USPS To Launch Line of Smart Clothing 206
SpaceGhost writes "The Washington Post reports that the United States Postal Service has contracted with Wahconah Group, Inc. to produce a line of USPS-branded smart clothing. Per USPS Licensing manager Steven Mills 'This agreement will put the Postal Service on the cutting edge of functional fashion... The main focus will be to produce Rain Heat & Snow apparel and accessories using technology to create 'smart apparel' — also known as wearable electronics.' USPS Spokesman Roy Betts reports that the line will be found in premium department stores and specialty stores starting in 2014. The Washington Post points out that the USPS had done a similar retail line in the 1980s sold exclusively at Post Offices, but the line was discontinued after lobbyists complained of competition with the private sector." I hope it has hidden pockets for lost letters, and a loop for the package smashing mallet.
FYI (Score:3, Informative)
The package-smashing mallet has been outsourced to India. The USPS union said that it was not in the mail-carrier's contract.
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Is that why mail is so slow? They ship it around the world so cheap labour can maul the packages?
Wouldn't it be cheaper to just skip the mauling step?
Re:FYI (Score:4, Insightful)
Is that why mail is so slow? They ship it around the world so cheap labour can maul the packages? Wouldn't it be cheaper to just skip the mauling step?
It would be cheaper, but it is absolutely essential in order to provide feature-parity with UPS and FedEx. In any case, they must still be using local mallet-smashers for relatively local (regional) mail, because I still get stuff from within the state in two days or less.
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It would be cheaper, but it is absolutely essential in order to provide feature-parity with UPS and FedEx. In any case, they must still be using local mallet-smashers for relatively local (regional) mail, because I still get stuff from within the state in two days or less.
They never seem to care when they break stuff, either. I remember a conversation I once had with a rather chipper mail carrier over a beat-up box clearly marked FRAGILE:
Me: Sounds broken.
Delivery guy: Most likely, sir! I'll bet it was something nice though.
And then he stole my dog.
Re:FYI (Score:5, Insightful)
Slow? I can send a five pound text book from Chicago to California in 3-4 days and it's less than $4.
The Post Office consistently does a better job than FedEx or UPS. That's why when UPS sends stuff, they do it via the US Postal Service.
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I could agree with you if I didn't receive (portions of) mangled letters in plastic baggies with half assed apologies written on the sides. Or just not receive them at all. Or if I didn't regularly receive my neighbors' mail and packages. UPS and FedEx may not be perfect, but at least their tracking software works and I actually GET what is addressed to me delivered to me.
I had to have two paychecks reissued over the last 12 months b
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And next time you are standing in line at the Post Office, think about how much better it is than standing in line at the UPS Store. You'll have LOTS of time to think about it.
I'll think about it the next time I have to drive ten miles to the nearest UPS office to pick up an envelope, compared to five blocks downtown to the post office.
That's two out of twelve.
You got only twelve pieces of mail during an entire year? You mean they lost/mangled two pieces of mail out of hundreds or thousands they delivered normally. That's pretty good odds, and much different than "2 out of 12".
If you wanted to paint a really dim picture of USPS using statistics, you should have said "they mangled EVERY paycheck I got
Re:FYI (Score:4, Informative)
No. First I doubt I get more than a 100 pieces of "real mail" per year. I do get junkmail and advertisements. I don't care if that crap gets shredded or lost. They screwed up two out of twelve paychecks for the year. Those are the important ones. Screwing up one is unacceptable. I've had bills lost in the mail. Before I moved to my current home, they misdelivered my mail to the wrong address all the time. It was a running joke that at 5:00 everybody in the neighborhood was out RE-delivering the mail to the correct addresses. A couple years ago, I got a large tied bundle of presorted letters addressed to people all over the neighborhood. It was stilled tied together. I just do not count on anything sent by USPS as reliable. period.
And my UPS Store is two blocks away. The Post Office is 2 miles. What's your point?
