USPS Could Hike Price

Not sure how will they dig themselves out of the financial hole

http://money.cnn.com/2013/05/10/new...ml?hpt=hp_t2

Congress seriously needs to repeal the law requiring the USPS to fund those pensions. Congress is acting as a "wrecking crew". Congress knows this will destroy the postal service. Their members receive a lot of campaign donations from the UPS and FedEx. I'm sure Congress and the lobbyists that represent the other corporations would love to see the USPS privatized and sold off to some other company. That company would then have the largest slush fund to raid in history. Luckily, I would hope the Constitution would make such a move illegal.

Although there is undoubtedly a lot more to do to change things around, I think the key pieces of the above link are as follows:




It should be an encouragement that the USPS reduced their losses by about $1.3 billion (about 40%) as compared to the year earlier period. That's some good news.

Technically, the USPS can no longer use the catch phrase that they are losing $25 million per day. The above figures put it at $21.1 million per day. Even though the losses are still massive, it is doing better, so some of the cuts already made must be working in their favor.




It seems to me the increase in package delivery revenue more than compensates for the reduction in first-class mail, as packages are a more profitable revenue stream for the USPS.

Battlestamps: Why should the post office not pay it's way?
If they hire people, that is part of the expense, and if they use unionized workers, then that's a choice they made that costs money and has to be accounted for.

ratio411: Because this is not a decision made by the union workers or the USPS, it was a decisition made by Congress. I'm not sure why they are even trying to fully fund all these pensions when they are forcing out the postmaster masters out of all the small post offices by cutting hours. Four of the local post offices near me are slated to have their hours slashed and the regular postal workers are scrambling to find better posititions within the system. Most of these better jobs are being replaced by $9 to $11/hour workers with no benefits or pensions.

To clarify, it's not a requirement to fund existing expenses or pension benefits that is the problem. It's that Congress has mandated that the USPS pre-fund 75 years worth of future health benefits in a 10 year period. That's just insane. No other government agency has that requirement. Remember, the USPS does NOT get any tax dollars. It has to stand or fall on its own revenue... yet has this onerous burden inflicted by Congress sucking the revenue right out.

revenuecollector: Thanks for that point. That's what I was getting at. What makes it even more absurd is the point I was also getting at - the postal service is actively eliminating the better postal jobs with low paying wage earners with no benefits. My local $50k/year postmaster is being replaced by a part-time $11/hr worker. It's part-time as the hours of operation are being halved as well. These reducations are being played out across the United States. So why does the postal service need to stockpile gobs of cash? There's $44 billion or so sitting in this fund according to some articles I've read. Many of the future and current postal workers will not be entitled any of it.

I was looking through an on-line trade publication that's 102 years old and the message sounds very similar even though more than a century has transpired:



Although I realize things have immensely changed over the past century, I especially like the paragraph about the US Mail that reads:

"The people of the United States can afford the best; they have the money to pay for it and will insist upon having it."