So how does the Leader Printing executive feel about scaling back the United States Postal Service?
The prospect of losing Saturday delivery from the Postal Service is a huge concern for Americans, and we should fight to retain it to better serve America.
...[T]he Postal Service should be considering improving its delivery performance and expanding choices for mailers. As the economy recovers, businesses and consumers will need a reliable and affordable deliverer of mail. Our nation's economic health depends on it.
South Dakota's congressional delegation supports ongoing Saturday delivery. But we'll need the help of other members of Congress to reject this idea and push the Postal Service back into fulfilling its mission of affordable, universal delivery. [Jon Hunter, "Now Is the Time to Fight to Retain Saturday Delivery," Madison Daily Leader, 2010.07.20].
By Hunter's logic, Americans may not have a right to universal health care, but they apparently have a right to receive advertisements six days a week mailed from Madison's convenient central location at the lowest rates possible, courtesy not of the free market of but Uncle Sam.
Hunter's business interest in cheap federal mail inspires not only political inconsistency but typical MDL illogic:
The irony is that the Postal Service blames an increase in the use of email as a contributing factor in volume decreases and financial losses. Yet they believe that reducing service will somehow reverse this trend? [Hunter, 2010.07.20]
Hunter's language in that last sentence is a bit unclear. What trend does he think USPS officials are trying to reverse? Obviously, reducing service will not reverse the trend of Internet-driven decreases in mail volume, and I don't think any USPS official has argued that it would. But when there's less mail to deliver, the logical way to reverse or at least mitigate financial losses is to spend less money, and reducing service is one logical way to do that.
Perhaps Hunter simply believes that it's more important for the federal government to continue stimulating the economy by providing printers and advertisers with cheap universal delivery and by employing lots and lots of postal workers. I'm fine with that. And heck, I enjoy sending and receiving mail on Saturday, too. But I don't have to square my support for reliable, efficient, universal government mail service with conservative Republican principles the way Jon Hunter does.
The Post Office is mandated by the US Constitution. That is a fact.
ReplyDeleteThe USPS is supposed to break even like a business, BUT unlike private businesses they cannot make changes without approval from the US Congress.
They are doomed to lose money.
Advertisers help pay the bills od the USPS. Direct mail is still a great way for local businesses to advertise their products and services...think CAPITALISM.
Not all of the world revolves around the internet.
The future of the postal service doesn't lie with mailing publications or first class letters. These two historically important sources of mail are trending out and there is no reason to believe that trend won't continue.Parcels and "junk mail" are the trends of the future and the postal service should be and I believe is focusing on that trend. The service that they provide is above excellence in parcel delivery. I can say without hyperbole that I have mailed tens of thousands of parcels all over the world and can count on one hand how many have been lost. the postal service gets a lot of undeserved flack on service but it is like any other business, you get what you pay for.Ending Saturday delivery is not popular within the service, people will lose jobs and some will have pay cut, but the postal service has been losing money for years now and if they want to stay viable as a business they have to take measures and ending Sat. delivery is a logical avenue to take, considering the trends. There is another alternative, we could return to the days when the postal service was subsidized by the taxpayer that way everyone could keep their jobs and Saturday delivery could continue
ReplyDeleteMichael-
ReplyDeleteNot yet for the entire world, but certainly for my generation and everyone younger than me. If you don't have a strong internet presence you don't exist to me or my peers.
We don't receive the daily paper, all of our billing is electronically automated, and the only things that we do get in the mail are from online purchases.
The chance of a print advertising altering our purchasing decisions is 0%.
The problem with the USPS is the congress and business. They killed it. Congress, with the prodding of the sycophants in business, mandate rates for bulk mail and junk mail at rates that preclude meeting operating expenses.
ReplyDeleteThere should be one rate scale for all regular mail-so much per ounce, and no favored classes of snail mail (except for premiums for rush mail).
Read this article Cory
ReplyDeleteNew UPS Delivery Service Sends Packages Through the Post Office
For years, UPS has fought to push the post office's package-delivery rates higher, accusing the agency of using its monopoly on first-class mail to keep its shipping rates artificially low. In February, Michael Eskew, UPS's chairman and chief executive, told a federal panel that the Postal Service "need not, nor should it be, engaged in markets that are already well served by the private sector."
Now this aricle comes originally from the Wall Street Journal in Nov of 2003 before some of the really bad stuff happened to the Post Office. Businesses like UPS are trying to destroy the USPS for their own gain.
Don't forget, Michael, I love the Post Office. They provide spectacular service. I just find it hilarious that Republican businessman Hunter likes it so much, too, thinking he has a right to cheap universal delivery for his advertising material while denying everyone's right to cheap universal health coverage from Uncle Sam.
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