Let me tell you about my USPS Office.Their service is so bad and had so many complaints that the postmaster put up signs all over the lobby. It said "If you have to wait more than 5 minutes, call this number." My usual wait time is over 30 minutes on a good day. One day the mail carrier left a "I can't deliver this" card on my door. (They didn't knock or ring the doorbell). I started calling the local branch office when I got to work. The line was busy all morning. At lunch, it mysteriously wasn't busy anymore; it rang and rang, but nobody would answer. Right after lunch it went constantly busy again, and so I left work early and to pick up my package in person. When I showed up, I saw the signs up everywhere about wait times.
Their solution to angry customers in long lines was to take the phone off the hook. I laughed when the people in line waiting said to me that we should all call the number on the sign. I told them to go ahead, but I had been calling it all day.
The Post Office has a systemic problem.
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Explain to me why a postal worker with less than three years of service can accrue 208 hours between sick leave and annual leave?
At 8 hours a day that's 26 days. I know the US is weird about annual leave, but that would be below the bare minimum in Europe. Even in the UK we have 28 days minimum holiday (20 days plus public holidays).
It seems to be that the Union is doing precisely what it should be doing, securing decent benefits for its members.
Re:FYI (Score:5, Informative)
UPS and FedEx may not be perfect, but at least their tracking software works
To add another anecdote to the fire, just yesterday I received a package from the USPS that the tracking software said would arrive last week, and that apparently never left their sorting facility as far as the tracker was concerned.
Actually, the train of events that showed up on the tracker was:
1. Shipping information received
2. Package sorted through facility.
3. Package received by USPS from the shipper. (The day after the previous one where it was "sorted.")
Then nothing, until the package arrived over a week later.
Although it was fun seeing the "estimated arrival time" not change days after it was supposed to arrive.
But, hey, they only slightly damaged the contents of the package, just some minor cosmetic damage. Plus, unlike a previous package shipped via the USPS, this one actually arrived...
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Is your postman dating your ex-wife or something?
I've heard complaints like yours from other people, and I don't doubt they're true, but it goes against my own experience and the people I know.
And I know for sure that if the Post Office were to disappear, there would be a whole lot of small and medium-sized businesses who would have a very hard time. And the shame of it is, it's just not necessa
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If you want to read about some more shenanigans perpetrated my my local USPS against their customers and myself, read my reply to a troll that responded to me in an alternate thread.
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=3482929&threshold=1&commentsort=0&mode=thread&cid=42973043 [slashdot.org]
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Yeah, you would think so, but if you were to go down the list of textbooks for 300 and 400 level math courses, you would find that the total number available as ebooks is less than 1.
Best you could do is maybe find some pdf file on a dodgy file sharing site that you'd have to print out anyway because the scan job is so bad that it's not legible on your iPad or Nexus. And even
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And I can download your 5 lb. textbook onto my tablet in of a couple of minutes for less than $4 as well, Weighs less this way too ;)
Yeah, I'm sure he never thought of that, after all it's unlikely that someone on a fucking technology site would even know what a Tablet Computing Device was.
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It's pronounced: DU-fawsz.
You're not going to get that loop (Score:2)
That feature is exclusive to UPS-brand clothing. Also available from them are the UPS-band package punting boots.
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This is USPS, not UPS ... different entities.
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Doh, I see ... UPS has a patent on smashing packages, gotcha.
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I never had a problem with packages from USPS, or FedEx. But UPS... Oh holy god. I ordered something online, and waited. And waited. I checked the tracking only to see it was labelled as "undeliverable address" or something like that. I drove to so
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Again, I lived in a single family home.
Re:You're not going to get that loop (Score:5, Interesting)
I don't know where you live, but here at my house, in Chicago, if a package of mine is lost or damaged, it's more likely to be FedEx or UPS than the Post Office.
Around here, FedEx especially has a habit of dropping a package on a doorstep, which is an invitation to theft. For the same amount that UPS or FedEx will send a package without recipient signature required, I can send something via USPS with delivery confirmation (less than a buck).
My wife's a book collector. She buys and sells rare or unusual mathematics books. She only uses USPS and requests that people sending her books us USPS, because we know we'll get it and it won't take a bit longer than UPS.
And we'll never get a little slip of paper telling us "We missed you, so now you've got to drive down to the UPS office to pick up your package".
When the Founding Fathers created the Post Office, there was a good reason that they believed it was necessary to have such a service (and yes, there were private companies already doing the same thing).
