Stop Staples Taking Over the USPS Offices

[theprestige]

Cost shifting: Shift wages of postal workers to minimum wage Staples' employees and shift the excess cash to profits for Staple's owners. Great for the economy. Think the cost of mail will go down?

The USPS is operating at a loss right now.

Riddle me this: At their current labor costs, how much would the the price of postage have to increase, for the USPS to break even? How much would Staples have to cut costs, to justify lowering the price of postage by even a penny? How much profit would you tolerate, for the owners of the company that somehow accomplished both a cost-cutting and a price-cutting, and still had a positive net revenue at the end of the day?

 

[quadraginta]

The USPS is operating at a loss right now.

Riddle me this: At their current labor costs, how much would the the price of postage have to increase, for the USPS to break even? How much would Staples have to cut costs, to justify lowering the price of postage by even a penny? How much profit would you tolerate, for the owners of the company that somehow accomplished both a cost-cutting and a price-cutting, and still had a positive net revenue at the end of the day?

Would this include Staples having to pre-fund seventy five years of health care costs for all of its employees?

 

[stevea]

I rely on the post office because I sell a lot on EBay.

Your admission of a self-interest bias is admirable. Those flat-rate boxes are unlikely to be profitable for the USPS, so let's consider that the public is underwriting your business. The notion that you can ship up 70lbs of anything in a medium box across the continent for $12.35 is a pricing model that is abusable.

I'm familiar with the move by the right wing in the government to make it look like the post office would be better run by private companies.

I have no opinion on the matter. It is unlikely that any company can make a profit at the current mail rates when required to deliver to every address 6x per week. Obviously the USPS is not self-nonsustaining financially under the current conditions.

They passed legislation putting an economic burden on the post office no private company is required to do, that is to send millions in profits every year to the US treasury under the premise this is needed to guarantee pensions. By doing so the legislation put an undue burden on the post office and they've had financial trouble since.

Hogwash. Every company with a pension system is required to fund it by law. Further the retirement benefits, and medical benefits for USPS workers far outstrip anything offered in the private sector for comparable work. Where else can you work from 25yo to 55yo and retire at 55 with full benefits ?

No the USPS has many advantages that no private company has - pay no state taxes or property taxes for a start. Has special carve-out exceptions by law.

The goal of this legislation is

Appeal to motive fallacy. Typical of an emotional plea - imputing ill motives w/o evidence to slander opposition.

The trouble is, once privatized, there is nothing to keep costs down(competition is a farce, these companies divide up the market share instead of competing for it, and they also increase profits by underpaying workers) and, there's no guarantee they won't just start lopping off unprofitable rural residents from their service area.

Pardon me - which companies aren't competing for business ? Of course IF the government is required to deliver mail to all they would not permit carriers to exclude coverage.

But the assault on public services is relentless and now Staples smelled blood and is moving in for the kill. They've bid to replace post offices. It's a bad deal.

Oh how awful that some private sector biz offers to replace parts of USPS It's the USPS that does't compete - it's a monopoly - you do understand that fundamental - right ?

Being anti-USPS is to be anti-business. Most of what I get here is advertising, and I base my shopping on the grocery store fliers. If you kill that mode of delivery you hurt the businesses.

Nonsense thinking - You are effectively claiming that it's anti-business for a government monopoly to cease providing a service to private business. There are a lot of alternatives. It's my understanding that only ~1/3rd of letter (not parcels or catalogs or books or ....) revenues come from junk mail and they represent a bit more than half of the mail volume. I'd LOVE to see detailed apolitical reportage on how much profit is associated on the junk mail portion of the business. Any private biz would have those numbers at their finger tips.

I like it when people come up with talking points that can appeal to the right wing.

That talking point failed in a major way. Why would anyone, much less a "right wing" type think that it's government job to provide advertising services to the private sector ? What sort of kookadoo economic model are you imagining ? Junk mail should be viewed in the same way as ads on a google search - part of the cost of a cheaper/free service and best handled with a filter. Sadly in the case of USPS junk mail a large fraction goes from tree-pulp to printer to USPS to customer to landfill.

Isn't closing hundreds of stores sort of evidence that they're in the process of flopping as we speak?

It's called creative destruction and it happens all the time in the private sector. It clears away the failed ideas and biz models to make room for better. It never occurs in government - which is why we have dinosaurs like the USPS.

