I've never had a problem with the US Postal service in the 40 odd years I've been using it. You can mail a letter in Boston and it will be in Los Angeles in one to three days ... for 44 cents!!! This is outstanding, world class service. And the people I've dealt with at post offices are the most hard working, dedicated, and customer oriented people I know. But there is no denying the fact that, with the postal service losing money coinciding with a reduction in mail volume, the US Postage service is in for some big, and necessary, changes. I just think that this is sad because there's nothing more American than the US Postal service, and I also think that, as the US Postal service goes, so goes America.

Allow a retired Postal worker to chime in, if I may.

Yes indeed there are many things that the USPS, should do and should have done to ease their loses. There is no doubt that the electronic age, has contributed mightily to it's slide. But the biggest loss in revenue comes from the reduction in what many refer to as "junk mail". The USPS relied heavily on that source of income. It was NOT the premier services or first class mail (which btw is the only monopoly owned by the USPS), but the decline in advertising mail has without a doubt crippled the Postal Service. Mailers found cheaper alternatives, and have used them, not because of any love lost between the USPS and themselves but again due to the cost of doing business.

The reduction of the work force is already under way with offers of buyouts; closing and consolidating smaller stations and delivery areas. The consideration of the 5 day work week, has always been an option, but, believe it or not was blocked not so much by the unions (APWU and NALC), but more by management.

UPS and FedEx are good services without question. Are they in a position to deliver to EVERY household in America, even on a 3 day basis? The logistics alone are staggering. Could they handle the increased volume that would surely come their way? I can believe that their be rates based on distance from point of mailing. The increase in volume leads one to assume that costs in handling said volume will likewise rise. Do not for one second doubt that those costs will be passed on to the consumers. As Sully above mentioned you can send a letter anywhere in the US AND it's territories for 44cents, and get it there within a 2-3 window.

Now, does it not seem strange that folks would think that the increasing costs of doing business does NOT affect the USPS as well, to put it mildly, they do not get their gas for free. So all costs are likewise passed off to the consumers in the way of rate hikes. They cannot just arbitrarily just raise the prices, they must seek and get an approval for one. Admittedly they have yet to be turned down, but the point is, they just can't say, hey, I'm raising the price effective immediately.

Finally the USPS is a quasi-government run enterprise. As such, they are allowed to have a surplus (something that hasn't happened in a good while), but cannot exactly retain all of the surplus over and above the entire operating costs. In other words it is not designed to show a profit. All revenues, that exceed the costs of operation are supposed to go into the US Treasury. This is not so for the private sector, as all profits can be reinvested to make the company more profitable. As for taxpayer funded, it hasn't been funded by the US Taxpayers for years.

All the above being stated, I could and would support privaterization, but to suggest that it could be done willy-nilly, (Walmart, selling services? Actually they already do sell some; M.O.s, and stamps, which btw they sell OVER the price of the USPS)

If the congress and the American people wish it, then yes it can be done, but let us first have companies draw up a plan of action and present it to both, and show that they CAN do the job.

One final word, remember those that work under extreme conditions, delivering your mail. The old motto of holds true. Some person is out there in the worst weather doing they're best to make sure your latter from grandma, or aunt Betty or cousin Sue, gets to you, daily. They are some of the most reliable and dedicated folks I have had the pleasuer to work with in my life.Likewise remember those that serve behind the counters. Those of you who have never had to deal with the public have no idea what a difficult, trying, and yes extremely frustrating job that can be at times.

Bravo, Mr. Will.

The USPS is a dinosaur that should have been allowed to become extinct long, long ago. In an era of email It makes absolutely no sense to to have a government run mail service. The sooner we accept this reality, the sooner we can start putting those wasted tens---if not hundreds---of billions of dollars to the advantage of the nation at large.

The govmint gave control of our money to a private group, the Federal Reserve Board, so why not give postal service to private groups. Oops I forgot, FedEx, UPS, etc. are honest as opposed to the FRB. No pay offs to the crooks and/or mental midgets in Washington.

I can write a letter to the Patriot Post and ask them to replicate it in this space. It will take 2-3 days (assuming there are no Sundays or holidays), another several hours once it arrives while someone there wonders why I'm bothering them with it before they post it, and it will cost me 44 cents. Of course by the time that happens this thread will be on page 3 and nobody will be reading it by then.

Or I can type it in this little yellow window and hit the "Submit" button. It will arrive in less than a second, be posted immediately, and will require no human handling whatsoever. And the cost is included as part of my internet service at no additional cost than that which I pay anyway.

Army Officer (Ret) strikes again!

Excellent point, and to the point---a perfect combination.

I have to admit that until I moved overseas with the military, I never thought too much about the USPS. For me, most of my bills could be sent electronically, and most junk mail went in the trash. But now that I'm in Europe, with kids in the US, it sure is nice to be able to mail packages in the flat-rate boxes at my local APO. Is it worth the billions of dollars being lost by the USPS. No. But it sure is convenient while it lasts. It would be great if a solution could be found, but I fear it won't.

Who says the post office has to make money? The Army doesn't make money. Both of the Army and the Post Office are organizations authorized by the constitution and no where in the constitution is it stipulated that they must turn a profit. If the government is going to perform these services then our tax dollars must pay for them along with whatever user fees (stamps) are added. The army isn't a for profit organization nor should the post office be one.

That said, Mr. Will is right, in that just because the constitution says the government can do it doesn't mean they have to do it. If it can be done better and cheaper by the private sector then by all means let it be so. But let's do it not because the post office is "loosing money". Lets do it because it makes sense in this time of bloated government and burgeoning deficits.

