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Door-To-Door Mail Delivery To End Under New Plan
First time accepted submitter Hugh Pickens DOT Com writes "Reuters reports that under a cost-saving plan by the US Postal Service, millions of Americans accustomed to getting their mail delivered to their doors will have to trek to the curb and residents of new homes will use neighborhood mailbox clusters. 'Converting delivery away from door delivery to either curb line or centralized delivery would enable the Postal Service to provide service to more customers in less time,' says Postal Service spokeswoman Sue Brennan. More than 30 million American homes get door-to-door delivery and another 50 million get their mail dropped at their curbside mailboxes. But the Post Service, which is buckling under massive financial losses, sees savings in centralized mail delivery. Door-to-door delivery costs the Postal Service about $353 per address each year while curbside delivery costs $224, and cluster boxes cost $160 per address. But unions say it's a bad idea to end delivery to doorsteps and will be disruptive for the elderly and disabled. 'It's madness,' says Jim Sauber, chief of staff for the National Association of Letter Carriers. 'The idea that somebody is going to walk down to their mailbox in Buffalo, New York, in the winter snow to get their mail is just crazy.'"
We have been doing this for new homes in San Antonio for the past 5-10 years. My house was built in 1993 and it's like this.
To discourage such shenanigans, many states require that creditors allow a certain minimum amount of time - typically 14 days - between actual receipt of your bill and the payment due date. You might want to look into this.
This is the kind of company I'll feel just peachy about letting have unfettered access to my bank account? Right.
I pay all my bills electronically. Wells Fargo has a "Bill Pay" service where you can instruct the bank, online, to either transfer the payment electronically (if the service company registered for that) or to mail a check (if they haven't done so.) Both payments are one-way and one-time (unless you want them to be recurring.) The receiving company does not have an "unfettered access to my bank account." Some companies offer automatic withdrawals, but I decline such offers for the same reason as you do.
Another good aspect of this service is that all payments are registered at the bank. If some service company mixes up the paperwork, I have the proof that is pretty heavyweight - records of a major bank that document everything that happened to every sum of money that moved around. This service is free (to me, at least - don't know if they tie it to some other conditions.) I would be better off even if it costs 45 cents per transaction - because that's what a stamp costs, and an envelope, and my time to fill it all out and then worry if the check gets lost. Many services signed up for e-bills; this means that no paper is involved, and no humans either.
Please point out where in the constitution that it requires mail delivery. Thought so....
Article I, Section 8.
Did you not peruse your copy before posting that?
Did you? Please show where it is REQUIRED. I see where it AUTHORIZED. Maybe it's just that Congress has been ignoring the idea of being limited to only what they are authorized to do for so long, people don't even understand the concept anymore.
The Congress shall have Power To...establish Post Offices and post Roads...
For reference, this is what REQUIRED looks like:
Each House shall keep a Journal of its Proceedings, and from time to time publish the same...
Ok, as a formal rural carrier, I didn't have to do door to door delivery. We only delivered to boxes at the curb and clusters. We also have 'hardship' boxes for disabled residents, which are basically on house boxes, but they're very few, one or two per route. However, there is one major issue with this plan that only a carrier would understand, and I bet a city carrier would more understand. And that's street parking. If you can't get to the box at the curb in your LLV or personal vehicle, that mail is not delivered. It is held back at the post office to be attempted to deliver the following day. At least that's how it went for rural carriers. Since I drove a LLV doing almost a city route (750+ box route), I seen this quite a bit. I can't imagine how problematic this will be on very busy streets with parking. I would have to guess they would need to rely on cluster boxes heavily in these areas, but even then it won't be pretty. Unless maybe they can get the city gov't to do no parking zones around the clusters, but I doubt it.
