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Finnish Mail System Abandons Tuesday Delivery
Reader jones_supa writes: In a world moving to electronic communications, the snail mail traffic has seen a huge drop. Because of this, Posti, the mail delivery organization of Finland will not be delivering letters and magazines on Tuesdays anymore. Tuesday was selected because it generally has the lowest volume of mail. For example, magazines and advertisements are targeted to the end of the week, so that people have more time for shopping dreams in the weekend. Another reason is that Posti recently launched a lawn mowing service which operates on Tuesdays.
The USPS would be willing to make similar reforms, but is prevented from doing so by a congress that wants to cripple it with unreasonable pension obligations that not one single company would have to meet, and all manner of restrictions that prevent it from actually competing with private couriers.
Drill baby drill - on Mars
Really? Delivering newspapers and mowing lawns? Do they only hire teenagers?
Another reason is that Posti recently launched a lawn mowing service which operates on Tuesdays.
http://www.theatlantic.com/int...
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
This all sounded reasonable until the last line. What!? Did I read that right? A lawn mowing service? Talk about a non sequitur. Does anyone have any insights into this? I've never been to Finland, but I imagine they only need to mow their lawns for a few months a year. What do they do on Tuesdays during the rest of the year? Are these the postal workers who are mowing the lawns?
Seems reasonable? Really? How do poor people get mail, then? In the US, poor people used to have guaranteed mail delivery 6 days a week. Now, if, they can afford to live in the right place, and can afford to get Internet service, and the Internet service happens to work correctly, and they can afford a working computer, THEN they can pay their bills? That doesn't seem reasonable to me at all.
I don't respond to AC's.
good grief, they couldn't manage to come up with even "Finnish Tuesday Mail Delivery Finished"?!!! Is that really asking that much?!!
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
What's so "unreasonable" about keeping a government monopoly to a higher standard?
Please name one Fortune 500 company that Congress has required to fund 75 years of pension obligations NOW rather than over time?
*crickets*
That's what I thought.
And don't forget that they can no longer raise the prices of stamps....the guys that saddled the Post Office with that giant instant Pension Obligation also made it so they couldn't raise their prices to cover extra cost at the same time. Almost as if they wanted to insure they would fail. I'm sure the UPS / Fedex lobbyists loved it...
Seems reasonable? Really? How do poor people get mail, then? In the US, poor people used to have guaranteed mail delivery 6 days a week. Now, if, they can afford to live in the right place, and can afford to get Internet service, and the Internet service happens to work correctly, and they can afford a working computer, THEN they can pay their bills? That doesn't seem reasonable to me at all.
If they are receiving bills that are due without even two days for turnaround time, then that's the unreasonable thing. Fortunately that rarely if ever happens.
How can we continue to believe in a just universe and freedom to eat crackers if we have no ale?
Fortune 500 companies almost all use 401(k) programs, not pensions. 401(k) funds are deposited now, not at some distant point in the future.
What if Congress pass a law that requires Fortune 500 companies to pre-fund employee matches for the next 75 years now?
Governments and unions are the last main holdouts for pension systems. Everybody else can understand the economics.
You missed my point. Congress UNDER THE LAW requires the USPS to fund 75 years of pension obligations NOW. It's the only federal agency that is obligated to pre-fund pension obligations. Because the USPS can't meet the pension obligations, their fiscal year ends in the red every year. Remove the draconian pension obligations, the USPS can turn a profit every year.
Any company with a trajectory similar to the Postal service should also fund its pensions.
But companies aren't required BY LAW to fund 75 years of pension obligations upfront. Not over time, but RIGHT NOW.
This 75-year requirement is not being applied to military and civil federal pensions, state pensions or municipal pensions. All those pension shortfalls are coming due in the next 20 years as baby boomers retire.
USPS was self-supporting, and still would be, were it not for conservatives in congress sabotaging it at the behest of their corporate paymasters.
Drill baby drill - on Mars
And don't forget that they can no longer raise the prices of stamps....the guys that saddled the Post Office with that giant instant Pension Obligation also made it so they couldn't raise their prices to cover extra cost at the same time. Almost as if they wanted to insure they would fail. I'm sure the UPS / Fedex lobbyists loved it...
Of course they did. The wrote the text of the legislation.
I should use this sig to advertise my book ISBN-13 : 978-1501515132.
What if Congress pass a law that requires Fortune 500 companies to pre-fund employee matches for the next 75 years now?
Those corporations create valuable products and services, that I can chose to buy to not buy. The USPS delivers a pile of crap to my house everyday that is 99% garbage. The sooner Congress gets rid of them the better. Bills should be sent by email. Packages should be delivered by UPS, Fedex, etc. The only thing left is all the second class advertising garbage, and that should disappear, leaving forests standing, and freeing up space in my trash can.
Wow.
You don't like the USPS because of what other companies which "create valuable products and services, that you can choose to buy or not to buy" send to you, using the postal service?
Pension costs are crippling most state and local governments these days. I don't know what's behind the USPS deal, but I know the solution: outlaw pensions. 401Ks are good enough for all of us peasants that work in the private sector, and they're good enough for our ruling class (and their servants) too.
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
The USPS provides the service of delivering that crap to the companies that produced it... In this instance case you're not the customer.
But why should the government be providing a service that is the physical equivalent of spam? Is that really an appropriate role of government? I understand why the USPS was established back in 1775, but those reasons are no longer valid today. Personal correspondence is a negligible amount of the mail.
USPS delivers a pile of crap to my house everyday
And UPS/Fedex wouldn't deliver those if USPS wasn't around?
Bills should be sent by email
email is a cluster fsck as it is. I get waaaay more spam email than I do in my mailbox. I don't want to have to find my bills in that pile of shite.
The sooner Congress gets rid of them the better.
I don't think it will work that way. See Article I, Section 8, Clause 7 of the United States Constitution, known as the Postal Clause or the Postal Power.
file:
The USPS makes a PROFIT if you discount the congressional restrictions, which means that plenty of customers do want this service. If you don't like this then you can put a permanent "return to sender" sign on your mailbox. Just don't screw it up for everyone else because you get bills by email.
ONLY the USPS has this extraordinary pension requirement. No other government body has to do this. In their holy fight to prove that government is wasteful the ultralibertarians have taken the fight to the one government body that makes a profit and is not being wasteful. The USPS can fund it's pensions, it just can't do 75 years worth of it in advance.
Basically these idiots felt that if they voted to eliminate the postal service that they'd be pilloried by the public (rightfully so). So instead they use this pension scheme which gets the unions on their side and confuses the public whose eyes glaze over when trying to figure out fiscal details.