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Postal Service on path to be broke by October

buck said:
Last time they tried it was rejected and determined that raising the rates wouldn't change the fundamental problems that the post office has.
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If there problem is lack of revenue, why would not raising more revenue help solve the problem?
 
Erod said:
LOL

Yeah, just raise it to $100 a letter, and.......problem solved!!
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Is that what you are proposing? It seems ridiculous in the extreme to propose multiplying the current rate for first class postage by over 200 times.
 
Tucker Case said:
Seems pretty simple. They didn't charge these companies enough to exploit a public service.
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Or.....they didn't monitor productivity as a private company would and suffered from ineffeciency, waste, and a bloated workforce.
 
haymarket said:
If there problem is lack of revenue, why would not raising more revenue help solve the problem?
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Because they determiend it was not a lack of revenue.
 
haymarket said:
If there problem is lack of revenue, why would not raising more revenue help solve the problem?
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It would be much like inflating a punctured tire. There all fixed!;)
 
Erod said:
Or.....they didn't monitor productivity as a private company would and suffered from ineffeciency, waste, and a bloated workforce.
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True. A private company wouldn't hacve allowed other companies to exploit the resources. They would have raised their prices for corporate use considering the lack of viable competition they faced.
 
haymarket said:
Is that what you are proposing? It seems ridiculous in the extreme to propose multiplying the current rate for first class postage by over 200 times.
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It's seems more ridiculous that, again, your side's answer to everything is to just "raise rates". Higher prices mean less usage of the post office.

Kind of like raising taxes.........oh crap, never mind.
 
Tucker Case said:
True. A private company wouldn't hacve allowed other companies to exploit the resources. They would have raised their prices for corporate use considering the lack of viable competition they faced.
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Or....they would have lowered prices to increase volume, cut back on staff, invented a better sorting method, and incentivized their employees with productivity bonus structures.
 
Erod said:
...especially since, unlike FedEx and UPS, the post office doesn't have to show a profit. Government agencies never do.

That's the same reason insurance companies have no chance against a public healthcare option.
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UPS or FEDEX could not deliver letters to every address for 50 cents and make a profit. Privatizing the post office would lead to the $3.00 dollar stamp for letters. If thats what people want, its fine by me.
 
liblady said:
better that than losses.
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But that's the point. It won't get rid of losses. It will just get rid of some of the mail they have to deliver.
 
Erod said:
It's seems more ridiculous that, again, your side's answer to everything is to just "raise rates". Higher prices mean less usage of the post office.

Kind of like raising taxes.........oh crap, never mind.
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The rates have to cover the cost of the service. Losing more money on every letter would not help the bottom line.
 
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buck said:
Because they determiend it was not a lack of revenue.
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I would be interested in seeing what it was and the sources you are referring to.
 
USA_1 said:
The rates have to cover the cost of the service.
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How many letters can a mailman deliver in an hour?

Let's see. If he went to 50 houses in an hour and delivered 5 letters per house (including paid-for junk mail), that's $125 of mail in an hour. For the day, that's $1,000. How much does the mailman make? What did it cost to transport and sort it?

Again, find efficiencies.
 
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USA_1 said:
The rates have to cover the cost of the service.
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If it's a private business, then yes. If it's government, then no. Government doesn't need to turn a profit on everything, it merely needs to exist.
 
Erod said:
It's seems more ridiculous that, again, your side's answer to everything is to just "raise rates". Higher prices mean less usage of the post office.

Kind of like raising taxes.........oh crap, never mind.
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Lets see now

you make a post suggesting that rates be raised for 44 cents to $100.00.
Others suggest that maybe a more modest increase - perhaps to 50 cents would take care of the financial shortfall.

But according to you that is "more ridiculous" than your proposed 200 times increase.

Sure... we get it.
 
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Ikari said:
If it's a private business, then yes. If it's government, then no. Government doesn't need to turn a profit on everything, it merely needs to exist.
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This is an excellent point. If it truly is a government service, then the rates charged do not have to actually cover the actual cost of the service.
 
haymarket said:
Lets see now

you make a post suggesting that rates be raised for 44 cents to $100.00.
Others suggest that maybe a more modest increase - perhaps to 50 cents would take care of the financial shortfall.

But according to you that is "more ridiculous" than your proposed 200 times increase.

Sure... we get it.
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Apparently, you don't get the point. It went right over your head, so here you go....

If you raise the rates to 75 cents, why not 85 cents? Shoot, why not $1 or $1.50. Now we're making money! Why stop there, let's take it to $5 and make a killing. How about $100..........

Do you not see the point in the hyperbole?
 
haymarket said:
I would be interested in seeing what it was and the sources you are referring to.
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Just do a search for postal service rate increase rejected. It happened like a year ago.
 
The post office was pretty decently run iirc, it was actually profitable until a few years ago. I don't mind phasing it out in the modern era, but whatever replaces it needs to insure access to all Americans as public infrastructure. E-mail doesn't cut it alone, as it can't deliver small items like credits cards, not is it available to 100% of people.
 
Jesus people have no idea what they're talking about. Inefficient government, eh?
For decades the postal service has offered a service where they take a letter, put it on a plane, fly it across the country and then deliver it by hand for less than a dollar, and they've been self-sufficient doing it. What's FedEx's price for doing the same, hmm?

It wasn't until very recently that they started to run in the red. A combination of economic downturn and the fact that nobody is sending letters anymore means their revenue is dropping. They'll need some restructuring.

Find me one private entity that has been able to do what the USPS does, on that scale, more efficiently.
 
rathi said:
The post office was pretty decently run iirc, it was actually profitable until a few years ago. I don't mind phasing it out in the modern era, but whatever replaces it needs to insure access to all Americans as public infrastructure. E-mail doesn't cut it alone, as it can't deliver small items like credits cards, not is it available to 100% of people.
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That's essentially what we have with the post office. If you need to ensure access to all americans as a public infrastructure, you're talking government at that point. I don't get the big deal with the post office. So it's not turning a profit, oh well. The private companies can probably do a very good job. But there's no gaurantee with private companies that they're going to be there in the future. The government will be there, and thus it's best to use it for cases such as this. The Post Office doesn't need to turn a profit, it needs to exist.
 
Erod said:
Or....they would have lowered prices to increase volume, cut back on staff, invented a better sorting method, and incentivized their employees with productivity bonus structures.
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They tried some of those things. specifically lowering prices and inventing better sorting methods. They went bankrupt.

Also, when there is no competition and volume is already very high, lowering prices isn't a good idea.

Supply and demand.

There has always been a much higher demand for the service than there has been suppliers of that service, especially at the price. Mail-based adertising is the vast majority of what the Post office deals with. It is going broke because it subsidize these companies advertising budgets by losing money while prviding htem this service. That's piss poor business. Lowering prices and further subsidizing their advertising is just astronomically stupid.
 
Erod said:
How many letters can a mailman deliver in an hour?

Let's see. If he went to 50 houses in an hour and delivered 5 letters per house (including paid-for junk mail), that's $125 of mail in an hour. For the day, that's $1,000. How much does the mailman make? What did it cost to transport and sort it?

Again, find efficiencies.
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50 houses in an hour? Almost a house a minute? Those houses must be right on top of each other.
 
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USA_1 said:
50 houses in an hour? Alnost a house a minute? Those houses must be right on top of each other.
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Sometimes it's an apartment community, where you have 300 mailboxes within 10 feet of each other.
 
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