Has Anyone Else Seen This on the News?

don't even get me started........It's unfortunate but what has the postal service done about cutting back on their expenses? Now they expect a government bailout...hmmm...

I just don't understand why they can't go to 5 days a week or say 3 even. And get rid of all the junk mail. I throw half of that away anyway without opening it.
I do use the PO to pay some of my bills. I'm an old dog and this computer billing thing is still so new to me.

It's really too bad that the USPS is in this situation. They aren't allowed to close Post Offices, can't lay off employees, are legally required to pre-fund medical and retirement accounts, and can't raise rates. So how exactly are they supposed to deal with declining mail volumes? I wish Congress would wake up and realize that even though we all LOVE email, the Postal mail system is important too... and it needs to be saved.

The first time I can remember hearing the post office was going out of business was when a stamp for a letter was 6 or 8 cents.

These headlines usually come up just prior to the price of stamps going up. The worse the headlines the greater the increase in the price of stamps.

The government is on a spending spree that has been going on for well over a century. Everyone wants something without having to pay for it. The illegal aliens want social security. The democrats want the illegal alien vote (or those related to them.) So Obama's senate and congress pass a law giving illegal aliens SS benefits and try and pass a law giving amnesty to illegal aliens so they can vote.

Spend Spend Spend. That's what all this has in common. The post office won't go out of business. They'll just raise rates and probably go to a 5 day delivery schedule. But they have been pushing the 5-day schedule for decades. So they may or may not go to that.

Want to have the government spend less? Tell your senator and congressman. My senator is Boxer and she was instrumental in buying votes by giving SS benefits to those that haven't earned them and granting benefits to illegal aliens and many other things like that.

Get rid of the government giveaway programs and excessive/generous federal retirement programs and you go a long way to decreasing the budget deficit.

Good luck to you and yours.

I was offended that the news channel I was listening to said something like "probably nobody cares except your aunt"!!!! Well, thanks a lot! (I'm a 57-year-old aunt to many.) I think it was someone they were interviewing but whatever...

I was wondering how we were going to do Christmas cards, wedding invites, etc. I imagine UPS, Fed-ex are just salivating over this. I don't blame them. I feel someone will step in.

It's bizarre! How can government imagine they are going to manage our healthcare??? (don't get me started! lol)

I'm 47 and I've seen this USPS movie quite a few times.

Oh--as for the "collapse of our space program"? They're just not sending shuttles anymore, which, frankly, doesn't keep me up at night.

I had heard this was coming awhile ago...and you could forsee it with the constant raising of stamp prices.

I think it is another sign that the government does not know how to manage its' programs/services.

Social Security is going bankrupt, Public schools' budgets are in shambles and programs are being depleted, Medicaid/Medicare is struggling and I could go on and on.

We have a serious plague in our nation...overspending..mismanagement of resources...entitlement mentality and we need an overhaul. We need new leadership in many areas of government and we need to slash budgets and programs.

How do I feel about it?? I am downright pissed to watch all this happen and all I have control over is what happens in my own home.

We live within our means and still have money left over to save for our future and to donate to many charities and our local public school. We pay cash for all expenditures.... our motto is "save then buy".(except for our home and vehicle...even still we paid off our van ASAP and plan to do the same with our reasonably mortgaged home)

The postal service has been running in the red for years. Interesting to me the numbers have drastically changed since the last time I pulled data from bea.gov. Well anyway it is in the billions.

Here is the thing about all the doom and gloom, first of all you will not find a bigger bunch of overpaid people in the government. They pay little or nothing for their benefits unlike the rest of us.

Still the most telling part of these BS stories is how often do you actually get mail you were looking for. Maybe once a week? Yet they keep on delivering six days a week. How long do you think FedEx or UPS would stay in business if they went by your house every day just in case you had a package going out?

The post office unfortunately isn't going anywhere but it clearly needs to be restructured. I would be perfectly content to get my mail once a week.

We have friends who put in 30 years with USPS and are wondering if they can pay their bills or have to un-retire.

I think that one way or another, mail will continue. Maybe as an offshoot of FedEx and UPS (maybe we'll have to pick our carrier like we do our cable TV or get stuck with a company like our electric or water). I think that in general something needs to give. Maybe Saturday service, for one. The whole economy is tanked, so I am not surprised that the post office is hurting. The US is struggling in general. This is just one symptom.

I mail things all the time, using various sources. We stuff junk mail back in prepaid envelopes so that the unwanted credit card offers help fund the post office. I don't fully trust online payments so not all my bills are online and people like my grandmother don't get online at all so they need an option without a computer. It won't end 100%. That's my prediction. It will change, but not end.

Well, if the govt can bail out car companies, why not the frecking postal service.

Really though, we would have mail, we would have to use FedEx, UPS, and the Postal Service would be restructured and modernized. It may change from what we know it, but it won't totally go away.

