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Should door to door mail delivery end?

What do you think of the new Post Office proposal?

  • Total voters
    51
  • Poll closed .
Cephus said:
That's life. Here's the time to get one. That's like saying not everyone owns a car so we have to keep providing for the horse and buggy. Time marches on. Those who refuse to keep up can go extinct.
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Actually, not everyone has a car, so we have buses. Email isn't anywhere near full penetration nor is the system secure as the US Mail.
 
Lachean said:
First of all you've got your price WAY off:
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Second of all, the only reason the USPS can charge $.46 is because they're subsidized, hence the LOSSES.
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and while that is not true I am sure you will base a lot of your opinions on it.
 
The dinosaur needs to thrash a bit longer before it dies. It still has quite a bit of life left in it.
 
Baralis said:
I still support home delivery as many elderly or disabled people would have a much harder time if we did away with it however, I believe the USPS could greatly cut its costs with a simple change. Remove on house mail boxes and put them all at the curb. The town I live in which is approx 26K people still have a majority (guess 75%) of their residential boxes located on the home, meaning on foot delivery, which is not very labor or cost effective. New homes here are required to have boxes at the curb so that mail can be delivered from the street (vehicle) but when the change when into affect all on home boxes were grandfathered in. On home boxes are not necessary and not efficient. I think a lot could be saved by simply moving all on home boxes across the nation to the curb. Give people a year to move their box to the curb.
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Exactly. That, or - I lived in a neighborhood last year, and they didn't have mailboxes at all. They had a centralized mailbox location, much like in apartment buildings. We had to drive (or walk) about a mile to pick up our mail. Honestly, it was a little frustrating, but if it's going to save the USPS, I'm sure a lot of people would be OK with it.

Baralis said:
I see mentioned a lot in this thread that people need to keep up with the times that electronic services should replace the current mail system. This sounds great but may not work for all people. In my case for example it would make things much more difficult. I live on a very very limited budget and the utilities here charge a surcharge of $3-5 if you pay your bill electronically, add that up among my utilities and it would cost as much as one of my cheaper utilities. Some people such as myself could not afford that.
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Most utilities are governed, so an easy fix would just be to not allow utilizes to charge this surcharge. I'm trying to think of which bill I pay that charges me a surcharge. I think I have 1 credit card that charges me $5, and my water bill is $2.50. I think that's about it.
 
Superfly said:
Exactly. That, or - I lived in a neighborhood last year, and they didn't have mailboxes at all. They had a centralized mailbox location, much like in apartment buildings. We had to drive (or walk) about a mile to pick up our mail. Honestly, it was a little frustrating, but if it's going to save the USPS, I'm sure a lot of people would be OK with it.



Most utilities are governed, so an easy fix would just be to not allow utilizes to charge this surcharge. I'm trying to think of which bill I pay that charges me a surcharge. I think I have 1 credit card that charges me $5, and my water bill is $2.50. I think that's about it.
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The surcharge isn't coming from the utility but the payment processer.
 
clownboy said:
Yeah, except it doesn't.
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Sure it does. There's nowhere on the planet I can't get my e-mail. Just because people CHOOSE not to have it is no excuse.
 
clownboy said:
Actually, not everyone has a car, so we have buses. Email isn't anywhere near full penetration nor is the system secure as the US Mail.
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Time to change that, isn't it?
 
Cephus said:
Sure it does. There's nowhere on the planet I can't get my e-mail. Just because people CHOOSE not to have it is no excuse.
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That is just plain not true.
 
Cephus said:
Time to change that, isn't it?
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It's been changing, for a couple decades now. Societies don't do sharp turns well. And the young entitled set seem to have little patience. :mrgreen:
 
Baralis said:
I still support home delivery as many elderly or disabled people would have a much harder time if we did away with it however, I believe the USPS could greatly cut its costs with a simple change. Remove on house mail boxes and put them all at the curb. The town I live in which is approx 26K people still have a majority (guess 75%) of their residential boxes located on the home, meaning on foot delivery, which is not very labor or cost effective. New homes here are required to have boxes at the curb so that mail can be delivered from the street (vehicle) but when the change when into affect all on home boxes were grandfathered in. On home boxes are not necessary and not efficient. I think a lot could be saved by simply moving all on home boxes across the nation to the curb. Give people a year to move their box to the curb.
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clownboy said:
The surcharge isn't coming from the utility but the payment processer.
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From what I understand, all "online payments" require a processor. What would stop my water authority from changing to another processor? One like my utility company, who doesn't charge me a fee? It's possible that the fee is absorbed, or something - I'm not sure. But this is a possibility. This could be done, but people will have to move forward, and stop living like Little House on the Freaking Prairie. :shrug:
 
Superfly said:
From what I understand, all "online payments" require a processor. What would stop my water authority from changing to another processor? One like my utility company, who doesn't charge me a fee? It's possible that the fee is absorbed, or something - I'm not sure. But this is a possibility. This could be done, but people will have to move forward, and stop living like Little House on the Freaking Prairie. :shrug:
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No, some handle it inhouse, but only certain payment methods they can process easily. For instance, PGE up here, there is no charge for check by phone payments, but there is a surcharge for credit card over phone payments.
 
