February 7, 2013

No more Saturday mail.

Do you care that Saturday mail is gone?
  
pollcode.com free polls 

77 comments:

X said...

one less day a week I have to give my neighbors their misdelivered mail.

Patrick said...

Why continue to subsidize the junk mail industry. Isn't spam through email enough?

Brian Brown said...

I think they should only deliver mail 3 days a week if stopping 1 day of service saves $2 billion, then they should stop 2 more...

Beta Rube said...

It's fun to come to the office on Saturday afternoon and open mail. It's usually the best cash day of the week. Of course this just means that the same checks will show up on Monday, but I will miss the little ritual.

garage mahal said...

Why continue to subsidize the junk mail industry

Zero tax dollars subsidize USPS.

Wince said...

I'm worried the American male is next!

sinz52 said...

The Internet is destroying the first-class mail market.

The USPS has now become much more of a deliverer of junk mail.
I certainly don't need that stuff to be delivered to me on Saturday. It can wait till Monday--or preferably, even longer.

Known Unknown said...

Zero tax dollars subsidize USPS.

Yeah,but like most government-run entities they still can't pay their bills.

Joe Biden, America's Putin said...

No doubt the USPS is a dinosaur in need of an internal overhaul.
The thing is government run, so of course it hemorrhages money. Will it need a tax payer bail out?
That said, I offer this positive observation based on my recent experience with the USPS. Over the last few months I have mailed large quantities of boxes out of state.
I started out comparing prices by hauling my boxes to Fed-Ex, UPS, and the United States Post Office.
The USPS -by far - offered me the lowest price. They have also improved their tracking, and all of my boxes arrived at their destination as promised.
Only one box arrived with physical damage. I was glad I had that one double boxed.

I did use Fed-ex for a large piece of art. It was too large for USPS. Fed-Ex was super expensive, but I was very happy with their service as well.

rhhardin said...

Having packages show up on Saturday is a nice option, but apparently that will continue.

My experience is that USPS beats both Fedex and UPS for package delivery speed, but maybe Ohio is a special case with some distribution center or something that attracts packages.

Joe Biden, America's Putin said...

Meaningful correspondence is a lost art. Now, it's all pottery barn.
My pottery barn catalogs go straight to the recycle bin.

garage mahal said...

Yeah,but like most government-run entities they still can't pay their bills.

Sure they can. Like most government run entities their problem is Republicans.

Strelnikov said...

The important thing is we know for sure that they won't fuck up our health care delivery. It's so much simpler than carrying pieces of paper form point A to point B.

Colonel Angus said...

Yeah,but like most government-run entities they still can't pay their bills.

That's because they underprice their service. Forty five cents to send a letter across the country and it gets there in 2-3 days is a ridiculous bargain.

Brian Brown said...

garage mahal said...

Zero tax dollars subsidize USPS.


Where do you fucking idiots get these dumbass talking points?

Hey stupid shit, when the USPS runs a $15 billion dollar deficit, where do you think the money comes from to fund their operations?

The Senate passed a bill in April that infused $11 million into the postal service and stopped many rural post offices from closing, cut the number of mail processing center closures in half, and required the postal service to wait two years before it considered cutting its Saturday delivery services.


No here is the part where you reply "it is only $11 million"

Idiot.

Brian Brown said...

garage mahal said...

Sure they can. Like most government run entities their problem is Republicans.


That's right, stupid shit!

It was "Republicans" that have been running the post office since 2009!!!!

Really!!!

Joe Biden, America's Putin said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Joe Biden, America's Putin said...

Wow Garage, I had no idea Republicans ran the USPS. Cool!

Curious George said...

"garage mahal said...
Why continue to subsidize the junk mail industry

Zero tax dollars subsidize USPS."

That's not entirely true now, and the democratic Senate approved a bill that would appropriate $34 Billion. The GOP House of course would have it.

Eric the Fruit Bat said...

My dog will be disappointed.

bagoh20 said...

I never got over the demise of the Pony Express.

Joe Biden, America's Putin said...

"Zero tax dollars subsidize USPS."

LOL.

Joe Biden, America's Putin said...

Scott Walker will be indicted any minute now.

Beta Rube said...

Thank God it's the Republicans. I was worried for a second that the people who work there and run the place might bear some responsibility for gross inefficiencies and mounting annual losses.

Can I blame Garage if my company loses money?

Brian Brown said...

garage mahal said...

Zero tax dollars subsidize USPS.


The USPS receives and annual $100 million dollar appropriation.

Idiot.

Joe Biden, America's Putin said...

