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USPS Ending Overnight First-Class Letter Service
New submitter cstacy writes "The United States Postal Service will be closing half of its processing centers this spring. Currently, 42% of first-class mail is delivered the following day for nearby residential and business customers. But that overnight mail will be a thing of the past, with delivery guaranteed only for 2-3 days. About 51% will be delivered in two days. Periodicals may take up to nine days. (Additional delays beyond this may come into play when Congress also authorizes USPS to close operations for some days each week.)"
Doubtful. Chances are pretty good Netflix and Gamefly will turn to UPS and Fedex
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204012004577072323400561792.html
Let the free market succeed where the USPS only exists by monopoly.
They're going to encourage people to use their services by dramatically reducing the service quality they offer.
The sad thing is to hear people bitch about the raising cost of a First Class letter - sent *ANYWHERE* for how much? 50 cents or so? Oh yeah, that's WAY out of line...
People, the US Mail is a *service* to the public, there's no way it can every pay for itself and still move mail at the current rates. We fund this *service* with tax money, *not* postage.
If you want news from today, you have to come back tomorrow.
What people are still reading paper books ?
Silly man, of course people still send non electronic messages.
Good old fashoined paper letters are PRIVATE.
e-mail is not private, and good luck getting your contacts to use pgp or s-mime.
e-mail is best effort, paper mail on the other hand is guaranteed delivery (and for registered mail it leaves a paper trail).
e-mail is so impersonal, hand written letters on the other hand are much more personal.
Congresspeople don't give a fuck about e-mail petitions, they hear on the other hand the power of hand written letters.
Etc....
TV didn't kill the radio, Internet didn't kill the radio; why do you think that email will kill paper letters ?
Of course if all you write is in sms-style then yes using paper is a waste of resources.
The USPS would be doing ok financially if they didn't have to fund medical coverage for employees who aren't even born yet. They have to fund 75 years of retiree health care benefits, $59 billion, in 10 years after the passage of the Postal Accountability and Enhancement Act of 2006. Who else has to do anything even close to that?
I really wish Congress, and the Post Master General for that matter, would stop pretending that the USPS is just another business and should be operated as such. It's not! Mail has been a public service almost since this country was founded and the idea goes back even further in time in some other countries.
Given what the USPS does, it cannot operate like a normal business and it shouldn't have to. Considering how much money they are losing each year, it's clear they need to change something, and I wouldn't mind paying a bit more for first class postage, but this idea that the USPS needs to break even needs to stop soon before Congress completely ruins the postal service.
Packages aside, you simply can't send everything through email. I still get plenty of real non-junk mail all the time, from bank notices to insurance EOBs. This is far more secure than email could ever hope to be. Yes, it would be nice if everybody encrypted their email (especially banks), but until that happens, regular mail is a lot more secure. We actually have laws against this sort of thing and most people even take them seriously. There is little, if anything, to prevent electronic eavesdropping.
I certainly don't want to see the end of the traditional post office in my lifetime, but at the rate Congress is going, who knows. And while I would expect the Post Master General to be fighting the good fight *for* the USPS, every time I hear him talk it seems like he's gung ho to implement whatever idea Congress throws his way.
The USPS is a public service, not a business...
Elrond, Duke of URL
"This is the most fun I've had without being drenched in the blood of my enemies!"-Sam&Max
UPS/Fedex? Ridiculous!
The USPS is incredibly cheap compared to the commercial alternatives. The USPS goes to EVERY mailbox each day (6 days a week). Nearly everyone gets mail every day and even if there is none to deliver there might be some to pick up. This is particularly important outside of big cities. There are MILLIONS of people living outside UPS/Fedex delivery zones.
What are you going to do for the farmers and ranchers who live 50 miles away from the nearest FedEx drop box? Remeber they don't get internet out there either. So you are going to let them swing? Really? Nothing for the people growing your food? It is not wise to SHIT on the people who feed you.
Government operations like the post office is just one of the many "costs of doing business" in a large society. Change the funding model so that the postal service can raise its rates and fire those that need firing and you'll see that it can work.