Mason66 said:
How do you send a certified letter through email to prove the recipient got it?
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Fed Ex.

Or maybe it will be a new private business opportunity.
 
Hard Truth said:
You can't have a genuine (representational) democracy without the ability to send and receive voter information booklets, absentee ballots, books, newspapers, magazines, and campaign material to everyone, even people living in (unprofitable for private delivery services) rural areas.
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This is the first possible reason I've seen to keep the delivery.

However that does not require the USPS. The govt's can just contract those deliveries out. And really, they have no obligation to get anything but the ballots to the people. (If that.) I take mine to the library to mail in a special box specifically for that. The local, state, and fed govts could set that up as well. Nothing is free.
 
Ockham said:
The story is our US Post Office is loosing tons of money - the reasons are a bit complex but suffice to say they have been running in the red for quite some time and something has to give. A recent bill H.R. 4670, Secure Delivery for America Act of 2014 -- was approved by the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee recently. This bill basically removes at home delivery and creates a centralized delivery mailbox (outdoors or indoors) where people will need to travel to pick up their daily mail, USPS packages, etc. The saving is estimated (yeah right - sorry but government identifying savings is like NASA stumbling on a "faster than the speed of light warp drive") to be $2 Billion per year.


Like that plan? Hate that plan? or Don't care... choose one and don't forget to give a blurb reply about your answer.
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I am fine with the way the postal service is done right now.It is a valuable service to the people. Not everything in the government should be done like a private a business or done a away just because a handful elites who can afford private options want it done away with.
 
CanadaJohn said:
The same type of plan is being phased in here in Canada. My only objection to the plan, personally, is that here in Canada the post office delivers scads of junk mail and flyers and I'm not going down the block daily to pick up junk to carry back home and toss in my recycle bin. They better have recycle bins right on the site of the community boxes or the neighbors in the direct vicinity are going to have their lawns covered in discarded flyers and junk. Out of principle, I will simply collect all the junk mail and walk it to the outgoing postal box and dump it in there if they continue as they do currently.
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You are my hero. :lol:

Superfly said:
From what I understand, all "online payments" require a processor. What would stop my water authority from changing to another processor? One like my utility company, who doesn't charge me a fee? It's possible that the fee is absorbed, or something - I'm not sure. But this is a possibility. This could be done, but people will have to move forward, and stop living like Little House on the Freaking Prairie. :shrug:
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Look carefully. The processor for publicly regulated utility companies (i.e.: gas electric, wtc.) is that they use third-party processors. They do not do it in house. The utility companies are legally prohibited from taking any less than what they're owed, and paying a credit card processing fee is viewed as taking less. Plus, VISA and MasterCard rules prohibit surcharges. When you pay the electric bill you are not paying the electric company, you are paying XYZ Payment Middleman Company to pay your bill for you.

You can usually pay your phone bill directly with a credit card, though, because the phone is not a publicly regulated utility.

I pay my electric bill online for free, but have them draw it directly from my checking account. I do not know if all companies offer this option. I do have the choice to pay via credit card, but if I do I get redirected to the third-party middleman and they charge a fee for their service.
 
Ockham said:
The story is our US Post Office is loosing tons of money - the reasons are a bit complex but suffice to say they have been running in the red for quite some time and something has to give. A recent bill H.R. 4670, Secure Delivery for America Act of 2014 -- was approved by the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee recently. This bill basically removes at home delivery and creates a centralized delivery mailbox (outdoors or indoors) where people will need to travel to pick up their daily mail, USPS packages, etc. The saving is estimated (yeah right - sorry but government identifying savings is like NASA stumbling on a "faster than the speed of light warp drive") to be $2 Billion per year.


Like that plan? Hate that plan? or Don't care... choose one and don't forget to give a blurb reply about your answer.
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Ever since the advent of the internet USPS has been getting anally raped. Might as well just kill them once all the 80-year olds who are the few who use them die.
 
I voted I hate it. I don't do online bill pay. Still get netflix, mail and receive letters. The post office is in trouble because of them having to fund employee retirement decades in advance as most of you know. A gift from Bush administration to put one more government service in private hands. Cost saving here 2 billion. Chump change I say compared to the unnecessary Iraq yearly war cost not even counting deaths. Oh no, another "it was Bush" answer. Just doing cost comparisons and 2 billion a year isn't much.
 
Cephus said:
That's life. Here's the time to get one. That's like saying not everyone owns a car so we have to keep providing for the horse and buggy. Time marches on. Those who refuse to keep up can go extinct.
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Also, broadband is not available everywhere.
 
Carrier pigeons! Oh wait...
 
End Saturday delivery. Raise the cost of a stamp to a dollar.

Have an IPO. Let the people that run the post office be held accountable to stockholders.
 
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