I give republicans credit for the good service at the USPS. I give democrats the blame for the billions lost. After all, we all know the democrats are aces at losing and wasting money.

There. That seems like a fair GM approved assessment of the situation.

bagoh20 said...

We just recently survey our customers to see how they wanted invoiced: by mail, or email? So far only one has come back wanting a paper invoice. It makes sense in bunch of ways. It Doesn't get lost, can't deny getting it, no paper, no envelope, no printing cost, no postage, instantaneous and can be done completely automatically with software. You have to be nuts to want a letter at either end.

I never send mail or write checks anymor. I write maybe 5 personal checks checks a year, and all my bills are paid automatically without me even seeing them. I also have my bank send me an email on every change to my bank account or charge to my credit card. Use your tools.

Scott said...

Mahal is talking out his butt again, as usual.

Setting aside that its legally granted monopoly is a commercial asset worth billions, the US Postal Service pays no corporate income tax. That's a MASSIVE cash subsidy most years. And in years where it loses money (like 2011), the USPS is unlikely to go bankrupt, because the feral government won't let it.

Politicians claim that the USPS is "revenue neutral," but it never is. Until recently it has been the protected cash cow of the government. If the USPS was all of a sudden was cut off from government largesse and had to be run like a real business, it would go belly up in short order.

DADvocate said...

I live out in the country. One of my worries is that someone will know I'm not home because the mail is still in my box. No Saturday mail means I can be gone all weekend and my mailbox won't give it away.

Scott M said...

I don't know if it was a "make-work" scheme, but I see an awful lot of people standing around when I go (which is rarely) to my local USPS outpost. One of my good friends from high school is a postman and he backs up that stereotype loudly.

The USPS, in the era after the advent of voicemail and email, is top-heavy and bloated. Hell, do away with Wednesday as well.

bagoh20 said...

Like the DMV, the UPS has gotten a lot better recently. Decades behind private companies. While much more efficient than before, the waste is right in your face when you go there, and you don't see that in private similar operations. It's just the entire culture of public employees. The job is one of entitlement now - not service.

garage mahal said...

I give republicans credit for the good service at the USPS. I give democrats the blame for the billions lost.

LOL. Republicans wreck government, then blame government. Same as it ever was.

bagoh20 said...

Yep, Monday Wednesday and Friday would be just fine. What mail is reliably coming on any given day and not the next anyway. If you want something there on a specific day, you send it by private carrier.

MadisonMan said...

I doubt that people will lose their jobs because the mail delivery is suspended on Saturdays. So the make work option in the survey is kinda bogus.

bagoh20 said...

" Republicans wreck government, then blame government."

I wish. The Republicans have no such power, and never did.

But if you had a machine that was costing you a fortune and not getting the job done, wouldn't you wreck it?

Scott M said...

We got a full Yellow Pages book in the mail yesterday. A full-on, honest-to-goodness, inches-thick Yellow Pages.

Normally, I intercept these and head past the garbage can before going into the house after getting home from work on the day the USPS delivers them. Yesterday, my 8-year-old saw it first and wanted to look at it.

The depth of her confusion over why adults would produce such a thing was startling. She asked questions about it for almost half an hour.

Colonel Angus said...

, because the feral government won't let it.

If that was a typo, its still appropriate.

Scott M said...

LOL. Republicans wreck government, then blame government. Same as it ever was.

Given everything that we're finding about Obamacare, which got not a single Republican vote, how can you say this without suffering a conniption?

Colonel Angus said...

Republicans wreck government, then blame government.

Don't kid yourself. Wrecking government is a bi-partisan effort.

garage mahal said...

If the USPS was all of a sudden was cut off from government largesse and had to be run like a real business, it would go belly up in short order.

There is not a business or any entity in the country that is forced to prefund its pension benefits for 75 years through a $5.5 billion annual payment. Not one. Without the 2006 bill in the lame duck the USPS would have a 1.5 billion surplus.

Patrick said...

Zero tax dollars subsidize USPS.

Depends, I suppose on what you mean by "subsidize." The US loans the USPS money, and has 13 Billion dollar debt which it has no ability to repay. Congressional action was required to reduce the USPS payment to its retirees, and guess who would be on the hook when that goes bust.

The USPS is an increasingly anachronistic and unnecessary agency. It is not worth a dime of US tax money, particularly when the budget is in shambles, and when the debt is about 75% of the gdp.

Sunslut7 said...

Ann,
Its just more evidence of the urban bias of the Obama administration. saturday mail is important for rural citizens because it is the last mail until Monday.

A better decision would be to ommit Tuesday delivery because it has the lowest volume of mail sent during the week.