Much of the post office problems are not just citizen driven (such as online bill pay, email vs. snail mail) but that Congress is preventing growth as well. Congress has plenty of options to save the postal service, they just aren't.:

http://blogs.reuters.com/felix-salmon/2011/09/06/how-to-s...

http://abcnews.go.com/Business/postal-office-nears-defaul...

Also, the Space Program is still going strong, just with a change in shuttle missions.

I heard this but haven't read a full article to know the ramifications. I know for a long time..years maybe? they have been talking about no Saturday delivery being possible. Why have they not done that? Sounds like a good money saving endeavor (altho probably not for the workers who would lose that income). I have a daycare parent (client) who is a mailman...I better grill him if I see him this week!

Disturbing even though I get so aggravated at non-stop junk mail! Perhaps the junk mailers could subsidize USPS?

I haven't heard it, but I can tell you, it won't happen. Not everyone has moved into this technological age, nor do they need or want to. I still like to get my bills in the mail. And what about birthday cards, Christmas cards, etc? It's a huge industry, and you can't email someone a card, it's just not the same. Or email pictures...most of the people I know want a solid picture they can hang up of the new baby, not an email to look at and discard.

I do know that the USPS is not supported by taxes or government funding of any sort, and obviously, that will have to change. Like our country needs something else to fund...but you know, maybe they could take some of that 20 million dollars they used to figure out why pigs stink and pay their postal workers.

Also, there shouldn't be a clause that protects workers from being fired, if that's the case. Our current mailman is TERRIBLE...walks around with his shirt wrinkled and untucked, his shorts falling down, his stomach practically hanging out his shirt, talking on a blue tooth, and SMOKING. In his USPS uniform. Plus, he misdelivers our packages to any house up and down our street when they are CLEARLY labeled to me, at my address, and he's about the rudest man I've ever met. I even gave the man Christmas cookies, and it didn't change his attitude. HE should be fired. I've logged several complaints, all valid, but of course nothing has been done.

They want to close low population offices (fire people), and drop Saturday delivery.
They've been talking about dropping a delivery day for several years now.

ISupply and Demand are still there- the government and their unions just botched it up (since when did a postmaster need a 250k salary?) the private sector will take over, (See Fed Ex and UPS) and we'll all still have our mail.

The only difference between the private sector taking this over from the government is your tax dollars would no longer be paying for an inflated pension plan and health benefits for a retired government employee.

The mail won't go away, it'd would just be contracted out.

I love getting the mail! I would be so sad to not have mail service anymore!
HOWEVER, they can fire my evil mailman. He has GOT to go!!!!!

Ok relax there will be mail. I heard this story too. What they are trying to do is sell some of the branches to other buisness owners who will continue to run it within the postoffice system. They may also have to close down some of the smaller branches or mulitply branches they don't feel they need. Example I live in a small town and am bordered by three other small towns, all ten minutes away, and we all have post offices. They may close down the one here and let our mail come from one of the other offices.

I fear what may be next......

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Sadly, the government has tied the postal service's hands when it comes to running the business efficiently. They have not evolved with the times and on top of that they are not permitted to engage in other revenue producing activities (this is common in other countries, btw) I hold out little hope that our government will allow the post office enough latitude to make the changes it needs to run efficiently soon enough for them to survive.
I think that ultimately private companies are going to take over because there will still be a market for mail delivery.

Well, I can tell you with both of my in laws working as Postal carriers, yeah, this would be a big deal.

Just had to chime in about the benefits...my mom has been a carrier (no carts allowed in her town, pack slung over her shoulder) and now a clerk for 24 years at USPS. They pay the same for their benefits as most employees at mid- large sized companies, and their insurance blows. My mom has been mistreated by the post office for her entire career, and has worked her @ss off the entire time. She will get a tiny pension, she has lifelong disabling neck, knee, and back injuries from her decade as a carrier, and the USPS has been awful to her since she has been on limited duty. Sorry to get off subject, but the USPS has been mistreating employees since the beginning of time, just wanted to bring that to light. They won't realistically privatize for another 5 years at the earliest though.

I didn't see this, but it's a bummer! I love handwriting notes and receiving them as well. Do we use UPS or FedEx for this kind of stuff now? How will this work? I'm only 27 and feel like handwriting personal notes and thank you's and whatever is VERY important! I pay my bills the old fashioned way!! I don't like this... any chance of recovery?

I have heard some of it and am appauled But on top of that i have also heard they are trying to take cursive writing out of the schools WHAT?!?!?! thsi world is going to pots fast. If you have ever seen the movie idiocracy(i personally hate that movie) you might be like me and see some similairities UGH the dumb getting dumber lol

I try not to mail things. All bills are paid on-line or over the phone. I, however, would miss the mail system.

