I’ve been wondering this for years, as the USPS has been struggling to subsidize the Congressionally mandated 75 years in advance retirement plan during the worst downturn in the economy since the Great Depression. In order to continue, they have to shut down stations, limit deliveries, and eliminate next-day mail. Or be in violation of a Federal Unfunded Mandate.
Note that the Post Office receives $0.00 in taxpayer money, yet Congress gets to tell it how much it is allowed to charge, how much it has to pre-pay on all its benefit programs, and even how many free perks it has to give to members of Congress. In my lifetime, the price of a First Class stamp has gone from the price of a cup of coffee (5¢) to less than a third of that. We pay less for postage now than ever before in history, in terms of coffee, movie tickets, ounces of gold, or any hard measure.
Yet Congress in its wisdom has been steadily adding burdens and removing permissions in the last decade. And I have been wondering, why? Sure, the answer is clearly pandering to the lobbyists. But whose? Who really wants to kill the only company that delivers to every house in the country? Last night, I think I got my answer.
I was watching the news, flipping through the networks, and every outlet covered this story: Record online holiday sales trigger record shipping day.So which stations covered which shipping company? Who covered this story for the USPS? For DHL? For UPS? No one.
But FedEx was given minutes of free advertising (as an in-depth story) on every network. So my wacky conspiracy theory of the day is: FedEx is behind the lobbyists who are behind the legislation that is gutting the post office.
Dude, welcome to MY world.
The USPS is mandated by federal law to make annual contributions to its pension fund that is required by no other business. Absent the federally mandated deposits tallying some $5 billion annually or more, the USPS is profitable.
Now, guess who gets the money? Yep, the same banksters and crooks what gave us the fiancial meltdown of 2008 for their fun and profit. As long as the USPS is required to fully fund all of its pension obligations annually, it will lose money, have to raise rates and be less competitive with the private sector.
So, Wall Street, the banksters and the non-union operations of FedEx will all profit to the detriment of unions and consumers.
This irks me personally because I’ve been using the USPS for a decade to ship my wares, as MrTitanium.
Sure, they raised the rates a little; a typical order shipped to Anchorage (or down the street) with delivery confirmation now costs me $1.75. And they got rid of the post box most convenient to my home office, but my letter carrier still comes to the door 6 days a week to pick up.
No other service is either as convenient or as inexpensive for my needs.
Perhaps Congress has realized how transparent this is becoming, so: “Under pressure from Congress, Postal Service to delay major closings, layoffs until mid-May”
Congress is backing off a little and letting the Post Office keep open the processing centers necessary to distribute those millions of campaign ads during the primary season.
Let me think on this a minute. Since you do have a postal union, right?
http://www.apwu.org/issues-uspsfinances/index.htm
Raise a rally cry, Occupy the Post Office, support Federal workers, etc. Ya gotta work at this stuff nowadays.