Stop Staples Taking Over the USPS Offices

[Skeptic Ginger]

I think replacing or killing off the USPS is a bad idea. OP is right, I think. If USPS goes away, the rest will collude, divide up the market share, not compete, and service will plummet. Look at the cable companies in this country... little to no competition in most areas, poor quality at high expense. ...

This ^ is what history demonstrates. It's what the evidence supports. Unlike the belief in the sound-bite stereotype the post office is a mess.

 

[marplots]

Only if you believe the false narrative, the post office is poorly run, and didn't notice Staples actually is.

I know less about Staples than the post office, but I worked for the latter. Even so, I think most citizens are equally ignorant of both. What will matter here is the experience at the counter. If they run it like their copy services, that would be good enough for me.

Did I get the story right that the proposal is to move some counter services into retail stores and no change to how deliveries are handled?

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

And society should shoulder the burden of keeping the USPS in order to keep home run businesses in business... Why, exactly?...

This ^ is exactly what I mean about the ignorance in believing the false narrative.

Who is shouldering what burden? Look it up. Tell us how much society is paying to keep up the USPS. I'll wait.....

 

[666]

Organization|Pcs/day|Employees|
Fedex | 3,400,000 | 300,000 |
UPS | 14,000,000 | 400,000 |
USPS | 564,000,000 | 600,000 |

(Tried to get that in a table, but couldn't make it work.)

After much trial and error...

Organization |

Pcs/day​

| Employees
FedEx|

3,400,000​

|

300,000​

|
UPS|

14,000,000​

|

400,000​

|
USPS|

564,000,000​

|

600,000​

|

The tutorial here is quite basic.

 

[TragicMonkey]

No, you couldn't.

Yes, I very much could indeed. You don't see the postal service as necessary. Others do. Why on earth should yours be the policy taken?

False analogies are false.

Great and thoughtful response. Part of being in a society is accepting that sometimes the collective takes actions that don't directly benefit every single individual member. You help pay for A, B, C, and D. You only use C and D. But your neighbors might only use A. If they chose to only contribute to what they use themselves, you might lose C and D altogether.

 

[Mudcat]

What the damn? Are you really suggesting that working from home isn't work?

Yes. I see you've been leveling up your reading comprehension skills. Congratulations.

I would ask what century you're in, but there have been people working in their homes since before civilization even began.

I live in the century where "You can work at home" claims are often scams, alongside of "Invest in gold" scams and the newer "You, too, can own your own oil drilling" scams.

That you can't conceive of that means you're not only lacking imagination but you're also quite out-of-touch with the real world.

Or I seen too much of the real world to believe that "You can work at home" is any way workable. It's hard enough being a local business owner, I imagine it's significantly harder to be a work at home business owner.

 

[marplots]

Y
Or I seen too much of the real world to believe that "You can work at home" is any way workable. It's hard enough being a local business owner, I imagine it's significantly harder to be a work at home business owner.

Depends on the niche. It fits some better than others. I'm a freelance writer. Everything I do is remote anyhow - either email or phone. Having something other than a home office doesn't make much sense for me.

Perhaps, by "business," you were thinking retail sales or manufacturing?

 

[Mudcat]

Yes, I very much could indeed. You don't see the postal service as necessary. Others do. Why on earth should yours be the policy taken?

And why should I consider the post office as necessary? If it weren't for bills and junkmail, I wouldn't get any mail at all and most of the time I don't even get that. Is your experience any different?

It's been a number of years since I've lived in a rural setting, but I don't remember it being any differently.

Great and thoughtful response. Part of being in a society is accepting that sometimes the collective takes actions that don't directly benefit every single individual member. You help pay for A, B, C, and D. You only use C and D. But your neighbors might only use A. If they chose to only contribute to what they use themselves, you might lose C and D altogether.

The problem is that the specific items you've chosen for A, B, C, and D are all items that a large portion of society uses at one time or another as opposed to the post office so it makes sense that everyone contribute to it even if they never use it themselves. The only time I ever set foot in the post office is when I help my mom send my sister birthday & Christmas presents for my niece and nephew. Most people I personally know don't even go that often.

Is your experience any different?

 

[Tiktaalik]

http://yourpostalblog.blogspot.com/2010/03/busting-postal-myths-part-1.html

The only people who pay for the postal service are the people who actually use the service. How is it an inconvenience to anyone to keep the post office going?

 

[Mudcat]

Perhaps, by "business," you were thinking retail sales or manufacturing?

Yes, that is so.

http://yourpostalblog.blogspot.com/2010/03/busting-postal-myths-part-1.html

The only people who pay for the postal service are the people who actually use the service. How is it an inconvenience to anyone to keep the post office going?

If they offered a service to filter out junkmail, I would pay any fee they asked even if I never used the post office for the rest of my life.

 

[mgidm86]

Yes. I see you've been leveling up your reading comprehension skills. Congratulations.



I live in the century where "You can work at home" claims are often scams, alongside of "Invest in gold" scams and the newer "You, too, can own your own oil drilling" scams.



Or I seen too much of the real world to believe that "You can work at home" is any way workable. It's hard enough being a local business owner, I imagine it's significantly harder to be a work at home business owner.

Thank you for admitting that it's hard being a home business owner. A few posts ago you said something about...

Why should we be concerned with the minority of people who don't put any hours into any kind of labor working from their homes?

So which is it? Working at home, I am my own accountant, receptionist, programmer, graphic artist, sound engineer, researcher and advertising manager. And I clean my toilet sometimes, so I'm the janitor as well.