Today its Saturday. Evenually, the Feds will reduce rural mail to three days per week. After-which we will see mail delivery be reduced to one day per week.

Its time to cut off food supplies to the Mega-urban areas.
And Dems wonder why the vast rural areas are pro-GOP and largely located in 'Red States'. If up-state NY could leave counties leave NY they would. Succession is the hot political topic for the next decade.

Unknown said...

Rural Wyoming never had Saturday delivery anyway. Saturday parcel post delivery at the Post Office would be an added service here.

Known Unknown said...

Don't kid yourself. Wrecking government is a bi-partisan effort.

Wrecking is certainly the wrong term as government has done nothing but grow and expand since I've been alive.

I would say the government business is doing quite well.

SGT Ted said...

The USPS is being cannibalized by their employees union. Of course they are losing money, the vast majority of which is pension costs for people that no longer work there.

They lost 16 billion last year, 11 billion of which was union pension fund larding.

The Saturday cut saves them 2 billion. Wheres the other 15 billionm in cuts?

Oh that will be passed on to us.

Funny how the USPS Corporate Monopoly seems to escape the scrutiny of those who usually have no problem calling out such blatant corporate welfare schemes,

But the main recipient of any bail-outs is the union, so that makes bail-outs perfectly accceptable, when they aren't denying that they occur.

Why are you denying the obvious corporate welfare payola to the unions, garage? Is it because unions are sacred? Or is it just a case of ODD?

Scott said...

"There is not a business or any entity in the country that is forced to prefund its pension benefits for 75 years through a $5.5 billion annual payment."

In other words, there is no business or any entity that is forced to make its pension plan solvent. Sure. But the USPS doesn't play by the same rules as real businesses. It would be a huge embarassment for the feral government to be stuck with the kind of unfunded pension liability that companies like General Motors have. The money for the freakin' LAVISH pension and retirement healthcare benefits that USPS employees have has to come from somewhere. Retirees have to make payments on their BMW leases, after all.

The USPS is a cash cow for your congressman. And they would rather have a smaller healthy cow than a bigger sick one. So no Saturday delivery means that your job is on the line. BFD.

garage mahal said...

The US loans the USPS money, and has 13 Billion dollar debt which it has no ability to repay

It has a shortfall because Republicans passed a law in Congress that forces them to fund retirement for people that aren't even born yet. Without that they would have over a billion dollar surplus. No business or government agency is forced to operate that way. Ironically this hurts poorer and rural communities the most, but there aren't any signs they've figured this out yet.

Smilin' Jack said...

"No more Saturday mail."

I don't get this. As I understand the business model of the USPS, they get paid to dump garbage (sorry, '3rd class mail') on my doorstep every day. How are they going to make more money by dumping less of this shit?

Joe Biden, America's Putin said...

The 2005-2006 P.A.E.A. bill was introduced by Rep. Thomas Davis [R-VA11] and had three cosponsors:
1.Danny Davis [D-IL7]
2.Henry Waxman [D-CA30]
3.John McHugh [R-NY23]

Looks like both D and Rs demanded that the USPS pay the treasury to cover health benefits and retirement costs.

"Almost all news tells us that the culprit behind the trouble USPS is experiencing is lower mail volume, but mostly the Postal Accountability and Enhancement Act of 2006 (PDF) that requires USPS to pay huge sums of cash into the U.S. Treasury to cover future health and retirement benefits."

Garage - I thought you were for unions and the free health care and retirement that comes with it?

Scott said...

Ah, of course, the Republicans are the problem. Evil, nasty, dastardly!

Postal Service workers get most of their compensation on the back end, with benefits no private company can touch. And the cost of these benefits is exploding. So you want to under-fund your defined benefit retirement income so you can keep your sorry-ass jobs going a few years more? Really. I know you're banking on some future administration to come in like Santa Claus to bail out the USPS pension funds when you come up short. After all, as Al Smith said, "Nobody shoots Santa Claus."

Well, good luck with that. A lot of us are working very hard to make sure that Santa is dead and buried by the time you retire. Maybe you should just STFU and appreciate the gift that the Republicans gave you.

edutcher said...

As my mother used to tell me, there was a time there were 2 mail deliveries a day, so blaming the end of Saturday mail on the Internet has some validity, but, if the Post Office starts laying off people, where will they go to go Postal?

PS It might make more sense to have mail delivery every other day.

garage mahal said...

Ah, of course, the Republicans are the problem. Evil, nasty, dastardly!

The USPS made a one billion profit in......2006.

It's a supreme irony that the self-styled pro-business party should have drafted an act so poisonous to a corporation whose very existence is guaranteed by the Constitution.

