Postal Service - Death Imminent

I don't think you are being honest.
Not by a long shot.

Line drivers, maybe, route drivers burn out in 6-8 years.

 

No one suggesting completely removing the postal service, so your "request" is pointless.

 

Ah. Another part of the US economy that was doing fine until the Republicans decided to kill it.

I wonder what the blowback will be like IF the UPS does die and mom & pop in their little underserved rural areas have to drive 10 miles every day to pick up their mail and pay $5.00 to send a first-class letter.

 

What do you care? The people in those areas typically have the money to eat the cost. Likely, they are well off, and completely disconnected from society anyways.

 

stamps can be sold at kiosks and even ATM's if they wanted. heck, in the rest of the world they use pre-pay telephone service and you can "top up" your account almost everywhere. There are lots of shipping stores out there if you need counter service so the USPS could trim back significantly and just move packages and letters

The demographics have changed. Just like we've seen a shift away from personal responsibility into wanting the other guy to pay for you, we also see the group who needs the postal counters to basically dwindling as they pass away.

 

Anybody that thinks that UPS could buy out the post office and magically turn a profit delivering mail to far flung places like Alaska, Mississippi, New Hamshire, etc. is just dreaming. No one can make a profit off of a letter sent to the middle of New Mexico where the cactus outnumbers people.

More importantly, UPS or Fed Ex knows this too. NO ONE will take on the constitutional mandate of universal mail service because no one can make money doing it. Not unless rates are jacked up to a degree that sending a letter becomes ridiculously expensive in which case they still cannot turn a profit.

Frankly the only entity capable of doing this job is the organization set up to accomplish the mandate...the USPS. If rates are raised modestly (especially on third class bulk mailers), if five day service is instituted, if congress stops making the Post Office fund
it's pensions unlike anyone else (purely to cause it to fail, I suspect, so vultures can swoop in to pick at it's bones) then the post office will continue to serve a multi billion dollar clientele who depends on USPS for it's existence.

 

who controlled Congress in 2007?

 

If you change it you will break it, and hence incur more costs. Think it through before you make changes.

 

Yeah right, anyone who has a remote dwelling is wealthy. That makes no sense and isn't even close to reality.

 

The bill forcing USPS to fund 75 years of pensions was passed in 2006, so what does that have to do with it?

 

You don't get out much. I live in a rural area. People around here typically DON'T have the "money to eat the cost."

The only complete disconnection here is your complete disconnection from reality.

 

i read 2007.

 

Eat the cost of a few extra dollars a week? They have property, land, vehicles, but they can't afford that? And if they don't have that, the last thing they should be worried about is us mail.

Give me a break.

 

Thats not what I said. They don't have the expenses typically seen in urban areas.

 

Wrong, they have greater expenses, e.g., if their dwelling requires services, i.e., electricity, water, et al, they are going to have to pay for those long runs. My oldest brother has 10.5 acres in CT, with a .25 mile driveway, he had to pay extra for the transformer. To suggest that all people living in remote areas can afford a transformer, is pretentious to say the least.

 

Its about priorities. Its about priorities everywhere.

I know many rural area communities. I delivered pizza to them on a regular basis...at least here in the rural outskirts of the greater Oklahoma City area.

Woe is me says the rural poor if they can't get their mail everyday for free.

Thats...dumb.

 

http://www.govtrack.us/congress/bills/109/hr6407

Passed by the 109th Congress (Both houses controlled by Republicans) and former President Bush.

 

Yes woe is you, and your suggestions are not practical, nor feasible. Charging people extra because of their location is not fair. What about people living on mega farms. One can travel quite a few miles before reaching their mailbox, and if you lived where you say you did, then I have little doubt you are aware of the size of some of those farms, quite spectacular in size.

 

Ummm....

Since when is it about being fair?

So let me get this straight? They have mega farms, but not the time or money to drive a half hour once a week to get their own dang mail?

My grandmother and grandfather lived in a mobile home, with one 30 year old car in the middle of the country, easily 40-50 miles away from civilization. They drove to walmart, to the post office, to their neighbors, to home depot, whatever, at least two-three times a week.

They'll live. Promise.

 

Ummm....

Since when is it about being fair?

So let me get this straight? They have mega farms, but not the time or money to drive a half hour once a week to get their own dang mail?

My grandmother and grandfather lived in a mobile home, with one 30 year old car in the middle of the country, easily 40-50 miles away from civilization. They drove to walmart, to the post office, to their neighbors, to home depot, whatever, at least two-three times a week.

They'll live. Promise.

 

You really have no clue do you?

Have you ever lived in a rural area? The majority of residents are not landed and/or wealthy.

There are whole small businesses who depend on the USPS to ship their product to nearly every locale in the US. The UPS, FedEx or other shippers simply don't have the reach and often contract with the USPS to deliver packages. Everyone in these underserved areas will end up having to pick their packages up at a central hub located in a larger town or city.

You think that these people are going to be happy about it once the effects reverberate down the chain? Guess who will be affected the most? Why the elderly.

It's hard to think of a Republican Party surviving a very pissed off rural voting block but we know that the Republicans are kings of pissing of large voting blocks.

 

I didnt say "wealthy". I said well-off. They can survive in the middle of the country. Its been going on for centuries. Nothing with happen. Doom off.

Of course. They'll have to deal with it, just like they do when they need to get their own groceries.

Well considering I'm not republican, I don't care about what the party thinks. Driving a $.45 piece of mail 50 miles into the middle of nowhere, is just STUPID.

 

So the migrant farm workers have the time to drive that distance. Your one scenario is hardly a template for reality.

 

If you think that the majority of rural residents are "well-off", then you are still lacking a critical piece of the puzzle.

 

Even if they aren't its not a relevant question. How do they get their food? Their clothing? Visit family? Get goods?

THEY DRIVE SOMEWHERE. Get it?

The wealthly can pay for the service if they want to keep it delivered...

The poor? Oh well. Pick up your mail when you go buy your doritos.