It's about time that people realize that the Postal Service monopoly on the delivery of mail to mailboxes is a crime.
Amazon has the resources to start its own delivery service. Or to partner with someone like FedEx to get it done.
It would expand both of them, and kill the famously inefficient USPS system.
I sit here and read most of these responses, and wonder why this is a big deal. There are two things that come to mind. 1) Saturday delivery does nothing but add another day to get something in the mail. If it was a priority, it could have been delivered (via higher rate) on a previous day. If you need it on Saturday, pay for it to be delivered on that day. What you are complaining about is just you don't want to pay more for a service that typically has been provided for the cheap. 2) Post Office used to mean letters. In the last couple decades, it became packages, boxes of Christmas presents, books, DVDs from Amazon, etc. Let the companies that have infrastructure for that, handle that. There is a UPS and FEDex for large boxes. Now if you limit what can be sent, then you don't have to worry about trucks being full, and packages overflowing boxes, etc. Limit it to things that can fit in to a defined, mailbox. If they don't have to get out of the truck or go to the door, get rid of it. Then you have an efficient system and you have now shifted the burden to other companies and changed the definition of Post. Simple.
IMHO, Wednesdays suck. It IS "hump" day, but that only counts at quitting time. I don't like mail on Wednesdays.
I vote: Keep Saturday and turf Wednesday.
That way the postie foot patrols have work weeks that average only 2.5 days. Who could possibly object?
Why does suddenly not getting mail on Saturday make sense at all? What about the people who are too busy to send OUT mail and USPS packages except on Saturday? Are they going to close the post offices entirely for the weekend?
For that matter, why does less than one tenth of one percent of online stores let you select the UPS/FedEx Saturday delivery option? I almost want to say I'd prefer that to USPS Saturday delivery, but really, anything I have coming USPS is often international and taking a god-long time to arrive anyway, so I kind of like having that extra day each week that it can show up... :(
Friend: "The NIC is misconfigured..." Me: "No prob, I'll just telnet in and fix it." *Silence*
Making the two days we don't deliver in a row is RIDICULOUS. Yes, it simplifies the postal carriers time off, but they already have ways of dealing with that. Wednesday/Sunday off gives a MUCH better service than Saturday/Sunday. SS off means that a one day delivery sometimes take 3 days, triple the time, as opposed to a WS off schedule which only turns 1 dya into 2 days. This is a real difference.
Or at the very least make it TWTFS.
Saturday delivery lets people that work go to the post office on their day off. This can be very very important if you work.
excitingthingstodo.blogspot.com
My guess is that original poster assumes that a lack of Saturday delivery also implies that post offices will be closed on Saturdays. Thus it would be impossible to pick up packages at the post office on a Saturday. Since many people only have the weekend off, they would be unable to pick up packages, thus anything requiring a signature would be very difficult to collect.
Rhapsody in Numbers
The USPS is running a huge deficit and dropping Saturday delivery does not fix the problem.
The problem is falling revenue and too many employees.
Dave Barnes 9 breweries within walking distance of my house
From an average joe point of view, I think I'd rather have no mail delivered on a mid-week day like Wednesday versus Saturday. This would avoid having two consecutive days of no mail. But I guess businesses wouldn't like to receive no mail on a business day.
You really have no clue, do you?
There is a lot of innovation done at the USPS. It's all in the tech you never see. If they didn't innovate they could not do the volume of mail they currently deal with.
The bulk of their costs are rural areas, actually.
Postal service has natural gas and electric cars. They have been at it for years.
"It is really sad how little thought goes into solutions here."
yes, yes it is.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Have the USPS skip deliveries on one weekday. Monday would be my preference.
From what I've seen, many businesses use private postal delivery services anyway. These pick up the clients' mail from PO boxes and drop off outgoing mail. So the post office would only have to keep the office open.
Residential customers are more likely to miss Saturday delivery anyway (when they're home) than a weekday, when it just sits in the mailbox until people get home from work. Critical outgoing mail could still be handled at the post office.
In the past, Amazon has argued that it should not have to help support public services in states in which it has no physical presence.
I don't know what this has to do with anything. The USPS is a federal organization. It has nothing to do with revenue attached to individual states.
Have gnu, will travel.
Yes, magic electrics, that will solve everything because they are free to operate and certainly don't require massive redesign of there parking structure to deliver all the power to charge the vehicles.