Sully-

You (and several others) are absolutely correct when you point out what a relative bargain postal delivery still is. And I question whether even well-established private concerns like FedEx or WalMart would be willing or able to pick up that responsibility were the USPS to lay it down.

But the main reason that the Post Office continually loses money is that it long ago stopped being a mail-delivery service, and became a pension fund that also carries letters, in the same way that the "Big Three" US automakers are pension fund / financial service companies who also happen to build cars. And in all those cases, you can lay the blame at the feet of the unions.

If ALL government offices were required to use the US Post Office for overnight package delivery and all other mail delivery services, the USPO would likely turn a profit. As it is, every day, Fed Ex picks up packages and large envelopes from the Federal building where I work. The USPO mail carrier also picks up letters from a blue box outside. I do not understand why the Federal Government does not use the USPO for ALL their mail.

SSD-

If one isn't concerned about the cost, why not opt for the faster service that FedEx provides? I imagine that if the expense were coming out of their own pockets (instead or ours) many of those government workers would decide that maybe those packages and letter were not quite so urgent after all.

People are claiming than the USPS can deliver a letter for 44 cents. Not true! If the USPS could deliver a letter for 44 cents, it would not have a $5.1 billion deficit! The true cost of letter delivery is 44 cents plus your share of that $5.1 billion loss, which is about $70/year for a 4-person family when averaged over 300 million Americans.

The USPS has done and continues to do a great service, but it must change with the times to be economically competitive in response to changing technology.

The USPS is just as inept as the government that runs it...and as always we the people pay the price...

I appreciate that I can send a bill, card, or letter for what I see as a very low fee and that it will arrive in a relatively short period of time.

That being said I'm not sure how hard the job really is. I understand it is constant, but how difficult is it to drive around in a company truck and drop off lightweight material. If there is a box of any size or weight I just get a card that says I need to come to the Post Office to pick it up so that is hardly a delivery service.

If the cause of the USPS financial situation is related to the benefit package then they need some tool to bring that back in line with some measure of what the revenue stream is so that the benefit is tied to customer use of the service.

Yeah, it sucks to have cutbacks but when you lose customers through technology you can't realistically expect to have the same benefit package that was based on a revenue stream that is no longer part of your portfolio.

Retired Postal worker:

I don't buy stamps at Walmart but I KNOW my local W-mart sells MO's for far less than USPS.

Let the market work, that is best for all of us in the long run.

SSD and P3,

You're both correct about the profit requirements of the USPS (essentially none). And SSD is also correct that the Army doesn't make money. I will add that the Army does not provide consumer goods or services like the USPS does, though, so the comparison is meaningless.

Even so, the Army does operate within a budget, and does, indeed, hire out a large number of its functions to the private sector. Many things that used to be done by soldiers are now done by civilians because it's cheaper to pay a civilian like me (as a retired Lieutenant Colonel) to train soldiers than it is to put a Lieutenant Colonel on active duty to do what I do. Similarly, it's cheaper in the long run to pay some Estonian to cook in an Afghan dining facility for $90,000 a year than to bring in another soldier, train him, and face the possibility of paying him for 60 years if he stays in for 20 years and collects a pension for another 40 years.

So for those functions where civilians are cheaper, even the Army uses them to control costs. The difference is that, unlike soldiering, EVERYTHING the USPS does can be done by contractors.

I suspect that if the FedGov put all the assets of USPS up for auction with the winner responsible for mail delivery (the same way Army contractors are responsible to the Army for the service they provide), and allow for unbridled competition, there would be plenty of takers who could do as well or better.

The operation of the US mail system is a monumental job, indeed. I do not think it should be privatized or let out to contract, however. If the US Postal System needs more money, then let us cut off foreign aid or some of the other areas of government funding in order to pay for it.

Did anyone read Doktor Riktor's remarks? There were several important points that should at least slow the rush to judgement. If the Doktor's input is carefully examined perhaps we could see where the USPS cost efficiency could be greatly improved. It seems more like a need for a zero-budget overhaul than a death sentence.

Also, how about a national defense argument? If we were at war (kinetic, cyber, or otherwise) and the security of the Internet has been compromised, would not a government contractor (the USPS) who already had an infrastructure in place be useful to securely deliver vital messages? I would think so.

George Rogers Clark,

One point: except under certain circumstances the "vital messages" to which you refer cannot be carried by the USPS. Only messages with the lowest classifications can go through the mail. Everything else must go via encrypted means or be hand-carried by courier.

So even if the security of the internet were compromised, the level of encryption the government uses on Top Secret correspondence renders the interception of those messages useless. If it would take more than 10 years for the fastest decryption program to unscramble a single message using 128-bit encryption (that's not a misprint), I really don't care who intercepts it.

Basically, you can send an encrypted message "in the clear" over unsecured means since only someone with the decryption key can decode it. It's perfectly safe and we do it all the time.

We can't do away with the postal service in it's current iteration.

Where will all the civil retirees go for second career jobs where nothing is required of them other than they show up every day?

1. Get rid of the ruinous defined benefit pension plan that is bankrupting the service.

2. Privatize the sites of the vast majority of post offices by leasing space/staff to private retailers. If any place as socialized as New Zealand can do it, certainly we can.

In spite of its so called independence, the post office remains a political satrapy.

I was a cook at the dining facility in No Charleston AFB. SSSSSOOOOOO PROUD I am a military child,military wife twice. I SO LOVED MY JOB AND THESE KIDS that did what they had to do to keep my world safe. They are treated poorly I KNOW this is NOT RIGHT !!!!!!!!!!!!!! Help me help them!!