Sending a letter to India

Readers may find this interesting. On February 19th we dropped a letter into the mailbox at the Plymouth MN postoffice. Today it arrived in India. 

10 things the post office won’t tell you

10 things the post office won’t tell you
  Excerpt:

1. Your failure to send your Mother a proper birthday card is the least of our problems.
2. Our retirees are just fine, thanks
3. Anybody want to buy an ailing government agency?
4. We’re hiring our competitors to do our jobs for us
5. We’re addicted to junk mail
6. Next thing you know, we’ll be asking you to trust us with your money.
7. We’re sitting on a national treasure...
8. ...And we’ll sell you a piece of it.
9. We’re a hotbed for crime
10. Our greatest strength is supernatural

Comment: Image: 1912 Motorcycle Postman. Did you know (I learned this in our recent study of Ezra and Esther) that the first credible claim for the development of a real postal system comes from Ancient Persia. Every bullet point in the above article is interesting.

Competition to the USPS needed

The Post Office Hustle

Excerpt:

Today the average postal worker makes $83,000 a year in wages and benefits, roughly 50% above the average compensation for private workers, according to federal wage data. Those benefits are already so generous the post office could save $560 million a year if the mailman paid the same 28% share of employee health premiums that other federal employees pay, which is still below the norm in the private economy. Normally when a company is losing $16 billion a year in revenues, unions see the need for concessions.

Rubber stamping one more postal rate hike without at least a plan to cut labor costs only rewards union intransigence and postal service inefficiency. The time has come to free the mail by amending the private express statutes—which confer a legal monopoly on first-class mail—and allow expanded choices for letter delivery. Yes, we know the ritual claim is that this will end universal delivery, but even people living in remote areas would benefit from an injection of competition into the antiquated mail system.

If someone can deliver a letter for less than 46 cents or a postcard for less than 30 cents, by all means let them. Contract with Wal-Mart and grocery stores to sell stamps and collect packages. The postal service won't avoid its coming financial catastrophe by continuing to raise prices, but it might if it has to compete for customers.

Comment: We should not reward bloated bureaucracy

Fix the USPS: 5 views

In Rain, in Snow, but Not on Saturdays?

Views:

1. Eliminate Saturday delivery ... Better Than a Bailout: The Postal Service says it can save $3 billion by cutting Saturday delivery
   
2. Other Alternatives: Instead of cutting service, Congress should fix the prefunding [of future retiree health benefits] problem. Then it should explore ways to free the Postal Service to provide a broader array of useful services to businesses and the public — including Oregon-style vote by mail, low-cost banking and remittance services in underserved areas, utility meter reading and computer recycling services — that will generate new revenue and preserve universal mail delivery.
   
3. Privatize and Commercialize: Eliminating Saturdays may be a further blow to its competitiveness. So, the Postal Service needs fundamental reform and it needs to develop a business model that will help it address the competition it faces. Postal services in the Netherlands, Germany, Sweden and Australia, for example, have had success moving in the direction of privatization and commercialization.
   
4. Better Choices: A good first step would be examining the possibility of Congress changing the payment schedule it imposed several years ago for financing future retiree costs. Next, both the Postal Service and the employee unions should work together to seek agreement on modest changes to work rules and the wage and benefit structure. And finally, Congress should investigate the possibility of allowing the Postal Service to streamline its vast network of facilities, which could save billions if done correctly.
   
5. A Thorough Review: The U.S. Postal Service is a national icon, part of the fabric of our society. By law, if the Postal Service proposes a change with nationwide service implications, it must request an advisory opinion from my organization, the Postal Regulatory Commission. The commission then establishes a comprehensive, on-the-record review of the Postal Service’s plan. Through regional hearings, public forums, formal testimony and evidence, the commission would explore the merits and deficiencies of the proposal. What level of service does the public still expect? Which day of the week would be eliminated? What about long holiday weekends?
   

Comment: I would be fine with 3 day a week delivery. I would like to see a national secure clearing house for ebilling. I also would like to see some sort of way that one could easily opt out of junk mail (we throw away 80% of our mail!).

USPS economics

The justification for the Postal Service's monopoly is long past

Excerpts:

If the cost of a postage stamp had risen at merely the rate of inflation since 1950 when a stamp cost two cents, today you could send a first-class letter for 30 cents. Instead the cost rose in May to 44 cents from 42 cents.

...


Here's a secret Washington doesn't want to admit: That 14 cent per letter cost hike after inflation over the past 60 years imposes a $20 billion a year toll on the U.S. economy. The government mail system is essentially a $20 billion annual income transfer from businesses and households to the postal unions.

About 80 cents of every postal dollar pays for employee salaries and benefits (compared to less than 50 cents for Fed Ex and UPS). What that means is that if you want to cut costs at the post office, you have to slash labor expenses. Mr. Potter has reduced Postal Service employment to 650,000 from 800,000 the past four years, largely through attrition. But he still employs 650,000 workers who have among the best wages and benefits in all of American life.

Most employees have no-layoff clauses, the starting salaries are about 25% to 30% higher than for comparably skilled private workers, and the fringe benefits are so expensive that the Government Accountability Office says $500 million a year could be saved merely by bringing health benefits into line with those of other federal workers.

Comment: Article has chart comparing postal rates and inflation

Netflix, Saturday mail delivery, and technological change

Bob Greene: About that Saturday mail ...

Excerpts:

n a digital age, the U.S. mail is a throwback to a time when the only way to receive information was to have human beings -- paperboys, mail carriers -- bring it to you by hand. You're reading these words on a screen; chances are, whatever written communication you have with friends and family members in the next 24 hours will be via e-mail and text message, not by dropping an envelope into a mailbox.

The problems the Postal Service faces are real, and they're enormous. Postmaster General Potter says that getting rid of Saturday delivery would save more than $3 billion a year. My guess is that not only are they going to have to do away with Saturday mail -- the time is probably coming when delivery on other days of the week will disappear, too.

So the question is not whether the days of mail delivery will be curtailed. It's whether we will be happy about it.

....
[A Netflix impact]

If enough people don't receive their Netflix envelopes on that first Saturday the mail doesn't arrive, and there is thus a hole in their Saturday nights -- well, President Obama might have to step in to cool the outrage, the same way President Dwight D. Eisenhower did in April of 1957, the only other time a permanent cessation of Saturday mail delivery was attempted. It lasted just one weekend. Americans wouldn't put up with it.

...

[On Technology Change]

Things change. Telephone landlines are abandoned for cell phones; typewriters are tossed out in favor of computer keyboards. In doing the research for last Sunday's column about mail service, one of the sources I consulted was the February 12, 1951, issue of Time magazine. (Eisenhower, not yet president, was on the cover).

Sprinkled throughout the magazine were big, splashy advertisements extolling the glories of companies and products that no longer exist: Kaiser automobiles, Trans World Airlines, the Milwaukee Road passenger railroad, Moore-McCormack oceanliner cruises.

Comment: Oh the value of looking at old magazines! As far as I am concerned they could deliver the mail 3 days a week! I added hyperlinks. The Milwaukee Road Wiki article is good!