Get rid of Saturday. It will not 'kill them'
You are a complete moron to think the USPS doesn't run these numbers to use the most cost effective methods do carry out the congressionally mandated task.
half a billion pieces of mail proceed every day, but clearly they don't know what they are doing.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
I am glad amazon is pushing for this I really do not want Saturday mail to go away.
http://www.thetechnologygeek.org
Yeah similar here in Australia (well, at least in my State).
Australia Post only delivers Monday-Friday as well, but most things you can do at a post office you can also do at a newsagent (North America, as I have discovered, does not really have any equivalent to the stores we call 'newsagents' in Australia/NZ/UK - essentially a place you go to buy newspapers, cards, magazines, stationery etc. - these things are generally not in supermarkets unlike the US).
And newsagents are a) open 7 days a week; and b) everywhere (as in, every second street corner in urban areas). So it's not really a big deal that the post office itself is closed. About the only reason to go to a real post office these days is if you want to set up a PO Box, or get a passport etc.
How about a mid-week cut? I'd rather not receive mail on a Wednesday than on a Saturday, especially for my Netflix. Just due to time constraints, we watch more movies on the weekends. The fewer movies that Netflix is able to send, the more likely I am to get the movies from other places, possibly canceling my Netflix subscription if they're unable to meet our needs.
The US Post Office is fundamentally ill functioning and needs to be torn down from the inside out.
The Post Office is not a corporation. It has no functional reason to "grow" each year like a for-profit corporation. Stagnation in the growth of revenue or business at the USPO has no negative effects on the organization, its customers or the government.
The USPO doesn't "get" that. They are continually seeking ways to grow revenue. They advertise their services just like a for-profit corporation. They act like they need to grow or die.
One major side effect of this mentality is that the Postal Service tries to show how necessary it is by increasing the number of mail pieces it handles. With the advent of the Internet the number of mail pieces started to drop as people elected to receive documents via email instead of as physical mail. The USPO saw their business decline. Instead of just working with that and scaling back operations, they decided to court more direct marketing mail. Of course to do this, they had to lower the price of the mailings to make it attractive to marketers, so the mass-mailers are subsidized by the users of first class and express mail services. Some argue the other way around, but they are wrong. If first class mail where to go away (due to customer's going elsewhere) the discounted direct-mail service could not survive on its own.
One of the ways that the USPO gets mass marketers to use reduced rate bulk mail is by refusing to certify many new housing communities as urban delivery routes. See, if a community is on an urban route the sender must purchase, assemble and maintain a mailing list. Each address on an urban route must be unique on each mailing piece. By designating a community as a rural route the rules change and a simple address such as "ECR/RCW" is all the address you need as a mail marketer.
If the Postal Service were to get back to its roots, stop courting junk-mailers, and simply exist and the government agency for allowing citizens to communicate with each other, the size would be much smaller, the costs lower and all this non-sense about no Saturday delivery would end.
Article X: The powers not delegated... by the Constitution...are reserved...to the people
Dunno why the idiot dragged in the state level commentary wrt sales taxes and other things, which I happen to completely agree with as this case revolve around a FEDERAL services, i.e. NOT a local state service. There's a very distinct difference here in areas of authority.
Amazon does contribute to that service as do we all when we pay federal taxes and/or use USPS to mail letters and packages.
This just tells me that USPS employees are wimps ;)
Seriously, at one point, after getting used to ordering games and movies from Amazon and finding the DVD case in an envelope that just about fit through the mailbox slot, I order IIRC City Of Villains. The game was packed in one of those big cardboard boxes, instead of the DVD cases we've got for the last half a decade. It was easily twice as thick as the mailbox slot. The German post employee had obviously not been deterred by that, and had managed to actually shove the damned thing half-way through that narrow slot.
I had gained proper appreciation for the awesomeness of said employee while trying to get it out. It was so firmly jammed in the slot, that it wouldn't go either forward or back at all, no matter how hard I pulled or shoved. I had to tear the box apart, partially working through the slot at that, and retrieve its contents piece-wise. It wasn't just that the cardboard box was thicker than the slot, but the sum of what was inside, you know, manual and CDs and all, was actually thicker on the whole than the slot.
(And while I'm at being awed by employees, having to work through that narrow slot also gave me a new perspective and a deep respect for gynecologists;))
I'm thinking it must have been the kind of guy who, when asked to fit various geometric figures through various shaped holes in kindergarten, thought it was a test of strength.
A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.
Meanwhile, most of us in the world outside the US have never had Saturday postal delivery. Where I grew up in the Channel Islands, we got it over the Christmas period, but that was it. And here in Australia, you usually won't even get a courier delivery on a Saturday. I guess it's the unions' way of telling us to take time to sniff the roses.