People are still sending around non-electronic messages?
This is a really tired expression. We didn't stop using the axe when the chainsaw came along, and we didn't stop using the broom when the vacuum came along, and we didn't stop using land line phones when cell phones came along. Most long lived legacy technologies and services survive for a good reason. They don't survive in great numbers mind you, and are used in very specialized situations, but they survive nonetheless. It should come as no more of a surprise to you that some people send letters any more than it should surprise you that some guys still cut wood with a metal blade attached to a wooden handle.
Life is hard, and the world is cruel
The USPS exists by monopoly to preserve service to poor areas.
We decided that mail service was such an important part of our national infrastructure that we mandated it even in the poor areas.
The monopoly was a QPQ that allowed the USPS to serve unprofitable areas with the support of income from high profit areas.
Otherwise a commercial mail service would hog the high spots to itself and leave rural areas out in the cold.
Nice fairy tale.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Letter_Mail_Company
Seems more like an expression of continued government dependency and credibility.
The USPS would be doing fine financially if the gov't didn't mandate that the USPS is profitable. It's a red herring. Our military isn't (officially) profitable. Our schools aren't profitable. Our infrastructure isn't profitable. Our police and fire aren't profitable. The USPS exists to provide a basic level of delivery service to ALL Americans. If the USPS goes away, it'll be really, really difficult to live anywhere other than in cities and suburbs.
I don't respond to AC's.
Not without the recipient knowing and without comitting a crime.
Other than that, your nerdy little ass is right.
Force the "free market" to completely fund the pensions of workers that haven't even been born yet and then we'll talk about how the USPS has "failed".
Would that stop the FBI or CIA if they were really interested in what you were communicating? I'd almost take it for granted that they'd have the infrastructure in place down at the central post office to intercept letters. They probably have some fancy-fangled-ass-shit to pop open and reseal an envelope without showing signs of tampering, too.
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
They'd do it how they (UPS/FedEx) started. They'd cherry pick routes and pricing to just compete on the most profitable locations. People in NY sending stuff to Boston would probably see an improvement. Someone in rural Georgia sending a letter to rural MT (or anyone sending or receiving anything Alaska, HI, or APO) is much better off with USPS. The country is better off with USPS.
Learn to love Alaska
Unless you use a fairly paranoid design(eg. an envelope chemically treated so that it will freak out in some obvious way if the adhesive is tampered with, or a residue-free volatile fluid is used to render the paper temporarily transparent) opening a letter isn't rocket surgery. If the feds are on your back, you probably have a problem. If somebody sends you cash, that particular envelope may just 'get shredded in a mechanical malfunction' and never arrive.
However, tampering with letters would be a pretty ugly process to scale up(machines would be unlikely to be able to do it delicately enough, and 20,000 human tamperers are going to talk...) Tampering with packets requires actual geek skills; but once you have the capability, doing it to 100 million people differs from doing it to 100 only in how large a check you need to cut your vendor...
Agreed... but then we live in the USA, where people are ignorant and uncaring of others as long as they can save a dime.
Oh, you want running water way out there? I dont want to pay for it even though you help pay for my schools, my roads, my police, and my firefighters.
Good old fashoined paper letters are PRIVATE. e-mail is not private, and good luck getting your contacts to use pgp or s-mime.
43% of identity theft occurs from physical paperwork. 11% from online. Personally, I don't trust any security mechanism that can be defeated by someone walking by, opening your unlocked mailbox, and holding the envelope to the sun. E-mail can be quite private, but you're correct that most people don't require that level of privacy and subsequently don't bother. Let's see you convince your contacts to use PGP on snail mail...
e-mail is best effort, paper mail on the other hand is guaranteed delivery (and for registered mail it leaves a paper trail).
USPS loses about 3-5% of mail, per an unofficial source. They collect but do not publish these statistics themselves. E-mail seems more reliable that that, albeit there are tons of factors that go into it. At least you're much more likely to get a "message undeliverable" reply with e-mail.
e-mail is so impersonal, hand written letters on the other hand are much more personal. Congresspeople don't give a fuck about e-mail petitions, they hear on the other hand the power of hand written letters.