Thorley Winston said...


Depends, I suppose on what you mean by "subsidize." The US loans the USPS money, and has 13 Billion dollar debt which it has no ability to repay. Congressional action was required to reduce the USPS payment to its retirees, and guess who would be on the hook when that goes bust.


In addition, while the USPS’s operating costs are supposed to be revenue-neutral, their capital costs (e.g. building post-offices) actually comes from the general budget. Sort of like if someone bought you a business and didn’t have you reimburse them for the cost of the purchase but just made you responsible for coming up with the cash to fund the day-to-day operations.


That all being said, the USPS is pretty far down on the list of priorities of things that I think need to be scaled back. I’d rather our elected officials focused on things like scaling back entitlement programs (Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, etc.), ending corporate welfare (including agricultural subsidies) and reducing the scope and cost of federal regulations.

Patrick said...


It's a supreme irony that the self-styled pro-business party should have drafted an act so poisonous to a corporation whose very existence is guaranteed by the Constitution.


It's not ironic at all that a party that favors private enterprise would try to dismantle an aging, anachronistic dinosaur like the post office.

It is a surprise that the Republicans would.

Brian Brown said...



It has a shortfall because Republicans passed a law in Congress that forces them to fund retirement for people that aren't even born yet


Hey stupid shit:

The idea was supported by Democrats, and if it was so horrible, why didn't the Democrats undo it?

Oh, because you're a silly, fat idiot. That's why.

Thorley Winston said...

Someone can correct me if I’m wrong but my understanding is that the people who pay to send you “junk mail” are actually subsidizing the cost of other mail delivery because of the rate they pay and the volume they send out. Sort of like how commercials pay for television shows or print ads subsidize the cost of newspapers and magazines. I usually shred or pitch mine as well but other than the five seconds it takes to throw in the bin or my shredder, it doesn’t actually cost me anything to receive it.

Brian Brown said...

garage mahal said...
Without the 2006 bill in the lame duck the USPS would have a 1.5 billion surplus.


Complete & utter bullshit.

The USPS said its operating revenue of $15.6 billion decreased by $153 million--less than 1 percent--while operating expenses of $20.8 billion went up by $1.9 billion, for a 10.2 percent increase.

This increase was driven by the $3.1 billion mandated for prefunding of retiree health benefits.

Dust Bunny Queen said...

It doesn't matter to me one bit.

We NEVER had mail delivery anyway. Because of our rural location and proximity (within 5 miles) to the Post Office, we were required to have a PO Box.

No. Such. Thing. As. Street. Delivery. EVER.

SO...we always had to go get our own mail. Plus....we still get Saturday delivery anyway. Delivery to the PO Box.

Smilin' Jack said...

Someone can correct me if I’m wrong but my understanding is that the people who pay to send you “junk mail” are actually subsidizing the cost of other mail delivery because of the rate they pay and the volume they send out.

That's correct. See, if someone dumps garbage on your doorstep, that's usually considered bad. But if someone pays them to do it, that makes it good.

Patrick said...

That all being said, the USPS is pretty far down on the list of priorities of things that I think need to be scaled back. I’d rather our elected officials focused on things like scaling back entitlement programs (Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, etc.), ending corporate welfare (including agricultural subsidies) and reducing the scope and cost of federal regulations.

Yeah, but if we can't even do the easy stuff, the more difficult and complicated stuff will never happen.

edutcher said...

bagoh20 said...

I never got over the demise of the Pony Express.

Private contractor.

When it couldn't compete, it folded.

There's a lesson there someplace.

garage mahal said...

It's not ironic at all that a party that favors private enterprise would try to dismantle an aging, anachronistic dinosaur like the post office.

At least your honest that the USPS is being dismantled instead of letting it operate the way they see fit. I won't be effected much, the flyover rubes that tend to vote Republican will though. Oh well.

Dust Bunny Queen said...

The majority of the rural residents in our area do get mail delivery, because they are miles from the Post Office and I guess the government thinks it is too hard to drive to get the mail.

Instead they have these banks of lock box type stand for the mail at the end (or beginning) of the street. Instead of the mail carrier, who is a contracted employee...not a US Postal employee, stops at the bank of 20 to 40 boxes and stuffs the mail in. If there are big packages, they get a note and then DO have to drive to pick up the package.

Most people don't WANT a mailbox on a post, for security reasons as someone already stated. Those people either pay for a PO Box or request to be added to the nearest bank of boxes.

Unlike BagohH20, most of our clients do not use electronic methods to pay their bills and they DO want a paper invoice. We always include a self addressed and pre paid envelope to facilitate getting paid more quickly. So....if we have to wait a few days to get to the PO Box to pick up our checks....Big Deal.

