Sunday, September 4, 2011

NY Times: US Post Office Could Shut Down Later This Year -- Not a Bakken Story

Link here.
According to the New York Times: decades of contractual promises made to unionized workers, including no-layoff clauses, are increasing the post office’s costs. Labor represents 80 percent of the agency’s expenses, compared with 53 percent at United Parcel Service and 32 percent at FedEx, its two biggest private competitors. Postal workers also receive more generous health benefits than most other federal employees.
But let's just blame it on the Internet revolution, which by the way, was invented by Al Gore, according to Al Gore.

And the US Postal Service needs to be fully funded: certainly one can argue that the US Postal Service is central to America's Homeland Security.

2 comments:

  1. if the post office goes it would affect my life drastically. I use the service a lot, from sending and receiving my Netflix movies to writing my only remaining aunt who doesn't do email. I receive some sort of mail 95 out of every 100 days not to mention the much anticipated daily doggy treat. Sundays and holiday withdrawal is hard; there's no fix for me, but I do raid my store bought stash, stealthily sneaking in the door with yesterdays junk mail, chirping "look what that nice mail-carrier left you today". He thinks the Sunday treats are "the cats meow"...

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  2. I agree. There are many ways to solve the US Postal Service problem but, again, folks that make the decisions are not able to think "outside the box."

    Most important is to tailor the US Postal Service to the various communities it serves, but as a huge bureaucracy it is not flexible.

    My hunch is that we won't see an major changes in the postal service for many years -- at least from the customers' perspective. Right now, again as so much, it is simply political theater.

    I hope it all works out for you. And thank you for taking the time to comment.

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