I appreciate the value of having a system that delivers to every citizen, but that does not mean we need 6x deliveries per week nor to every address (rural deliveries used to be to a local office only), does not mean that a LOT of mail delivery can't be electronic [[even w/ assured or legally binding notices delivery by USPS or other agency]], does not mean that we should not have competition and certainly does not mean that we should avoid regularly assessing failures (large and small) of the model as needs and technology change.

USPS still provides valuable services, but it's hard to assess the actual value since it's a monopoly and therefore lacks comparables and competition.

 

[kookbreaker]

Your admission of a self-interest bias is admirable. Those flat-rate boxes are unlikely to be profitable for the USPS, so let's consider that the public is underwriting your business. The notion that you can ship up 70lbs of anything in a medium box across the continent for $12.35 is a pricing model that is abusable.

Nonsense. Unless you are shipping rocks or lead ingots there is only so much weight you can jam into one of those medium flat rate shipping boxes. If you do a comparison of the average objects that fit in one of those boxes you are better off using the non-Flat rates so 95% of the time.

Furthermore, the package business has been steadily increasing revenue for the USPS, so it is not the part that the public is subsidizing.

 

[Jrrarglblarg]

We have a USPS substation in the back of Ace hardware, have for years. We also have a regular Post Office. I prefer going to Ace as the people are nice and the USPS is ugly and boring. I don't know how much the Ace employees get paid but I do know that Ace is one of the stores in town where employees tend to stick around.

 

[carlitos]

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.

Same here. I just skimmed the whole thread and didn't find any facts about the situation. Where, when and how exactly is "Staples taking over the USPS offices?" The OP reads like it should be in the conspiracy subforum.

 

[Foolmewunz]

We have a USPS substation in the back of Ace hardware, have for years. We also have a regular Post Office. I prefer going to Ace as the people are nice and the USPS is ugly and boring. I don't know how much the Ace employees get paid but I do know that Ace is one of the stores in town where employees tend to stick around.

Ace is essentially a co-operative. The sourcing and supply chain and media are run from corporate, but corporate is owned by the retailers, not the other way around. So the performance by or treatment of "associates" would differ from owner to owner.

 

[SezMe]

It never occurs in government - which is why we have dinosaurs like the USPS.

Nope. We have the USPS because Article I, Section 8, Clause 7 of the United States Constitution, known as the Postal Clause or the Postal Power, empowers Congress "To establish Post Offices and post Roads".

You need to work on amending the constitution.

 

[theprestige]

Nope. We have the USPS because Article I, Section 8, Clause 7 of the United States Constitution, known as the Postal Clause or the Postal Power, empowers Congress "To establish Post Offices and post Roads".

You need to work on amending the constitution.

The Constitution doesn't even remotely specify the USPS in its current form.

It empowers Congress to establish Post Offices. Congress could do this today by abolishing the USPS and contracting out to Staples. Constitution'd!

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

Same place Wal-mart's employee food stamps come from, the people who pay taxes.

The USPS doesn't use tax dollars unless you count the compensation for Congress sending out stuff for free and loans:

Politifact

Before 1971, the Postal Service received annual appropriations from the federal government. Since then, it has operated independently, with revenues generated through the sales of postage stamps and services.

But Congress does give the Postal Service $100 million a year to compensate the agency for revenue loss by providing, at congressional direction, free mailing privileges to blind people and overseas voters, a congressional report noted. The $100 million is less than 1 percent of the Postal Service’s annual budget. ...

Another congressional report found Postal Service operating costs may be the largest reason for its financial troubles. In 2006, Congress passed legislation requiring the Postal Service to pre-fund its future retirees’ health benefits at a cost of approximately $5.6 billion per year.

The Postal Service wrote in a November 2012 press release that it had a record fiscal year deficit of nearly $16 billion. The agency attributed about 70 percent of that net loss to the health care requirement....

To sum up, the American Postal Workers Union claimed in its television ad that the U.S. Postal Service doesn’t operate on taxpayer dollars and and it’s solely funded by stamps and postage. The Postal Service has borrowed money from the government in recent years, primarily it says, to cover the cost to pre-fund employee health benefits.

So the post office has borrowed money, but it's not supported by tax dollars.

 

[applecorped]

The Constitution doesn't even remotely specify the USPS in its current form.

It empowers Congress to establish Post Offices. Congress could do this today by abolishing the USPS and contracting out to Staples. Constitution'd!

I

 

[mikegriffith1]

This may not apply if you don't live in the US, and you may disagree, fine - go away .

