Not dead yet, wouldn’t you agree...?

Question

...the US Postal Service. There is talk of privatization and even abolition has been hinted at with regard to one of the oldest federal institutions. But before cinching up the noose and start Ben Franklin spinning in his grave, consider this.

Trapped in California, I order equipment from Maryland and/or Pennsylvania frequently. Shipping via UPS ranges from seven to sixteen dollars for standard ground and always takes seven business days to cross the country. Two day service is optional, but at a cost of nearly thirty five dollars.

Fed Ex does slightly better in delivery time, but I would guess this is so because they make deliveries on Saturday as well. Just like the USPS. And I have also gotten deliveries on a couple of occasions when they delivered a day earlier than their projected delivery date.

I ordered some gear from Maryland that shipped last Tuesday, arrived today (Thursday), and cost eight dollars and twenty cents with Priority Mail, "If it fits, it ships..." Their largest boxes hold a lot. First time I tried it and will continue to do so with any on line merchants that have shipping by USPS as an option.

I would like to see UPS and Fed Ex or DHL do that.

By extension, the USPS could add a dollar to the current shipping cost and still under cut the three by being competitive in the extreme, and just might get it into blue ink again, once confidence by the shipping public has been attained.

Of course larger or heavier items will still need to ship by the others up to their weight or size limitations. For now, anyway.

But there is one thing they can do to cut down on a huge volume of junk mail. The Feds have provided for a list of people who, including myself, can opt for, to keep from getting phone calls from telemarketers. You subscribe to this limitation and the calls stop. If the telemarketers call in violation, they risk heavy fines. If the same were applied to the USPS the millions of tons of crap that must be moved at great expense and thereby overloads the system would be greatly reduced.

Of course there are those that will contend this is an unfair business practice, but then we revert right back to the telemarketers. If stopping them is not an unfair business, neither is eliminating junk mail. Think of it as a real time, real world pop up blocker. The only difference is one is electronically based (just like telemarketers) and the other paper based. The envelopes and other papers spend less than two seconds in your hands and then goes right into the garbage, now to be moved yet again to a land fill or recycling center. Once at the recycling center, we again move it to a place for processing to turn it back into junk mail and repeat the whole idiotic process again and again.

So, in your opinion... Am I nut's? (And I'm not talking about that thing with eating the buttons off my shirt...) Or will Franklin continue to r.i.p.?

Thanks.

.

Answer 1

I would agree that the USPS is not dead yet. There are far too many locales where Fed Ex and UPS will not go, that the USPS has a mandate to serve.



I had a small hobby farm in rural North Dakota, and only the USPS would deliver certain items for us, including baby chickens and ducks, Fed Ex and UPS would not touch such shipments.



Between the three, I feel that the USPS has the overall best service and customer service as well.



The problem with the reduction in junk mail is that junk mail senders always paid for more than their weight in mail to be sent. Without the demand that junk mail senders provide the USPS, the less the staffing is utilized, and less revenue for said infrastructure, which still requires a minimum amount of workers to work smoothly.



The USPS will survive, as there are far too many people who will make it clear to their elected officials that if they lose their mail service, that they will vote against their elected officials.



The problem is the mandates that have been heaped upon the USPS that are unreasonable, that no other such outfit has been burdened with. It almost seems as though that has been done with the intention of "scooping up" the USPS for a song, in order to give lobbyists to certain overpaid politicians another means to screw the average American.

Answer 2

Franky can sleep well. The USPS will live on. True, they don't ship pianos, unless someone made one that fir in one of their boxes, but they do well, and Fed Ex isn't to be trusted with shipping magazines if they aren't in their "special" envelopes, which would be a further waste of greenery.

Answer 3

Here's something you might consider., Bulk mail provides a large part of USPS funds. To remove those funds, might well sound the death knell for USPS. If you've ever been to Europe, the price of Mail there is far and beyond ours. I agree, it seems like a mad circle.

Answer 4

Sorry, you've come to the wrong section. Polls and surveys is not for intelligent people. Derp.

Answer 5

Personally I don't believe you're nuts, but I do think you've been working too hard.

Answer 6

no, youre not nuts

Answer 7

ok