And now we've got a bunch of anti-government extremists trying to kill this important service, using poison pill benefit funding requirements and anti-competitive restrictions.
If the USPS goes away and this sector is left to two players, you can bet that there will be huge increases in consumer shipping costs, and people will have absolutely no alternative. Without the USPS, online commerce would have been badly hamstrung and we wouldn't see anything like the explosion in online shopping that we have today. There's a reason that the default shipping method for Amazon, Netflix, etc is the US Post Office.
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But that's pretty much the end goal of all of these "everything must be private and for profit" things, isn't it?
As long as it's private industry screwing us over, it must be better, right?
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And now we've got a bunch of anti-government extremists trying to kill this important service, using poison pill benefit funding requirements and anti-competitive restrictions.
In other words, a bunch of anti-government, pro-Market people are using the government to ensure that the USPS cannot operate under Free Market rules. In order to "prove" that government doesn't work.
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A very good summation.
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Subsidized by whom?
As far as I know, the only transfer of taxpayer money that goes to the USPS is special mailings to blind people that congress made mandatory some years back and actual government mailings, which is basically just the US Gov paying for service just like anyone else.
USPS doesn't get any gov't handouts. If anything, they get the government weighing them down with unnecessary restraints and pre-funding requirements that would break
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So, subsidized in the sense that sales of OSX are subsidized by everyone buying iMacs?
Umm... (Score:2)
Hmmm ... (Score:5, Interesting)
What, like pockets?
I must say, after reading TFA ... I have no idea of what this is or why I'd want to buy it from the USPS.
I'm more baffled by this tidbit ... In 2006, Congress passed a statute requiring the Postal Service to pre-pay for 75 years worth of retiree benefits within 10 years. No other federal agency is forced to make such an investment.
Why only the Postal Service and no other agency? To make sure Fedex profits stayed high?
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>I'm more baffled by this tidbit ... In 2006, Congress passed a statute requiring the Postal Service to pre-pay for 75 years worth of retiree benefits within 10 years. No other federal agency is forced to make such an investment.
::CLANG:: In the red corner, the libertarians. In the blue corner, the Keynesians. Round 1 FIGHT!
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::CLANG:: In the red corner, the libertarians. In the blue corner, the Keynesians. Round 1 FIGHT!
Two fruitcakes enter!
Half a dozen fruitcakes leave!
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::CLANG:: In the red corner, the libertarians. In the blue corner, the Keynesians. Round 1 FIGHT!
Two fruitcakes enter!
Half a dozen fruitcakes leave!
There is only one fruitcake.
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::CLANG:: In the red corner, the libertarians. In the blue corner, the Keynesians. Round 1 FIGHT!
Two fruitcakes enter!
Half a dozen fruitcakes leave!
There is only one fruitcake.
Does that mean Mathematicians are in the next title fight?
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Just because there's no adults doesn't mean it's safe for children. ;-)
Re:Hmmm ... (Score:5, Insightful)
Yes, basically. They did it so that in the event that the USPS fails to meet the unfair obligation the GOP can point to it and cry about how the government fails at all things and that we should put our trust in private industry.
Up until this was forced on them the USPS was actually doing fine, fulfilling its constitutional obligation.
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The "truth" here is an interview with a biased congressman.
Re:Hmmm ... (Score:4, Informative)
I must say, after reading TFA ... I have no idea of what this is or why I'd want to buy it from the USPS.
I'm more baffled by this tidbit ... In 2006, Congress passed a statute requiring the Postal Service to pre-pay for 75 years worth of retiree benefits within 10 years. No other federal agency is forced to make such an investment.
Why only the Postal Service and no other agency? To make sure Fedex profits stayed high?
That's exactly why. Lobbyists working for businesses that compete with the USPS basically want it forced out of business, or into a crippled state, so that they can ride in as saviours on private business horses to save the day. The problem is that the USPS was actually doing really well and was (and still is) totally self funded (no taxes pay for its upkeep), so they simply manufactured a no-win situation. The bill along will the extremely onerous restriction to fund retirement plans for employees who haven't even been born yet, specifically forbids them from putting up the price of stamps to raise revenue.