Dust Bunny Queen said...

For street....read also....dirt road.

Original Mike said...

"Maybe you should just STFU and appreciate the gift that the Republicans gave you."

Is garage a postal worker?

Carol said...

I still miss the twice-a-day delivery we used to get in LA in the 50s.

Ignorance is Bliss said...

I didn't even know it was going away, which pretty well sums up how much I care.

Chef Mojo said...

@DBQ:

Hell, I live in a small town in Central Virginia, and I have to have a PO box because I live in a small apartment building.

I'm totally ambivalent about the fate of the USPS. All my bills are done electronically, and, for the most part, all get is junk mail and catalogues, most of which get dumped in the handy dandy trash can at the Post Office. Let them deal with the trash they're generating. I get packages there, but I try to get my stuff shipped UPS or FedEX if possible. They actually deliver to my apartment.

Original Mike said...

I still pay my bills by paper, because my opinion of computer security is just north of my opinion of Islamists. But if the USPS went away, I could deal with it.

Dust Bunny Queen said...

@ Chef Mojo et al

The Fed Ex and UPS drivers are our friends. Not only do they know where we live, they know what vehicles we drive and if they see us around and about, they will stop and give us our packages, if they are small enough. Big packages, like the three toilets and rancher's pipe jack we ordered (hubby has a plumbing business) last week go into the delivery shed that we built near the workshop.

Then we will take some time to chat about our kids and grandkids. The UPS driver's wife was my daughter's second grade teacher. Ah....the great thing about small towns. Everyone knows where you are and what you are doing. The bad thing....everyone knows where you are and what you are doing.

Amazon Prime rules!!! And so does Zappos!!!

Brian Brown said...

garage mahal said...
I won't be effected much, the flyover rubes that tend to vote Republican will though.


I think you should go on pretending that you living in East Bum Fuck Wisconsin isn't flyover country.

Do you ever tire of being so silly and stupid?

ken in tx said...

I once lived in a town, New Augusta MS, where we were within walking distance of the post office and we had no mail delivery. Actually my GRE results were sent to North Augusta SC by mistake and they tried to tell me it was my fault. We did not actually have an address. I used the number on our water meter as a street address, 253. The mayor of the town was the meter reader. Some organizations will not accept the fact that you live in a town so small that everyone knows where you live.

Original Mike said...

As others here have said, Mon Wed Fri would be just fine.

Scott said...

Go to Mon. We'd. Fri. delivery and triple rates immediately. Still a bargain.

garage mahal said...

I think you should go on pretending that you living in East Bum Fuck Wisconsin isn't flyover country.

I live in a bustling metropolitan area. None of the smash and grab Tea Party policies will effect me at all. People living in rural areas that see their schools and post offices disappearing before their eyes might notice though.

Anonymous said...

No Saturday mail reduces the value of a Netflix DVD subscription.

If you want a DVD for Saturday night, you'll have to send one back by Wednesday.

Clyde said...

As a postal worker at a processing and distribution facility, I have a completely different view from the rest of you. I see the sausage being made, and I know how hard I work. Whenever I see comments about postal workers being lazy, I just wish that the people writing them could work ONE NIGHT on my job. They would come away from it with a completely different perspective, as well as complaining about sore feet and an aching back. Unlike most office-working Americans, I don't have computer access during my workday, so I'm actually working the entire night (other than lunch and two 15-minute breaks), from when I arrive at 10 p.m. until I get off at 6:30 a.m. On an average day, I run somwhere between 130,000 and 175,000 pieces of letter mail for the two different zones I process on a daily basis.

I can tell you that eliminating Saturday delivery will make my job even harder, because all of that Saturday mail will have to be delivered on Monday. It will be the equivalent of a Tuesday-after-a-holiday Monday EVERY SINGLE WEEK. And we don't even want to think about what that Tuesday-after-a-holiday Monday will look like when I have to try to process FOUR days worth of mail at once. Saturday is NOT a slow day. They should have eliminated Wednesday delivery (our slowest day), rather than Saturday. I don't think the beancounters in Washington have a clue as to the actual logistics on the ground, in terms of processing mail or the amount of mail that is going to be dumped on the carriers on Mondays once this starts. It's going to be a real goat rope.

Add in the fact that they are planning on closing a nearby plant and moving their operations to our plant during the day and I have no idea where they are going to put all of that mail while they process it over the weekend. We barely have room for our own mail, and since our machines will have to do double-duty, it's going to be really interesting to see what they plan on doing with the Manasota mail.