I rely on the post office because I sell a lot on EBay. I'm familiar with the move by the right wing in the government to make it look like the post office would be better run by private companies. They passed legislation putting an economic burden on the post office no private company is required to do, that is to send millions in profits every year to the US treasury under the premise this is needed to guarantee pensions. By doing so the legislation put an undue burden on the post office and they've had financial trouble since.

The goal of this legislation is like a lot of the goals of the right wing, privatize everything and I'm sure there is plenty of lobbying by Fed Ex, UPS, and now Staples to force the post office out of business because they want that market share.

The trouble is, once privatized, there is nothing to keep costs down (competition is a farce, these companies divide up the market share instead of competing for it, and they also increase profits by underpaying workers) and, there's no guarantee they won't just start lopping off unprofitable rural residents from their service area.

But the assault on public services is relentless and now Staples smelled blood and is moving in for the kill. They've bid to replace post offices. It's a bad deal.

There will be a day of action coming up on Apr 24th. Take a minute to look at the issues, feel free to debate them in this thread.

Consider joining in the day of action.

http://stopstaples.com/

So, in other words, you don't want the Post Office to be as efficient, not to mention profitable, as FedEx and UPS.

What do you people have against common sense, profit, and efficiency? Do you have any idea what a train wreck the Post Office has become, how much money it's lost every year for many years now, etc., etc.?

I say that we should absolutely let private carriers bid for Post Office routes. If they can do it for a lower price, then let them do it. Any routes, such as rural and remote routes, that received no bids would stay with the Post Office (so much for the old argument that privatizing the Post Office would leave remote areas with no mail service).

 

[SezMe]

Under that scenario, the private carriers pick off the profitable routes and leave the USPS with the dregs. But congress still demands it run on its own revenue. So the price of delivery to those non-profitable routes goes waaaay up, usage drops and they become even less profitable. Death spiral. Leaving the remote areas with no service. So much for your scenario.

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

So, in other words, you don't want the Post Office to be as efficient, not to mention profitable, as FedEx and UPS.

What do you people have against common sense, profit, and efficiency? Do you have any idea what a train wreck the Post Office has become, how much money it's lost every year for many years now, etc., etc.?

You are making the false (aka not supported by the evidence) assumption that this move is based on efficiency. It's based on vulture lobbying perhaps to bail Staples out from their financial woes given they just announced the closure of a couple hundred stores.

I say that we should absolutely let private carriers bid for Post Office routes. If they can do it for a lower price, then let them do it. Any routes, such as rural and remote routes, that received no bids would stay with the Post Office (so much for the old argument that privatizing the Post Office would leave remote areas with no mail service).

So rather than a US postal service the whole country benefits from, you would have all the profits go to private companies leaving all the less profitable coverage to be paid for out of ..... tax dollars?

 

[marplots]

So rather than a US postal service the whole country benefits from, you would have all the profits go to private companies leaving all the less profitable coverage to be paid for out of ..... tax dollars?

I'd charge taxes on those profits.

 

[carlitos]

You are making the false (aka not supported by the evidence) assumption that this move is based on efficiency.

What move? I looked at the claims by the postal workers union, and can't find evidence for any move. Looks like the USPS is thinking of having some mail services available in Staples stores. When I was a kid, we had a post office at the drug store. So what?

It's based on vulture lobbying perhaps to bail Staples out from their financial woes given they just announced the closure of a couple hundred stores.

Perhaps you could open a thread in the conspiracy sub-forum on this theory.

 

[WildCat]

What's wrong with this picture is the USPS is profitable and uses no tax dollars. The only reason it is having any trouble is the federal government has its hand in the till. You'd think the right wingers would be upset about that.

By "the federal government has its hand in the till" you mean they're requiring them to fund the pensions they promised their employees, correct?

Do you think the pensions should just be allowed to fail?

 

[WildCat]

I doubt Staples would serve my area.

Staples is not getting into the mail delivery business. What on earth did you read to get that impression?

 

[WildCat]

I absolutely depend on the Post Office to make a living. I'm 30 miles from town, and if I had to make the drive to town five days a week it would bankrupt my business. I'm absolutely against seeing it privatized because I know if it is I'll lose my ability to work from my home.

What on earth does this have to do with the topic of this thread?

 

[WildCat]

Same place Wal-mart's employee food stamps come from, the people who pay taxes.

It would be much better if Walmart fired those people then the taxpayers can pick up their entire tab.