"The Last Post Looms For The US Mail Service"

It's always interesting to read of another country's perspective on the US -- and in this case the US Postal Service.

Although it pretty much says the same thing as has been said numerous times before, it is very well written and therefore I found the article quite an interesting read:

http://www.independent.co.uk/opinio...6286630.html

So, stop paying bills via the internet and use a darned stamp.

For USPS to survive, there are several things that have to happen, in my opinion:

1. The idiotic benefit prefunding requirement needs to be removed. None of USPS' competitors are burdoned with this requirement.

2. USPS (and more importantly its Union membership) needs to face the reality of an Internet world and lower mail volumes. That isn't going to change. People are not going to return to the slowness of snail mail for correspondence and paying bills. Period. This means steamlining processes and manpower, and yes that means a smaller USPS workforce.

USPS, to a certain extent, is the buggy whip manufacturer of the 21st century. There simply isn't the demand sufficient to justify current staffing levels.