Thank you for setting the record straight. I have been trying to come up with a non-troll response to this "lower taxes and we ain't doing shit for nobody! It's in the Constitution" rhetoric, but sometimes you just have to bring the facts.
Is Amazon willing to foot the bill of keeping those deliveries going?
Pay attention to this phrase, you will here a lot of organizations who preach for reduced government involvement hypocritically ask for this:
"Socializing costs, Privatizing Benefits"
In other words, we the tax payers use our money to help a business run as it is and when they reap the benefits, they keep the benefits.
But in this case:
'If the five-day delivery proposal is not withdrawn,' he added, 'we ask that Congress ensure that Saturday delivery be maintained.'
Happy?
Why not deliver on Saturdays and halt deliveries on Mondays and Thursdays? After all Mondays are frequently postal holidays already and we could have two days of non delivery. Saturday is another issue. Many working people are at home on Saturdays to sign for mail and packages and they are not at home during the week.
But behind all of this is the simple fact that our economy is crushed. In a sense we have both inflation and deflation at the same time. For example if we inflation adjust wages most workers have not made a real gin since 1970. But look at the price of products and the degree to which it has inflated. The real deal is that we have a progressive income tax system and sales taxes also swell as product prices rise. So when the apparent wage of a worker rises he forks over more in income taxes. Then when a coke costs him over one dollar whereas he used to buy a coke for five cents the sales taxes collected are much higher as well. We really should have laws that auto shrink the income tax if inflation exists so that the government has a great reason to hold down prices. In the current mess the government can only be pleased as prices rise.
Likewise, I found out that the majority of postal routes are about 25 miles. This is the IDEAL situation for companies that want to offer electric cars. Create a CJ type vehicle that gets about 40-50 miles on a charge (radio, heater, ac).
First of all, the USPS already runs tons of alternate-fuel vehicles.
Secondly, the cost of gas is minuscule compared to the cost of labor. The budget problem is from labor costs, so unless those cars drive themselves and have long bendy robot arms that can reach mailboxes, your alternate fuel ideas are useless for solving the current problem.
It is really sad how little thought goes into solutions here.
You shouldn't type stuff like this. It's so hard to resist making the obvious cheap-shot...
Comment of the year
Live in Ontario?
In BC they allowed private liquor stores. In terms of privatization it's probably one of the few moves I've agreed with. The gov't stores are closed on Sundays, but the private ones are still open (though often close earlier).
How can Amazon customers expect Saturday delivery when they can't even know which of USPS/FedEx/UPS will be handling their package?
Canada has something like "newsagents" in malls (small stores that generally only sell newspapers, magazines, tobacco, and soda pop). I haven't really seen them elsewhere, though.
*Facepalm*, my apologies, I was presuming young ignorance, not older stubbornness.
Fully half of the article linked previously is 1990s and on. Do I really need to copy/paste the entire thing? Sorry, so not going to happen.
Ford electrics, Jeep electrics, Solectria CitiVans, then after 2000, Daimler-Chrysler electrics, Ford Ranger electrics, heck even multiple versions of electric scooters from Segways to three wheeled versions with trailers.
"Although electric vehicles represented only a small fraction of the Postal Service’s delivery fleet in 2008, together with other types of alternative-fuel vehicles they constituted nearly 20 percent of its 220,000 vehicles... ...representing the largest civilian fleet of alternative fuel-capable vehicles in the world"
My condolences your assumption is inaccurate.
perhaps if we cut down the welfarish jobs program that is the military-industrial complex, we could spend the money elsewhere. we do not need bases all over the place, and we don't need all of these arms manufacturers sucking on the government teet. seriously, we could cut it in half, and still be spending fathoms more than most other countries. too bad it would be political suicide.
...
I say just reduce the days and increase the rate of transfer by implementing a pressurized tube transfer system like on futurama. that would solve the delivery time and the cost.
RIP TRICERATOPS, YOU NEVER EXISTED
Alternative fuel is normally natural gas and/or ethanol. If you look at the expense of these, you will find that their prices are tied to gasoline. Gas/diesel go up, and so do the alternative fuel. OTH, electricity has an indirect relationship. More importantly, the USPS can buy the energy at night so that the cost per mile is a fraction of what gas is (see tesla's website). Heck, even at .25 kw/hr, it is still much cheaper than gas.
