Why not privatize the Post Office..?

quote:

Originally posted by Cassandra:
Why not privatize the Post Office..?

It's harder for the US to do unlike other countries like Germany and the UK that have already done so because it's one of a very few clear things written in the Constitution that this is a government function:

[The Congress shall have Power . . . ] To establish Post Offices and post Roads; . . .

It gives them power to, does it mean they can not completely subcontract the enterprise to private industry to operate?

quote:

it's one of a very few clear things written in the Constitution ...

[The Congress shall have Power . . . ] To establish Post Offices and post Roads; . . .

Having the power to do something doesn't mean the obligation to do something.
Congress could decide to step away.

quote:

Originally posted by 1967Goat:
Part of the problem is Congress won't let them cut service. I don't need mail 6 days a week. Make it 2. Shit, 1 would probably be fine.

I understand the sentiment. Where are you going to find people willing to work 2 days a week?

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Originally posted by nhtagmember:
does this mean that I won't be getting junk mail?

if so, I'm all in

Be careful what you wish for. If junk mail is eliminated, all of that crap will show up in your email, text messages, cell phone messages, etc. It's easier and quicker for me to throw the junk mail in the trash.

^^^ I hate junk mail, but I don't think it'll all translate over to electronic messaging. But if it does, it's even easier to throw out/block.

quote:

Originally posted by ranger312:

Be careful what you wish for. If junk mail is eliminated, all of that crap will show up in your email, text messages, cell phone messages, etc. It's easier and quicker for me to throw the junk mail in the trash.

lmao you think it doesnt already?
I had to completely turn off my cell phone ringer cuz it's just nonstop telemarketing ads.
WRT email, I'm pretty sure by law there has to be an "unsubscribe now" button included in every single ad - I always use the hell outa that thing.

Kill the USPS IMO - nobody will miss it!

If the USPS shuts down, how many months would it take for us to realize it?

The U.S. Postal Service has been sliding downhill for some time now. Even though they still never made a profit back in the day, they at least had dedicated employees and could be way more reliable than today. Now they don’t wear a uniform and can’t get anything right. When they failed to deliver my property tax payment once and I was at risk of a massive fine, that was the final nail for me. At least the tax office learned an entire bag of their mail got lost until it was found and hundreds of people’s payments were late and they did not fine the people.

I now do everything online for payments and do not use the postal service to delivery anything important unless I need to and use tracking. I have bought a stamp in who knows how long. They should go under and a private service would take over and do a much better job.

quote:

Originally posted by creslin:

quote:

Originally posted by ranger312:

Be careful what you wish for. If junk mail is eliminated, all of that crap will show up in your email, text messages, cell phone messages, etc. It's easier and quicker for me to throw the junk mail in the trash.

lmao you think it doesnt already?
I had to completely turn off my cell phone ringer cuz it's just nonstop telemarketing ads.
WRT email, I'm pretty sure by law there has to be an "unsubscribe now" button included in every single ad - I always use the hell outa that thing.

Kill the USPS IMO - nobody will miss it!

No kidding. I already get probably 200 junk emails a day, at least 8 junk calls, and probably the same number of junk texts. One time for the emails, I spent the time to unsubscribe from every one hoping it would stop. Nope. Get the same amount but then just from different named places. All the political texts is what pisses me off. I have learned that if you reply to the text saying, “Fuck Off” it will unsubscribe you. Did it to one today asking if I am going to join the No Kings March.

Wasn't he whining the same tired story before Congress in Nov '25 (i.e. 5 months ago)? Congress keeps enabling them with empty promises that they're fixing the problems and they'll be better in 20xx, but better never comes.

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The U.S. Postal Service (USPS) might run out of funds by October or November of this year, the head of the agency told Congress on Tuesday.

Your fiscal year ends Sept 30th so you're supposed to run out funds by then unless you padded the shit out of your budget.

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“If we stretch those out, we’re looking at more like February,” Steiner told lawmakers.

If we stretch it out? Stretch it the fuck out and quit pissing away tax payer money.

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Those steps included ending deliveries six days a week,

Good, I only collect it once a week anyway.

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closing some post offices,

When I lived in Alberta, Canada, they had almost entirely done away with their post offices and outsourced to the private business. For example, drug stores that used to have a photoprocessing area have converted it to a Canada post area. Can buy stamps, ship parcels, and they had some PO boxes. USPS should adopt this model.

Here is another example. In ANWR there is an Inupiat village 120+ miles from the nearest road and they get 3 flights per week. They had the post office open 5 days a week. If you can only get mail via flight 3 days a week then why be open 5 days a week?

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raising the price of first-class mail stamps to close to $1. Currently, that price is $0.78.

This is always the answer. Instead, the first answer should be dump the bulk rate discounts as it's a money losing subsidy. The action the bulk rate shippers are taking (e.g. ink stamp vs sticker stamp) doesn't actually save USPS money, and their other competitors are much more expensive.

On top of that, nobody wants the bulk rate junk.

We live in a rural area. We are Prime members of Amazon and order a lot of stuff from them. The USPS delivers virtually all of our stuff from Amazon and has done so for well over a year now. They are terrible. I've lost count of the refunds we have gotten from Amazon due to lost packages.

They closed our local post office and replaced it with one thirty miles away. The onsite supervisor there is completely useless. She could be a poster child for a DEI hire.

My elite staff of crack postal employees have delivered mail to my house for five years. For people that don’t live here.

You go to the local post office and fill out the “who lives here form”. Stops for a couple of weeks and cranks right back up. Now they are delivering packages randomly with completely different addresses on them.

After trying to do the right thing, I just throw the mail away. It’s not on me to do the postal work for them.

quote:

Originally posted by jljones:
... It’s not on me to do the postal work for them.

When I lived in Alberta, Can-eh-duh, I had the dyslexic address of a gorgeous woman who seemingly only wore tight fitting yoga outfits and I dutifully delivered it to her rain, sleet, or snow.

Yeah, I don't get it lately. We received a Christmas card on Feb. 10th. I had two checks for bills that did not clear until after the due date and they were sent 16 days prior to the due date. I don't have any problem with my local mail delivery, I never get anyone else's mail nor do they get mine but Postal Service distribution centers have been doing a very poor job lately. It's gotten to the point where I bring my letters inside the Post Office to have them hand cancelled.

Ten years from now, you'll still be getting mail; perhaps only five days a week, but the Post Office isn't going anywhere. A decade from now, they'll still be doing a crappy job and begging for money.

Perhaps they'll even deliver your Social Security checks, if you have a fear of direct deposit.

The government looted the post office of billions of dollars.

They took the excess money the post office had and issued an IOU.

The post office is waiting for it's money back.

So is Social Security.

UPS, FedEx and even Amazon are not immune to inefficiencies and outright screw-ups of their own.

The Post Office is a DEI hellhole. Around here, there's not one white face to be seen in any post office I visit, nor any mail carrier I see. Some of the people I encounter are outright idiots and that's not an exaggeration, and most of the rest have entitlement attitude to burn.

If you've got a hyphen or apostrophe in your ridiculous name, you're going straight to the top of USPS in the Atlanta metro area. It's disgusting. "Merit" and "competency" are racist constructs of the White Patriarchy.