Oh yeah, if I don't do a good job I don't get paid.

You can't get much more responsibility that that. What do you do?

 

[Mudcat]

What do you do?

I go to school five days a week, making a B average, so I can become more useful to society and make a better life for myself, whilst slaving away in two thankless, menial, minimum wage jobs seven days a week. What's your excuse?

Edited to add: I never said being a business owner wasn't difficult, let alone being a home business owner.

 

[SezMe]

How do you know this? The only document I found about it was heavily redacted and I couldn't find a mention of scale.

Let's start with the numbers in this very thread. Let me know what else you need to appreciate that the experiment you propose is worse than trying to turn a supertanker on a dime.

 

[shemp]

There's no war going on in my town. Abolish the U.S. military! It'll never pay for itself!

 

[marplots]

Let's start with the numbers in this very thread. Let me know what else you need to appreciate that the experiment you propose is worse than trying to turn a supertanker on a dime.

Those numbers show packages delivered and number of employees. They don't say anything at all about how many post office branches USPS intends to put in Staples stores, how the results will be evaluated, or anything of any merit whatsoever.

If you have actual information about the Post Office's plans, I'd be happy to see it. Seriously - it would move the conversation forward. As I said earlier, one player extremely interested in this (one of the postal worker's unions) didn't have it a week ago.

I don't think it's fair to assume USPS is completely transferring operations to Staples, although that's a nice spin. If they are, let's see the documentation - it's not like this stuff happens in a vacuum.

 

[SezMe]

Is your experience any different?

That reveals what the problem is with your position. It's basically based on: What about ME? Whaa. Whaa.

Good public policy should derive from an analysis of local, regional and national needs, objectives, common good, etc. It rarely, if ever, is wisely found from a position of an individual's own needs.

I reject you own assertions based on your own personal experience because as a student working part time jobs, your profile is not congruent with that of most Americans. Now, if you could show how your experience leads to better public policy because your experience accurately reflects a significant portion of the public then maybe ......

 

[The Central Scrutinizer]

http://yourpostalblog.blogspot.com/2010/03/busting-postal-myths-part-1.html

The only people who pay for the postal service are the people who actually use the service. How is it an inconvenience to anyone to keep the post office going?

The USPS ran a $5B deficit for FY 2013. Where do you think that money comes from?

 

[Brainster]

Well, after doing some digging, I found out that the issue is not prefunding pensions. I know, it's shocking that the OP could possibly be wrong on a subject, but it happened just this one time and probably never again.

The real issue is not pensions, but future retiree's health care benefits. Those mean and nasty Republicans want the Postal Service to fund them on an actuarially sound basis, while the USPS (both management and the union) would prefer a "pay as you go" plan. The GAO has said:

GAO has reported that Congress needs to modify the U.S. Postal Service's (USPS) retiree health benefit payments in a fiscally responsible manner. GAO also has reported that USPS should prefund any unfunded retiree health benefit liability to the maximum extent that its finances permit. Deferring funding for postal retiree health benefits could increase costs for future ratepayers and increase the risk that USPS may not be able to pay for these costs.

The problem with "pay as you go" is that mail volume has been declining:

Total mail volume was 158.4 billion pieces compared to 159.8 billion pieces a year ago. Package and Standard Mail volumes grew by 210 million pieces and 1.4 billion pieces, respectively, while the most profitable product, First-Class Mail, fell by 2.8 billion pieces, led by single-piece volume decline.

Revenues were up in the fiscal year ended 9-30-13, but that was the first increase in five years:

Operating revenue, excluding a $1.3 billion non-cash change in an accounting estimate, was $66 billion compared to $65.2 billion in 2012. While this is the first growth in revenue since 2008, declining First-Class Mail revenue continues to negatively impact financial results.

Assuming the longer-term trend continues and the Post Office revenues decline, then you have a double-whammy: declining income and increased medical benefit expenses, especially as the Baby Boom postal employees retire.

While it is easy to understand why management wants to kick the can down the road, why is the union going along? This gives a hint:

Savings from plant consolidations, restructuring hours at Post Offices, reductions in delivery units, and workforce optimization resulted in approximately $1 billion of savings in 2013.

And I'm sure the union's backup plan is that the federal government bails out the plan. Which may explain why the evil Republicans aren't going along.

Here's a Huffington Post report on the subject, which is very sympathetic to the USPS pay as you go proposal. But get this detail:

Since 2006, Congress has forced the Postal Service to make enormous annual contributions into a fund for future retiree health benefits, including the $5.5 billion and $5.6 billion mentioned above. In fact, since they began, these payments have accounted for more than 80 percent of the Postal Service's losses.

But 20% of their losses are due to other factors; the Post Office hasn't turned a profit since 2004.

 

[Travis]

I live in the city and have a shared mailbox like you might see in an apartment building. It's two or three inches square. A few magazines and a pile of junk mail and it's full.

You get junk mail? Interesting. I pretty much never get junk mail. A couple bills a week and that is about all the mail I get.

I am not feeling a lot of sympathy for the USPS.

Two envelopes, same physical parameters of dimension and weight but different contents.

The one containing written or printed material/documents goes for the lesser postage, the one containing something other than written or printed documents has to go for the parcel rate which can be two to three times letter rate.

WHY!?

That and the condescending reaction of the clerk when told what was in the envelope.

What were you mailing?

 

[marplots]

In the postal system, there's no such thing as junk mail. There's just mail.