It's a social convention, there's no real difference between the two, beyond the cost of the stamp and slower transit. As for congressmen, I find your assertion that they take either seriously to be quite amusing.
Shoving unix boxes and monitors was my particular favorite act of revenge in the early '90s when I worked at UPS.
Kicking the cat may feel good but it's not revenge, it's frustration.
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
Can we vote for Slashdot Hall of Fame entries? If there is a "tl;dr" category or an "Overt Asperger Perseveration/Rumination", I would like to nominate the parent.
Thank you.
They won't use UPS if they ever want to see their discs again.
That is absolute bullshit. Mods please mark that post as troll and this one as well if need be. In my adult life (25 to 30 years) I have only had a couple problems with UPS which were always resolved by the shipping party.
I have never experienced a serious USPS problems either for that matter. The current USPS financial problem is a purely political problem that could be resolved with a bill that would change USPS money management back policy to roughly their 1990s rules and regulations.
So, while firex726 is hauled away for daring to think in a free country (try typing that with a straight face) I, as a communist living in a communist country (IE everywhere NOT America) can confirm this.
There are plenty of essential services that our society depends on but that don't always make economic sense. A starbucks is a easy. it should only continue to exist where it makes economic sense. It is not going to have enough business to sustain itself in a one horse town. (Horses don't drink coffee for the agriculturally challenged) But since nobody actually NEEDS a coffee shop (no, you really don't no matter how much you need caffeine to function) this is alright. You can live your entire life quiet happily without a starbucks or a McD near you.
But try the same thing without say, water and sewage services. Electricity or gas. Or even more basic, a road system. Roads to most people just seem to be there but they are costly to put down and maintain and often of no direct economic value. It is a rare farm that can afford to pay for a road a system to deliver its produce to all its customers. Without the road it cannot deliver but it would be a very costly bit of lettuce if the farm itself had to pay for it. Me? The customer pay for it? I don't NEED that farm road or even the countless kilometers (remember, communist) of highway. I live in a small area and pay for goods to be delivered to me. They can pay the transport costs from that.
This is why private roads are rare AND deliver ON private roads is NOT a sure thing. If you own a farm and don't keep your private road in a satisfactory state of repair you might be highly surprised to learn that deliveries are to the edge of your land, not the door. I am not going to risk MY truck on YOUR pot filled hole. To some people, getting the mail is a bit a more then firing up Gmail.
Essential services are a part of the infrastructure that an entire society is build upon. This is nothing new. It doesn't even have to be costly. Once the USPS was a big source of income for the US government. But decades of mis management in order to reduce government by republicans have made a profitable service that everyone needs a byword for money loosing inefficiency. And the result? We have been steadily going back on the quality of a service once known for its reliability.
But who still sends mail? Bill collectors? In a country in debt, that is the only remaining growth industry. The idea that you can send a letter and have it delivered anywhere in the country the next day is so ingrained that we don't think of it anymore. Electricity and water are the same and when they are turned off for a short time we suddenly notice how depended we are on it (quick for how many flushes of your shit do you have water stored). But they are only cut for short times or during unplanned outages where everyone is working as fast as possible to get it back up. NOBODY could seriously suggest that electricity will only be delivered part time (except in the glorious free market of California, high tech area of the world, think about that if you can).
Once the mail service has been gutted (and it is already way to late) turning it back on is impossible. The infrastructure is gone and no matter how much it is needed, the finances just won't be there to restart it. Oh, the people will adjust but it will be one more slide into 2nd world status for the US. Roads broken up, bridges falling apart, electricity unreliable as in 2nd world nations. Pretty soon, this will be used as an excuse for entire companies to relocate to areas with better infrastructure. Oh wait, the companies already did move since lack of social services and high living costs put the pressure of paying for it on individual wages and made the US worker far to expensive. Here is a hint, if the only way for a worker to come to your factory is by car, then his salary must be able to pay for said car. A cyclist can afford to demand a lower wage. Simple economics no republican will ever understand. Same with health
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
You are aware that volunteer fire services are a perfect example of socialism? They may not pay a wage but the equipment is payed for by the people FOR the people. And it is fairly typical that everyone in the area gives the volunteers leeway to do their service. Or do you think non-volunteers can suddenly drop their job and rush out to put out a fire? No? Can't think of any employment contract that has this in it. Yet volunteer fire fighters do it all the time and are NOT fired (get it , fired, fire-fighter, that pun is smoking hot!, Get it, smoking hot? Fire? I am on FIRE today! What do you mean, good?)
