US Post Office on the brink of default

[Trajan]

*shrugs*...now what? maybe oh, mo' money? then...mo' money? gov sponsored entity, at its best tied wiht a Union that is helping to drive it into bankruptcy, where have we heard this before?


Postal Service Is Nearing Default as Losses Mount
By STEVEN GREENHOUSE
Published: September 4, 2011


The United States Postal Service has long lived on the financial edge, but it has never been as close to the precipice as it is today: the agency is so low on cash that it will not be able to make a $5.5 billion payment due this month and may have to shut down entirely this winter unless Congress takes emergency action to stabilize its finances.


“Our situation is extremely serious,” the postmaster general, Patrick R. Donahoe, said in an interview. “If Congress doesn’t act, we will default.”

In recent weeks, Mr. Donahoe has been pushing a series of painful cost-cutting measures to erase the agency’s deficit, which will reach $9.2 billion this fiscal year. They include eliminating Saturday mail delivery, closing up to 3,700 postal locations and laying off 120,000 workers — nearly one-fifth of the agency’s work force — despite a no-layoffs clause in the unions’ contracts.

The post office’s problems stem from one hard reality: it is being squeezed on both revenue and costs.

As any computer user knows, the Internet revolution has led to people and businesses sending far less conventional mail.

At the same time, decades of contractual promises made to unionized workers, including no-layoff clauses, are increasing the post office’s costs. Labor represents 80 percent of the agency’s expenses, compared with 53 percent at United Parcel Service and 32 percent at FedEx, its two biggest private competitors. Postal workers also receive more generous health benefits than most other federal employees.


more at-

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/05/b...uggles-to-stay-solvent-and-relevant.html?_r=1

 

[Warrior102]

Good

What a colossal fucked-up organization. Typical government.

Good grief - they contract "out" to haul mail up and down the coast/cross country. They can't even do it themselves. I don't see UPS/Fedex doing that.

Our mail carrier - delivers mail talking on her cell phone every damned time she comes through the neighborhood. She looks like a fucking crack head.

Good riddance

 

[Salt Jones]

I say let them fold. Private corporations can take over and set the postage rates. They'll force more web billing and email to cut cost. You can look to Netflix's new pricing structure as an example, streaming content is cheaper then mailing. Rural areas will cost more due to less people and greater distances.

 

[Zander]

The Postal Service was a great idea........... in 1776. It was a revolutionary concept (no pun intended) who's time has past. Time to call it quits and let the private sector fill the void.

 

[waltky]

Granny hopes dey wait till after she gets her 2nd stimulus check inna mail...

Postal Service targets 252 mail facilities
September 15, 2011: WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Hundreds of mail-handling facilities have been named in a shutdown list released Thursday by the U.S. Postal Service as the agency tries to fight massive red ink.

The potential closings are the latest chapter in a fundamental overhaul of the agency that could also mean closing thousands of smaller post offices across the country and cutting tens of thousands of Postal Service jobs in years to come. It could also result in slightly slower delivery of first-class mail. "It is no exaggeration to say that we are radically re-aligning the way that we process mail, the way that we deliver mail, and the way that we operate our retail network," Postmaster General Patrick Donahoe told reporters at a Thursday briefing.

The latest list targets 252 processing facilities and related "network transportation," as the Postal Service calls its distribution system, which now consists of 487 facilities. "Our immediate goal is to reduce our total costs by $20 billion by 2015," Donahoe said, including $3 billion in anticipated savings from the facilities realignment announced Thursday. Each facility on the list has a workforce of between 50 and 2,000 employees. Donahoe said the Postal Service hopes the workforce reductions will come through attrition, not layoffs. To bolster that hope, he cited the successful cutting of the postal payroll in recent years by a quarter-million workers, without layoffs.

As with an earlier list of several thousand small post offices slated for closure, officials say a review process with standardized criteria will determine the ultimate fate of the facilities on the new list. Donahoe said Thursday that more than 20 of those post offices have since been taken off the proposed shutdown list, after a review determined the community had no acceptable alternatives. With the proposed change in mail-handling facilities, postal officials say customers can expect a first-class letter to take two or three days to be delivered, instead of the one- to three-day standard the existing delivery system was designed to meet. Postal Service Chief Operating Officer Megan Brennan told reporters the agency's huge deficit prompted a change in thinking in 2006, going from a strategy of staying ahead of the growth in postal volume seen in the 1970s to now staying ahead of costs as volume declines.

Donahoe said it's possible the cost of first-class postage, now at 44 cents, could go up next year to help boost revenues. He told Congress last week that the steps the Postal Service is taking should restore profitability by 2015. Thursday he repeated what he told lawmakers -- that the Postal Service has a dire cash crunch and will not be able to make a $5.5 billion payment to a health benefits fund for future retirees that was due at the end of this month. But, he said, the administration's 90-day extension buys time for Congress to allow the Postal Service to shift a surplus in that health benefits fund to help cover expenses elsewhere. He declined to speculate on what would happen if Congress fails to act.

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