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Yeah, that was my thought. I was given a similar seeming product as a gift once -- it was basically a hoodie, where the pockets had holes in the sides (behind a velcro flap so crap didn't fall out, so that was at least nice) which led to a series of velcro loops up the inside of the zipper that you were supposed to route your headphone cable through. Which is the dumbest idea ever -- I don't understand why anyone would want that. It takes 10 freakin minutes to get the damn cable routed, and then if you wann
I ride, all 4 seasons (Score:3)
I ride a really old honda pacific coast in the dark, the bitter cold, and snowshowers.
if'n they have come up with some good heated gear, I'm intrigued....
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is it time for a whitehouse.gov petition (Score:2)
asking WHAT THE HELL the fed seems to have as a hard on for breaking the USPS into dust?
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Letter_Mail_Company [wikipedia.org]
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No, it has to do with the GOP being incapable of leaving well enough alone when there's money not being routed to the richest in the nation.
Re:is it time for a whitehouse.gov petition (Score:5, Informative)
Yes:
Release the Postal Service from the draconian Postal Accountability and Enhancement Act of 2006
https://petitions.whitehouse.gov/petition/release-postal-service-draconian-postal-accountability-and-enhancement-act-2006/Gz6MrsBy [whitehouse.gov]
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Not that this is the first petition [whitehouse.gov] to ask to remove the postal office from the requirement of pre-paying 75 years of retiree benefits.
(For the record, I'm not a U.S. citizen and have not created or signed either petition.)
For those times when you just want to go postal (Score:2)
you can now go in style!
Privatize! (Score:2)
This sounds like one of those dumb ideas that government services come up with when they're forced to privatize.
In come the corporate consultants, they toss around buzzwords, they brainstorm, they come up with brilliant ideas, and they get paid and get out before anyone can see whether their advice worked.
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The USPS hasn't received direct taxpayer money since the 80s. Their revenue shortfalls are due to a Republican Congess passed bill that put the ridiculous retirement obligation on them.
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Which two left-wing Democrats?
The USPS is intellectually bankrupt (Score:2)
Does anyone at USPS in a leadership position have a frickin brain?
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How does raising some revenue (and getting some free promotion) by licensing your name and slogan to someone else who will take all the risk and do all the spending stop you focusing on other things?
Seems random but, (Score:2)
I can't wait for more random commercial ventures from government agencies. Maybe the FDIC can make an energy drink or the Coast Guard can start a cosmetics line.
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Edging Rustler and Gymboree out of the market (Score:2)
When you think of the post office you think of clothes. They missed the boat to be a service like paypay which would have made more sense than this because of the postal money orders. Might as well hit this front so they don't make that mistake again.
So how much $ was wasted in development for this (Score:2)
I have to say, I hope the best for the USPS and it's workers, but the first thing that came to mind is a getting a start-up off the ground isn't cheap. Seems like a clothing line would be even more since there are goods involved meaning clothing stock, building, machines, workers, management, marketing etc... I know you need to spend money to make it, but unless someone is sure this is an idea that is worthwhile and not a pipe dream, it seems risky. How much money for all these things have been dumped into
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So the USPS is essentially getting royalties for this, with Wahconah Group making the venture here.
Probably not much.
No, it sounds like the USPS is looking for any avenue it can to raise re
Just privatize it... (Score:2, Insightful)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Letter_Mail_Company [wikipedia.org]
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Ah, so you're a GOP mouthpiece I see.
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He's a member of the libertarian religion - see his signature.
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Ah, I love idiotic replies from anonymous cowards.
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Because to some idiots government is evil in and of itself, because to them coercion is /always bad/.
They need a catchy slogan (Score:2)
Since they are trying to strengthen their brand awareness, they should have a catchy advertising slogan for this new clothing line.
I'd suggest "Go postal!"
This a joke right? (Score:2)
This a joke right? The USPS needs to focus on doing their job well. They loose and damage all too many packages. Their postal clerks are all too often poorly trained and give wrong advice. They make excuses for their poor service citing regulations. Then they wonder why people are switching to UPS and FedEx for packages and email for letters. Service.