So what is your argument? Things that the whole society needs even if an individual might never need it, need to supported by the whole off society?
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
UPS drivers touch the package most likely once... when they actually deliver it. The drivers' trucks are packed for them. (UPS Driver is actually a decent paying, highly coveted position.)
The Admin and the Engineer
Ins't anecdotal evidence fun! By contrast I live far away from my family and we send each other packages via USPS all the time. Our experience has been helpful courteous counter employees, timely intact deliver of packages and letters to our door steps, and all at a lower cost than the alternatives.
Repeal the 17th Amendment TODAY! Also Please Read http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/right-to-read.html
I have received a single piece of mail in the past 13 years which was addressed to me other than a bill.
That's incredible, though I doubt it's true. What about a new credit/debit card? The first bank statement, before you ask for electronic statements? The annual statement for an account you can't be bothered to enable electronic banking for? A letter from the local government? Junk mail? An annual newsletter from a society, university or political pressure group you belong to?
And no personal mail? No birthday cards from a relative, postcards from your parents or friends who are on holiday? No thank-you letters from anyone, or wedding (or funeral) invitations?
How do they know when they will deliver it to your home?
answer they don't.
fact is residential deliveries are extremely variable in their timing depending on how large the area is and how many packages are in it.
businesses get reliable delivery times because the routes generally have so many packages going to each place every day.
i thought once I was found, but it was only a dream.
How is the fact that you send packages by USPS (United States Postal Service) with nothing but good things to say about your in contrast with their comments about negative experience sending things UPS (United Parcel Service)?
The truth is that all men having power ought to be mistrusted. James Madison
A private service comes in and competes only for the simple jobs- they refuse service to anywhere tricky. As all their deliveries are simple, they can massively undercut the national service on these jobs, depriving the service of it's main revenue stream.
You just described the Wal-Mart business model. They don't really compete with flower shops, pharmacies, craft stores, toy stores, etc. They don't offer the same depth of choice or quality or service. But they siphon off enough of their customers--the ones buying the common, cheap, bulk basics, and requiring little service--to turn them unprofitable.
I've said the same thing many times. There isn't a single private business that would be able to survive if it was hamstrung by the same rules and regulations as the Postal Service. They have to fund 75 years of health care and pensions, can't layoff any employees, can't cut salaries or benefits, and can't raise rates without Congressional approval and a rise in the cost of living index (which hasn't happened in 3 years). Any other business would crumble in a heartbeat. The fact the USPS has managed to survive at all is simply amazing and a testament as to how well it really is run. But yeah, you don't ever hear about this stuff on Fox "News", do ya?
Not all the case in the US of something that will beceome a necessity as society gets larger and more spread out -- its something that's always been necessary, in part because of how large and spread out society was, and was recognized as such by the founders. For quite some time the political Right has advanced the idea that "government should be run like a business", and one of their big "successes" there has been the semi-privatization of the USPS into an entity that is, rather than operated like a public service, operated like a self-supporting business. The objective has always been to kill the USPS, and, even though it took a long time, they've finally reached the point where they've almost been successful.
(Perhaps ironically, the USPS's main opponents are the same people that talk about limiting government to performing its constitutional roles -- and operating a postal service and postal roads is one of those constitutional roles.)
Really? Somehow I'm betting that non-free-market unions and a socialisticly-derived sense of entitlement have more to do with this behavior than "a free market competitive economy". I realize that my assertion is just as nakedly unsupported as yours, but I figured I needed to weigh in on the possibility that this got modded up as "Insightful" instead of "Informative".