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US Postal Service Discontinuing Saturday Mail Delivery
Hugh Pickens writes "The Postal Service has been losing billions of dollars each year as Americans increasingly rely on online communications that drive down mail volumes. Now, Reuters reports that the Postal Service plans to drop Saturday delivery of first-class mail by August, saving $2 billion per year. 'The Postal Service is advancing an important new approach to delivery that reflects the strong growth of our package business and responds to the financial realities resulting from America's changing mailing habits,' says Postmaster General Patrick Donahoe. But the Postal Service is already facing some pushback for moving forward with delivery schedule changes. 'Today's announcement by Postmaster General Donahoe to eliminate six-day delivery is yet another death knell for the quality service provided by the U.S. Postal Service,' says Jeanette Dwyer, president of the National Rural Letter Carriers' Association. 'To erode this service will undermine the Postal Service's core mission and is completely unacceptable.' Package deliveries will continue under the new plan and were a bright spot in a bleak 2012 fiscal year, with package revenue rising 8.7 percent during the year. Donahoe says the changes would allow the Postal Service to continue benefiting from rising package deliveries as Americans order more products from sites such as eBay Inc and Amazon.com Inc."
Err - that's the plan. Only first class mail is being stopped on Saturdays. If you want something delivered on a Saturday, you can still send it priority or express, and it will still be delivered on a Saturday. That's the second and eighth lines of the summary above.
It doesn't hurt to be nice.
The usps was set up by the govt, it didnt go asking for funds. Jackass.
Preparing to get a Wooosh! but Article 1, Section 8, Clause 7. The enumerated powers of the Federal Government include establishing Post Offices. Same section establishes paying for a Navy. The privatization of the postal service was either a delegation or abrogation of the responsibilties of Congress, depending if you take your politics straight or with soda. I'm in the abrogation camp, myself.
Well, some of us actually read the whole summary, and thus see that Saturday package deliveries aren't being cut out. So it's not going to affect getting packages at all.
That means someone in a cabin that is a 10 mile boat-ride - the post office does this sort of stuff.
No they don't. You don't have to be too far off the beaten track to require that your mail be picked up at the post office. You haven't lived in a rural area before, have you?
No, but they could die (or at least suffer harm) if the mail was something like insulin or heart medication.
Merrly being snarky does not make a convincing argument.
http://usnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/02/06/16869665-wait-a-minute-mr-postman-new-mail-delivery-schedule-raises-eyebrows?lite
The Postmaster General has already confirmed that mail-order medicine will continue to be delivered on Saturday.
The US Postal Service does not get any money from the federal government and has not since President Nixon made it quasi-private. In fact, they have had to pay back to the fed's billions of dollars for pensions. That's one of the reasons they keep losing money. They actually overpaid by a few hundred million and Congress refuses to return the money.
Those who don't believe you should Google "The Postal Accountability and Enhancement Act of 2006"*, and anybody who doesn't know about it has no business offering an opinion on the current woes of the Postal Service.
I will quibble that they actually aren't losing money. The 2006 act is taking it from them to fund pensions for employees not yet born.
*Which really should have been known as "The Republican Plot to Murder the Postal Service in Slow Motion" of 2006.
I see even classic Slashdot is now pretty much unusable on dial up anymore.