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I would bet that postal workers endure the elements more than just about any job on a nonstop basis other than maybe crab fishing. It makes sense that if they can develop specific clothing to help their line of work, and keep their people warm then they could do their job better. Also if it's really good stuff they could market it to the public, and have a great sample of how it performs in the real world that people see every day.
Impending fun at the airport... (Score:2)
Remember back in 2007 when a guy almost got shot at an airport for wearing a tech-art shirt [boston.com] with a only small motherboard attacked? Slashdot reported it here. [slashdot.org] Or in Nov 2012, a got arrested at an airport for wearing a strange watch. [huffingtonpost.com]
Oh what fun a whole ensemble of tech-clothing will be.
The downside (Score:2)
Re:and they wonder why they dont make money... (Score:5, Informative)
My understanding is, a lot of their financial woes are coming from a 2006 Congress mandate that the USPS start pre-paying into their retirement plan to fund future-future retirement. In short, they're asking them to pay more to handle people that won't retire for years now. And that Congress is dipping into that money for something else.
And from what I've heard, if they weren't asked to be paying extra into said fund they'd actually be making a small profit.
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So if I understand correctly the rules are: 1. you have to pay above market rate for salaries/benefits and you are not allowed to fire anybody 2. you have to charge less than a market rate for mail delivery 3. even though the government sets the rules that force you to fail, it is not allowed to bail you out. Oh but don't worry we'll set up some arbitrary rules that give you monopoly on certain types of mail so everything should be fine. Isn't it great how we have geniuses in charge in Washington who work e
Re:and they wonder why they dont make money... (Score:5, Interesting)
So if I understand correctly the rules are: 1. you have to pay above market rate for salaries/benefits and you are not allowed to fire anybody 2. you have to charge less than a market rate for mail delivery 3. even though the government sets the rules that force you to fail, it is not allowed to bail you out. Oh but don't worry we'll set up some arbitrary rules that give you monopoly on certain types of mail so everything should be fine. Isn't it great how we have geniuses in charge in Washington who work everything out so perfectly for our benefit.
Just privatize the stupid thing. Apart from accident of history here is no reason for the government to be in charge of mail delivery any more than pizza delivery.
That's why they introduced the bill in the first place - private industry wants the USPS out of business. It was doing totally fine before the deliberately-crafted-designed-to-fuck-them 2006 bill was passed.
They put rules in place that no private company would ever be expected to adhere to, that were designed to do exactly this - to push it into financial crisis so that people will say "oh look, government post services don't work! the private sector will save the day!"
Re:and they wonder why they dont make money... (Score:4, Interesting)
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That's not actually true. The USPS has always been at a disadvantage versus private enterprise. They're legally required to send a 1st class envelope anywhere in the country for the same price, regardless of actual cost to provide the service.
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Indeed, I used to work security at a loading dock for a high rise, and you'd be surprised how many courier services there are out there that do just that. Mostly small batches of mail on demand moving them between a small number of addresses. They can't legally use the mailboxes, but it's a moot point.
USPS does generally do a much better job with packages than with mail in my experience. But, that's highly dependent upon whose route you're on and how closely the postmaster general is watching.
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Or their magazine subscriptions and ability to send mail.
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Just privatize the stupid thing. Apart from accident of history here is no reason for the government to be in charge of mail delivery any more than pizza delivery.
Pizza delivery is limited to profitable areas.
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All areas are profitable for the right price. Plus mail companies will average the cost out. Last I checked USP and FedEx will deliver packages anywhere in the country, not just in profitable areas.
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Not true. If there are no buyers at your price point you will not be profitable.
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So you'd be okay with the government spending $100 of your tax money to deliver an official letter to Joe Blow in Bumfuck, Nowhere?
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No they aren't. No intersection of demand and supply curves is a perfectly feasible situation.
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Don't need to privatize it. The people pushing for privatization are the ones screwing up the USPS. Just leave it alone. USPS was self sufficient and self funding. Granted there are some problems with the USPS but these are exacerbated by small government idealogues focusing on tearing down the USPS by passing laws designed to drive it out of business (likely in collusion with for-profit competitors). If someone really does fervently want to cut back on government waste then the post office should be t
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And no other government agency has to follow those rules. And the postal unions are not asking for this prefunding and say that they don't want it. So this mandate clearly has only one purpose which is to force a crisis on the USPS.