In addition, you will missed the fact that I was addressing the issue with postal services high labor costs. In particular, a large issue according to a friend of mine that delivers in Ft. Collins, Co. is that doing door-to-door represents a VERY high cost. Therefor, by dropping the door-to-door they save a LOAD of money. It will not be the roughly 1/10 - 1/12 that cutting sat would save (and losing sat does not cut 1/6 of their costs as expected since they already have so many fixed expenses), but it would be sizable. My condeolences on your lack of having thought about this.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
I know where this leads, because I have seen it. In Australia, we used to have a great postal system. Reliable, cost effective and with deliveries six days a week.
Then they canceled Saturday deliveries. They removed many post collection boxes. More than half of the mail addressed to me started to never arrive. Sending a letter between major cities (say Sydney and Melbourne) typically took a week or two, should it ever arrive at all.
Then I moved to Japan. People here thought I was strange because I would hand deliver documents rather than drop them in the post. You see, I'd been trained by many years of appalling service to *never* trust the postal service. It took me years to get over this, and start using the post again as a matter of course.
The postal system in Japan is a great model. Deliveries 7 days a week, often twice a day. If a package needs signing for and I'm not home, I can call up and make an appointment for them to come back, and they'll always show up on time. The post office just down the road is open 24/7, all year and there are post collection boxes everywhere. Letters posted in the morning often arrive the *same* day.
Amusingly, when I send tracked mail from Japan to major Australian cities, the mail usually gets to Australia in one day and then actually gets delivered about one to two weeks later. This, by the way, is what Australia Post calls "express" service. I guess they think "express" means delivered... eventually.
Here's the deal. When the post office wants to cut just basic one service to "save money", it is really the top of a slippery slope. They will keep cutting just one small thing after another, over the course of many years, until the postal system is only good for junk mail. Society then pays the cost both in terms of propping up a completely useless postal system *and* paying private companies to do the post office's job.
It would be a shame if the USA made the same mistake as Australia.
Easy. Stop carrying bulk mail. Raise envelope postal rates to $2 per message. I'll easily pay $50/year additional to not get junk bulk mail.
But basically... they're screwed. We shouldn't be sending anything that can fit in an envelope anymore. Send it as a PDF or email instead. Then you could simply restrict deliveries to individual recipients instead of long routes. Turn USPS into UPS.
I will never live for sake of another man, nor ask another man to live for mine.
Home mail delivery could be dropped on Tuesday and Thursday. Maintain Saturday, which allow you to get that Netflix fix for the weekend. Home service to 4 days a week shouldn't present an issue. Business and PO Box delivery can be maintained on a 6 day schedule. This gets rid of the home route delivery twice a week. If you really need that daily mail fix, rent a PO box or a private mailbox at a business.
I used to travel, frequently without much notice and have had a PO box for years. I check it 3 or 4 times a month. I know when bills come in, although that's generally internet based now. Any mail that comes to the house can be assumed to be junk mail, aside from Netflix. Does paper mail have time based significance any more?
My local post office (Yakima, WA) is only open Monday through Friday, 0800-1730. Where US post offices are open on Saturday, they're almost never open late enough that you can actually pick up a package on Saturday after an attempted delivery on the same day. I'd go for weekday delivery only in exchange for the post offices being open a minimum of twelve hours a day, seven days a week.
I mail all my stuff to my office. Failing that I redirect it to the closest Post Office and collect it there....
Thanks! I appreciate your condolences, albeit not for my choice to limit the extent of our sidetrack... ;-)
They've delivered mail on Saturday for decades. Why can't they do it now?
Coder's Stone: The programming language quick ref for iPad
| In the past, Amazon has argued that it should not have to help support public services in states in which it has no physical presence.
I'm disappointed in the !nothypocrit tag and this piece of text in the story.
Amazon pays postage, just like everyone else who sends stuff thru the USPS, at the same public rates as everyone else. They *are* paying for this particular public service.
It seems to me that the editor is trying to spin the story, either for his own biases, or just to generate argument.
It doesn't work that way in the United States. The post office opens after I'm in my cubicle for the day, and I'm not at another one until after they're closed at 5:30 PM on weekdays. The extended weekday hours you mentioned don't exist. The only thing you can do when the post office is closed is drop something in a mailbox or, if you have a PO box, go and get your stuff out with your PO box key. Maybe buy stamps from an automated machine.
I'd actually be plenty happy for mail not to move on Saturday if there was some better extended-hour availability for other services. I'd literally have to take vacation time to pick up a missed package at the post office if they weren't open on Saturdays.
Stop using USPS. FedEx and UPS deliver on Saturday. That's probably not what USPS wants to hear though....