The US Postal Service is on the brink of crisis

serf

 Like everything else in this country.The post office is broke,all the funding of the bloated give aways. We the people have been led by corrupt politicians that has tumbled us into debt and soon we will be driven into chaos as we get sold out. I have been saying it for years here and be damned if  it's not happening right before our eyes. Won't be long. Congress is responsible for this mess and the two party system has failed.

                                                              serf

             https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/jun/03/us-postal-service-is-struggling--bad-for-election

                          The Senate will almost certainly pass some form of aid for the Postal Service in the months to come. But how the USPS will handle the challenge of the 2020 election, especially if a second wave of the virus hits the country, is an open question. 

            That crisis deepened with the 2008 recession. At first, mail volumes remained high in the early 2000s, even amid the rise of the internet, but the economy took a steep downturn, dealing a huge blow to the advertising mail that makes up the USPS’s bread and butter. Overall mail volumes fell by about a third over the following decade, and because the agency doesn’t receive any taxpayer money, the decline placed it in uncharted financial waters.

In the absence of legislative action the USPS has been forced to cut costs where it can, eliminating more than 200,000 staff positions. This has strained the agency’s workforce, especially in rural postal stations and in cities that see large numbers of Amazon packages. 

When the Covid-19 virus started to spread through the country’s major cities in March, the agency’s labor crisis went from bad to worse. Thousands of postal workers took emergency leave to quarantine after contracting the virus or to care for their children. These widespread absences have led to reported delays in mail delivery in Ohio and Michigan, key swing states in the upcoming election.

mjrfd99

piglousy wants BILLIONS for the Post Office.   Get the connection yet?
She's buying off the Postal Union because of her vote by mail fraud she and her rats want. 
LOL the workers who made "going postal" a common saying. 
What does Payless shoes and the USPS have in common
1000's and 1000's of loafers in every color.   
Kiss the Republic g'nite.

nononsense

You might want to take into consideration the 10 years of PRE-FUNDING USPS retiree healthcare, pensions, and workers’ compensation required by the FEDS.

mjrfd99

No welfare checks would make last weeks acting out look like a picnic.

wpage

Like anything gov manages USPS is a failure.  Unlike other gov agency. USPS is needed.

smartoldguy

We were told the USPS had a mandate to be self-supporting.  I presume it's been bled dry by its gigantic parasite:  the Postal Workers Union -- which should not by rights have ever existed, period.  In addition it has been hamstrung by the US Congress so it could not possibly fulfill its self-finance mandate.

BobJudy

smartoldguy said:

We were told the USPS had a mandate to be self-supporting.  I presume it's been bled dry by its gigantic parasite:  the Postal Workers Union -- which should not by rights have ever existed, period.  In addition it has been hamstrung by the US Congress so it could not possibly fulfill its self-finance mandate.

First the government mandates that they fund their pension plan so far in advance that a couple of generations not yet born are covered. Then they place restrictions on what the Post Office can charge for rates, insuring they will be in the red. The abuse by the union keeping problem employees on the job is rampant. Judy retired after 37 years as a rural carrier and people still come up to me and tell me how much they miss her on her old route. Now they have no idea when or if they will get their mail. The newer carriers think nothing of coming to work either high or drunk and can refuse drug and alcohol tests and get away with it. One served jail time not long ago for impaired driving and was able to keep a restricted drivers license because they needed it for work. I guess there is nothing wrong with putting a drug abuser back behind the wheel of a postal vehicle.   Bob

serf

smartoldguy said:

We were told the USPS had a mandate to be self-supporting.  I presume it's been bled dry by its gigantic parasite:  the Postal Workers Union -- which should not by rights have ever existed, period.  In addition it has been hamstrung by the US Congress so it could not possibly fulfill its self-finance mandate.

  No problem just raise any class mail rates by 100% or build one fewer aircraft carriers and stop being the world's police.

                                                              serf

truthful

The USPS has outlived its usefulness and is a bloated organization that should be done away with. It has become primarily a deliverer of advertising material that the recipients did not request, and the vast majority do not want. Much of what they bring goes straight from the mail box to the trash bin, to the landfill. Nearly everything of importance can be handled online these days. For the few things that cannot, there are FedEx and UPS that are much more efficient organizations.

susie

UPS can't deliver all of their packages now. They use the USPS to complete a lot of their deliveries. If you add to it the billions of pieces of mail delivered everyday you would see the price of a first class stamp go from .55 to 5.50 overnight.

Unions insuring bad employees stay employed, carriers dragging their feet to get overtime and ridiculously low postal rates are also to blame.

Husband was a Postmaster so I had the inside scoop on the shenanigans the few bad apples would pull.

MrMag00

Amazon will buy them out. 

gruntled2

susie said:

UPS can't deliver all of their packages now. They use the USPS to complete a lot of their deliveries. If you add to it the billions of pieces of mail delivered everyday you would see the price of a first class stamp go from .55 to 5.50 overnight.

Unions insuring bad employees stay employed, carriers dragging their feet to get overtime and ridiculously low postal rates are also to blame.

Husband was a Postmaster so I had the inside scoop on the shenanigans the few bad apples would pull.

There are a lot more bad snoopervisers than carriers. They teach them lines like, "It takes less time to deliver in the rain because you are in a hurry to get inside." Volume has no effect on delivery time." ( A ten year old paperboy knows better than that.) Number of packages has no effect on delivery time, you are going there anyway just drop them off on your way by." Those are just a few  examples of actual quotes.

Mobuck

"The USPS has outlived its usefulness and is a bloated organization that should be done away with. It has become primarily a deliverer of advertising material that the recipients did not request, and the vast majority do not want. Much of what they bring goes straight from the mail box to the trash bin, to the landfill. Nearly everything of importance can be handled online these days. For the few things that cannot, there are FedEx and UPS that are much more efficient organizations."
Obviously, there's a whole lot about USPS that YOU DON'T KNOW. Maybe you don't know about all those folks who don't have internet. Maybe you don't know that the reason this country grew to be great was supported by "rural free delivery" to 
EVERY address in the country. Maybe you don't know that UPS and FedEx can just say "NO" to delivery at any time or to any place. Maybe you don't know that UPS and FedEx can decide to refuse service to areas that aren't profitable.