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If this is all true, how do explain that only the USPS has to follow these rules and no other agencies need to do so? The USPS does not get funded by the taxpayers and is self sufficient, and yet it's held to a higher standard than agencies that have no income stream? If this is such a great idea, then force the military to follow the same rules as it is by far the most massive drain on tax payer dollars that we have.
Re:and they wonder why they dont make money... (Score:5, Interesting)
The real problem is the the USPS is designed as a letter carrier. Not a shipping company.
So electronic communication is reducing the needs for letters (envelope based mail), and online shipment of stuff is being processed by Shipping companies like FedEx and UPS, who are better organized for shipping packages. No so much letters.
They are going to need to move from Mail Men either walking door to door, or in small cars and trucks. To a larger trucking service where they can handle more boxes and less envelopes.
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Who delivers letters then? This is the reason this was originally set up as a government agency and not kept as a private business, because there's a government interest involved in supporting service to all citizens. Same reason AT&T was given monopoly rights. Yes, some people today can use the internet instead, but this does not cover 100% of all citizens, it probably doesn't even cover half of all citizens. We certainly can not expect everyone to afford FedEx letter rates. There is still a need
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So electronic communication is reducing the needs for letters
I suppose you haven't noticed the huge proliferation of junk mail delivered by the postal service in the past couple decades? When I was growing up, I remember running with excitement after the post office truck went by to see if there was anything in the mailbox. On at least half of the days, nothing came -- if there was something, it was one letter or a bill... except around holidays or birthdays or something.
Nowadays, it's incredibly rare for a day to go by where the mail carrier doesn't dump at leas
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Net access to all means ALL. The reason AT&T was granted a monopoly was to ensure that it would spend the huge amounts of money necessary to get service to people in the boondocks. Right now the internet is still somewhat of a luxury service, it is in no way even close to being universal in the same way that the post or telephone service is.
Maybe some day the network may be the alternative, but I don't think this will happen for at least two or three decades and probably more.
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You know...for that fashion concious govt. official what wants to look his best on the day he goes postal [wikipedia.org]?
Re:and they wonder why they dont make money... (Score:5, Interesting)
On another note, one idea I've heard that was intriguing would allow them to operate something like a bank. Not a financial investment house, but a low-end and low-cost branch bank. Sure, I might not switch all my finances over to it, and most people probably wouldn't either. But I might open an account and seed it with some cash if it were convenient. I could send mail and have it draw on the account without having to buy stamps or wait in line. Just drop it in a box at the post office and enter my account number/pin. It could work really nicely. There's already a branch in every city. And for a lot of working poor that have no bank affiliation, it might be the most convenient place to open an account, reducing the population of unbanked. Basically a public option for retail banking.
Believe it or not, it works like this in most other places, mostly with success. And this is the way it used to work in the US as well, but it was not FDIC insured, and was phased out in the 60s or 70s.
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You mentioned depositing money in an account with the post office and the first place that comes to mind is Japan, where the Japan Post is the single largest deposit holder in the country, more than all the other banks combined.
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Surely all those people who talk so loud about ineffective government management would be all for a scaling back of congressional control of the Post Office, right
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Re:and they wonder why they dont make money... (Score:5, Informative)
Actually they're remarkably efficient. I don't have the link handy, but USPS handles an amazing amount of stuff, and their overall track record is excellent. They have two basic problems, or three depending on how you count. 1) Congress saddled them with a requirement to pre-fund the retirement account for all their workers, which no other company is required to do; 2) mail volumes of all types (and thus, revenues) have been dropping by 10-20% per year; and 3) bulk emailers (catalogs, junk mail - the stuff that really pays the bills) have pulled way back due both to the internet and to the economy. One might also note that in most countries the cost to mail a letter is substantially (often multiple times) more than in the US, and/or is subsidized or run by the government. USPS, like AmTrak, is a bastard concoction created by Congress to look like a business, act like a business, and be required to be profitable like a business, while being saddled with an impossible set of rules. Others than myself have described both as 'designed to fail'.
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Never underestimate the bandwidth of a box full of tape send via overnight mail.