Pensions out of control.... don't offer to pay what you can't afford to do. Oh and I am not talking about the postal carriers... those people deserve a good pension, but you have people at the top and in mgt. making HUGE out of whack salaries...
make it private. I truly believe it would be more competitive that way and much better..

I haven't heard this - but I'm kinda in shock. I LOVE getting mail - both in my inbox and mailbox... my daughter too.

I'll look more into it before I post more.

I've heard about it and I've also heard that because of how the contract is written with the unions they aren't able to decrease the amount of employees they have. So I believe their hands are tied because of that as well as because of the gov't. And for the fact that they are becoming obselete in a sense. Very sad.

and you'd think all the junk mail we receive would have paid them some amount to stay in business.. this is bad news...

How do I feel? I will miss it. Yet, I find it funny that I haven't mailed a letter or postcard in, like, ages. I can't even get my kids interested in mailing a letter; maybe a postcard while we are on a vacation.

There are a lot of commercial companies filling in the voids now in the space program. There is bound to be commercial companies who will deliver mail. I do know that UPS and FedEx have their letter sized flat envelopes. How hard would it be for them to step in and fill delivering letters!

Postal employees are, unfortunately, not the only employees losing their medical allowance or any insurance of some kind. I hope all these people find a solution soon.

I have been following this for a few months now. It just kills me that USPS is in jeopardy. CNN and MSNBC have both had very good, clear articles on this subject in the past month. Much of the problem is caused by, literally, less mail being sent - especially junk mail - that was huge business to the postal service and with the downturn in the economy, less junk mail is being sent out. Electronic communication has also impacted their business. Added to that is the very strong union that opposes any decrease in employee benefits and the better than average (and more expensive) insurance than any other federal employees have at that this time. There are other issues - but these stood out to me.

The Post Master wants to find ways to decrease the debt of the postal service, and is not looking for, nor wants, a federal bail out. USPS is not seeking an increase in their debt ceiling to keep afloat. Some proposals on the table are ceasing Saturday delivery, closing post offices, or combining them into existing retail venues in rural areas to reduce overhead, and revamping the pension and insurance programs - which many US corporations have already done to stay afloat.

Personally, I love USPS. They have the best package shipping rates around - you can pick up shipping boxes for free at the post offices, or go online and order them and they deliver them to your door for free, and you can slap another address label on the box and re-use it. I shipped a box to my sister in Kansas on Friday, and she got it today, and it only cost me $10. Way cheaper than UPS or Fedex. We use it all the time shipping each other fun boxes of miscellaneous stuff.

Anyhoo, maybe we should all just start mailing 2 letters a week. We have a population of 307 million in this country...if 200 million people, mailed just two letters a week that would be 9 billion in income per year. Just a drop in a bucket, really, considered an estimated 1.9 billion is spent every 2 weeks in salaries and benefits, but, to each individual, 88 cents a week is literally pocket change.

I think, if USPS is to be saved, we all have to use it more. Plus, their union needs to back some and allow changes to be made that will decrease their debt...many business, large and small, are having to make these changes in order to stay afloat now. As an employee, I would rather pay a share of my insurance and pension than not have a job at all. This is a mind set that our postal workers are going to have to consider in order to help return to financial stability. But, I do applaud our Post Master, for not wanting a the government to bail them out, for wanting to find ways, however painful, to make USPS work and remain solvent.

Just my thoughts.

:)

"The collapse of our space program"?? This isn't the first time on Mamapedia that someone has broadly said NASA is dead. Tell that to the NASA scientists and engineers who just sent up two probes to study the moon. (It's in today's papers.) Tell that to the folks at NASA who are still monitoring the Spirit and Opportunity probes on Mars -- probes that were supposed to last mere months but which have lasted years now and continue to send us amazing new information that furthers science all the time.

Ending the shuttle program does not translater into the death of NASA. It just means running a more efficient NASA.

The only thing this would change for me is that it would end the chore of cleaning the junk mail out of my box every few days. There are private companies that will ship paper if you really need to.

Everyone needs access to high speed internet. Let's spend our money for the future, not the past.

Yes I heard the story.

What can they do about it?

I understand there is a clause that protects postal workers from being laid off or fired. I don't know how much truth there is to that.

But, they could change the clause and start laying off people that need to be laid off and have some of the long timers take early retirement.

I'm sure BO will do something to try to make it seem like he saved it all.

I have been using UPS for everything important for some time now. I don't trust the mail. Too many things are lost and unaccounted for. If they lose my mail, they are not held accountable. UPS lost something of mine once, and paid for the item and shipping...and very easy to work with.

With that said, I would be said about not throwing a stamp on a card or letter. We are pretty paperless in our house, but I do make greeting cards. I enjoy sending handmade things to people through the mail. There are many people who rely on the mail, much more then I do.

Sadly most of all would be the thousands of jobs lost. Our country has a workforce problem to begin with. What would they all do?