The American Spectator : The Spectacle Blog : USPS Will Never Be the Same

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Yesterday the Post Office announced a cost-saving proposal that would slow down the delivery of priority mail and cut about 28,000 workers. The plan would be expected to save about $2.1 billion. Timothy Taylor explains that $2.1 billion won't be enough, because USPS has permanently lost business:

Starting in the middle of the 2000s, the mail was overtaken by the web. There is no way that snail mail can ever catch back up, a reality that has eluded USPS so far.

The only way for the USPS to survive, Taylor argues, is to make every structural change possible: raise prices, eliminate processing plants, restructure pensions and benefits, and find new non-mail sources of revenue.

View all comments (7) | Leave a comment

Peppermint Tea| 12.6.11 @ 9:03AM

Or just sell their assets to UPS, Fed Ex, and others. Hey, it was a nice run and nothing lasts forever.

rd| 12.6.11 @ 9:22AM

Can someone tell me how and why the USPS still justifies doing Saturday home (houses, residences) mail delivery?

I can live without getting mail at home on Saturday. I think everyone can. In fact, this would be a plus.

The stubbornness to persist with Saturday home mail deliveries tells me of their stubbornness to not adjust and self-correct, i.e. why USPS are so terribly over budget.

Pecos Pete| 12.6.11 @ 9:32AM

The USPS is in deep doo doo, and will always be there, because of Congress Critters. And, because it is a government organization with all of the failings thereof. It ain't private business, it ain't and never has been operated as a business. It is, just like Amtrak, going to suck money from the tax paying suckers forever.

Grzmlyk| 12.6.11 @ 9:41AM

Yes, in the free market, it always makes sense to raise prices when demand goes down. Isn't that Keynes's first law?

I know that, a couple years back, when I tried to sell a rusted 1994 Grand Prix with 285,000 miles on it for $500, I had no takers. The car sat in my front yard. Then I took a page from the Post Office's philosophy. I simply raised the price to $1,500. I got several people who were interested in buying it.

Being no fool, I raised the price again to $2,500, and you should have seen the line of customers! I wound up selling it in 10 minutes for $3,500! Sweet!

Idiots.

If nobody buys stamps at $0.44 each, just raise the price to $0.50 each! That'll save the Post Office!

Ladies and gentlemen, this is your Federal Government. And this says it all as to why we are commiting suicide as a nation.

crazy| 12.6.11 @ 1:07PM

Soon the transition from the USPS to the USPS pension plan will be complete since it will be cheaper to stop mail service and just pay the promised pension and medical benefits.

Bob K.| 12.6.11 @ 3:30PM

Getting your mail will be cheaper and more convenient if the Post Office is privatized and sold to Walmart! Walmart will now come to you instead of you going to them. Right?

Karen Hanna| 12.6.11 @ 3:40PM

Are you all from metropolitan areas? Don't forget that rural areas need the service of the USPS more than you. It's nice to say that Fedex and UPS could service, but mail delivery is way different than package delivery and I doubt they would want the enormous cost of doing so.

PS Not everyone has a Walmart.