The correct figure is 50 years (according to section 8909a of the PAEA), not 75. The PAEA does not specify 75 years anywhere at all. See here and here. Given that a postal worker can start working in their late teens and retire in their 40s, a 50-year requirement is perfectly reasonable. Unfortunately, as the first link says, once you've gotten enough people, even "journalists", to repeat an unsubstantiated claim, there's no killing it (not even here at Slashdot, where people like to believe they check their facts). In this case, the false claim was apparently first made by the NALC and the NRLCA, two postal carrier unions. Neither of them has ever substantiated the claim. The NRLCA merely says it's "widely cited" (of course, that was the plan). The NALC simply refuses to respond to requests.
The rumor that the PAEA was a Republican plot is also false. This was before the 2008 recession, and total mail volume peaked around 2006 (although first class volume peaked in 2001 and was already dropping), so at the time everyone involved (Republicans, Democrats, postal management, and postal unions, with the possible exception of the APWU) thought the prefunding was affordable. It passed with bipartisan support. For the NALC's opinion of it at the time, see this. Note the almost total praise. The only criticism was a now completely forgotten provision that requires injured postal employees to wait three days before qualifying for Continuation of Pay. The NALC has never actually claimed that it was a Republican plot, though it now serves their purposes for people to believe that. They don't have to, there are enough left-leaning bloggers to do the job for them (along with spreading the false 75 year figure).
If those pensions were fully funded, then they would not be considered a debt that the city owes.
You have been lied to. Detroits pension funds are valued at $5 billion right now. The unfunded estimate is another $3.4 billion that the city currently owes. Thats only 60% funded no matter how you slice it.
Those that claim that Detroit had a 100% funded pension system in place were doing creative accounting, such as adding in future payments from the city as if they were real, and ignoring the method previous payments had to be made.
Not only will the city not be making the future payments that would make the funds solvent, this city specifically is notorious for not making them. In 1991 the public unions had to go to court to force the city to pay money into the funds. Fast forward past a long string of other pension funding issues, in 2005 the city had to borrow $1.4 billion to catch up on payments to the funds. The city was then on the hook for that $1.4 billion plus interest on top of the continuing problem of not being able to make payments.
Guess when those "100% funded" calculations are from? Right after the city borrowed that $1.4 billion to precisely meet its unfunded obligations. Thats creative accounting, and the people that told you that it was 100% funded were cherry picking the start year also. The city still owed that $1.4 billion which it didnt have, so now instead of the funds not getting that $1.4 billion.. the pension funds wont get $3.4 billion. Amazing how stuff works in reality.
"His name was James Damore."
Are you shitting me?
By 2005 the city had accumulated $1.4 billion in missed pension fund payments. They didn't have that $1.4 billion so had to borrow it through the issuance of bonds (aka promise of payment.) That is nothing like having $1.4 billion in assets and then borrowing against it. The city literally did not have the $1.4 billion. That was also before the recession so you dont get to cite it as the reason for Detroits problems. Full stop.
Secondly, there arent hundreds of trillions of dollars swirling around wallstreet. There arent even hundreds of trillions of dollars swirling around the entire planet.
Thirdly, you are an idiot if you think that I would support that Quantitative Easing shit.
You see someone that argues that Detroits problems is the overly strong union influence, and just assume that someone against a strong influence of labor on governments would naturally be for this quantitative easing shit, right?
Yeah.. sorry pal.. you are repeatedly wrong. Wrong about Detroit's problems, wrong about Detroits Pensions, wrong about the amount of money on wallstreet, and wrong about what I support and do not support.
When will you admit that strong, well backed arguments begin with research rather than declarations. You don't pick a cause and then find a problem.. you pick a problem and then find the cause.
I have absolutely nothing against private unions, and my only beef with public unions is that legislators are allowed to negotiate with the money of far-off-in-the-future tax payers. It should be illegal, as in taxation without representation start-a-revolution-illegal. All public pensions should be funded immediately with no promises at all about future benefits, because such promises can only be kept by unrepresented future people.
I have a big beef with the FED. The FED should be abolished as unconstitutional. oh, and BTW, the FED is not "the feds" -- the FED is not a government entity... hell, its not even owned by the FED like the USPS is. You should have at least known that before going off about quantitative easing.
"His name was James Damore."