US Postal Service future

[Anonymous]

It’s over no more mail you idiots voted for this

Imagine now how much Christmas cards cost to mail
Imagine how rural families will deal you fools utterly disgusting fools

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:You can't. It's an actual function of the government and it's listed in the U.S. Constitution. parts of it may be privatized, but overall, it'll still be a .gov department.

I will say this though. 50% of the federal taxes you pay go to service interest on the national debt THIS YEAR. I'm not talking about how much money we additionally create out of thin air to keep the gov going. I'm just talking about the collected taxes.

We knew we would get to this point - it's just math. But things are about to get interesting. We're literally up against a wall on the federal budget NOW.

Well that’s what happens when you don’t fund wars and tax cuts for the wealthy.

[Anonymous]

I'm as Big Government as they come, and I think the USPS is obsolete, or at least hopelessly inefficient. Someone drives from a sorting facility to my neighborhood daily, walks up the steps to my front door, puts mail in a box--only for me to trash 90% of it immediately. Taxpayers are subsidizing advertisers and bill collectors. What a waste of time and environmental resources.
Privatize it, but remain open to keeping a much scaled down (once a week?) delivery in rural or underserved areas.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I'm as Big Government as they come, and I think the USPS is obsolete, or at least hopelessly inefficient. Someone drives from a sorting facility to my neighborhood daily, walks up the steps to my front door, puts mail in a box--only for me to trash 90% of it immediately. Taxpayers are subsidizing advertisers and bill collectors. What a waste of time and environmental resources.
Privatize it, but remain open to keeping a much scaled down (once a week?) delivery in rural or underserved areas.

No thanks. Why should we subsidize people that neither want nor appreciate the subsidy? I'd much rather have a tax cut and some deficit reduction.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The Postal Service was created by Benjamin Franklin. It was a vital component piece to nation-building and creating a cohesive economy.

It’s also mandated in the Constitution.

+1 get rid of DeJoy. He destroyed it like every other MAGA. Going on 10 years of this MAGA crap. We’re not greater, just dumber.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I'm as Big Government as they come, and I think the USPS is obsolete, or at least hopelessly inefficient. Someone drives from a sorting facility to my neighborhood daily, walks up the steps to my front door, puts mail in a box--only for me to trash 90% of it immediately. Taxpayers are subsidizing advertisers and bill collectors. What a waste of time and environmental resources.
Privatize it, but remain open to keeping a much scaled down (once a week?) delivery in rural or underserved areas.

The Val-Pack type junk mail persists because their lobbyists have successfully perpetuated a low rate schedule for it - USPS doesn't want or need that business, and it could be cut without the drastic step of privatizing the mail.

I think that maintaining a system of hard copy communication is going to become even more important with the rise of email scams, deep fake stuff, bank hacks etc. The mail is reliable and people are still scared to tamper with it because the postal inspection people do not mess around. As we've seen with so many other services, the privatization playbook is that first you privatize, then you monopolize, then you enshitify or deny once the customer has no other options. We will find in a few years that we can't count on certain information or documents moving safely, and that large segments of the country do not have access to, e.g., accurate newspapers, correspondence with disfavored groups, actual USD checks instead of bitcoin, etc. To say nothing of mailed ballots.

[Anonymous]

All they do for me is deliver a bunch of junk mail. They are completely useless.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The Postal Service was created by Benjamin Franklin. It was a vital component piece to nation-building and creating a cohesive economy.

It’s also mandated in the Constitution.

It is not mandated or required. It is authorized as a power of the federal government.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I know we shouldn't expect it to function at its current capacity, which was already diminished thanks to the last time Trump was in office, but do you think it will survive? Be sold off and privatized? Left alone because the damage last time did not actually benefit any wealthy conservatives?

I'm predicting they will cripple it again and sell it at low cost to a Trump donor willing to take it on as a business.

We have had a lot of theft of checks this year. I pay 98% online/electronically. I question the value of the US mail if the workers cannot provide secure mail service.

[Anonymous]

Well, it's it's privatized, it won't be profitable to deliver mail to a lot of trump voters out in BFE.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I don't see the point of privatizing it. All of the profitable shipping has been picked of by UPS and FedEx.

The only point would be... to mess with mail in ballots.

It's about getting rid of the non-cost effective stuff, like rural delivery. UPS, FedEx, and Amazon subcontract to USPS to deliver to those areas because otherwise it would be prohibitively expensive. Let the free market work! Why should the federal government subsidize those very successful companies?

It isn't subsidizing UPS, it is subsidizing poor rural people. Just like the rural access to utilities like electricity, phone, internet.

Rural delivery of mail should be once a week and only if you didn't pick up your mail in town.
Going down a rural route to deliver junk mail is dumb as fk

In many small towns mail delivery on rural routes does only happen once every 3 days or every other day. My aunt lives on a farm in a rural location and only receives mail on Saturday and Wednesday.

Years ago when I lived in more 'rural' area of Loudoun county before it was developed, we were every-other-day mail delivery unless we wanted to sign up for a PO Box to get mail daily.

IMO, the crackdown needs to come with junk mail. The bulk mailing rates are far too low for that crap. I lived in an apartment building for a short time between selling my house and moving into our current house and the lobby of the building was littered with junk mail people threw on the floor after checking their mail. I never understood why the building didn't add a trashcan there. Paying $2800/month to be greeted by junk mail was so trashy.

[Anonymous]

I don't see how most of you figure the USPS isn't efficient.

I own my own small business. Most customers pick the USPS shipping option when making a purchase because it is the cheapest and fastest.

Neither UPS nor FedEx can get a package from VA to CA in 2 days without paying a hefty shipping cost, but the USPS can.

Furthermore, the USPS does the 'bish work' for FedEx SmartPost and UPS Surepost and Amazon. They transfer those packages to the USPS for final delivery. I wonder if USPS charges for doing that? They must or why else would they do it? Maybe they should charge more since most people do their shopping online.

Amazon also uses Amazon Flex drivers for rural delivery. Maybe the USPS should do something similar. Give the rural routes to contactors.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I don't see how most of you figure the USPS isn't efficient.

I own my own small business. Most customers pick the USPS shipping option when making a purchase because it is the cheapest and fastest.

Neither UPS nor FedEx can get a package from VA to CA in 2 days without paying a hefty shipping cost, but the USPS can.

Furthermore, the USPS does the 'bish work' for FedEx SmartPost and UPS Surepost and Amazon. They transfer those packages to the USPS for final delivery. I wonder if USPS charges for doing that? They must or why else would they do it? Maybe they should charge more since most people do their shopping online.

Amazon also uses Amazon Flex drivers for rural delivery. Maybe the USPS should do something similar. Give the rural routes to contactors.

I think it's efficient and believe that it would out compete FedEx if it was allowed to dump its rural routes and become unshackled from its Congressionally mandated obligations.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It’s over no more mail you idiots voted for this

Imagine now how much Christmas cards cost to mail
Imagine how rural families will deal you fools utterly disgusting fools

All of my interactions with the Post Office over the last couple years have been awful because there are criminals working there. I had someone steal a check I mailed and fraudulently changed the amount and endorsed it to themselves stealing thousands of dollars from me. I separately had Christmas presents I mailed last year stolen. They cut open the priory mail package, took the items they wanted and resealed it. The Post Office wouldn’t even let me report that unless the person who received the package sent me back the tampered with container. So someone on the inside knew how to manipulate the systems to steal and they ruined Christmas for some kids. Since these incidents I have stopped using checks and refuse to use the post office to mail another package. I honestly don’t care what happens to USPS because it’s worthless to me at this point.