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US Post Office no longer delivering on Saturdays ... does it affect you?

Discussion in 'Sports and News' started by HandsomeHarley, Feb 7, 2013.

Page 4 of 11
  1. Dick Whitman

    Dick Whitman Well-Known Member

    Re: US Post Office closing on Saturdays ... does it affect you?

    Yep. Market failure. The textbook example of when government should step into the breach.
     
    Dick Whitman, Feb 7, 2013
    #37
  2. Dick Whitman

    Dick Whitman Well-Known Member

    Re: US Post Office closing on Saturdays ... does it affect you?

    Good point, and a reason that you can't go cold turkey on the no first-class mail idea. Or, on a lesser scale, eliminating paper bills entirely idea. The NYT recently had a piece on some town in Montana that is fighting against getting cell phone service.

    But, long-term, this is the way the world is headed. Lead, follow, or get out of the way.
     
    Dick Whitman, Feb 7, 2013
    #38
  3. cranberry

    cranberry Well-Known Member

    Re: US Post Office closing on Saturdays ... does it affect you?

    I would be in favor of banning junk mail. More than half of the mail I receive is bulk junk mail that goes directly to recycling.
     
    cranberry, Feb 7, 2013
    #39
  4. trifectarich

    trifectarich Well-Known Member

    Re: US Post Office closing on Saturdays ... does it affect you?

    I would agree that this is where we're headed. The USPS loses, on average, about a million dollars an hour, so more changes are on the horizon.
     
    trifectarich, Feb 7, 2013
    #40
  5. dooley_womack1

    dooley_womack1 Well-Known Member

    Re: US Post Office closing on Saturdays ... does it affect you?

    That comes from book cookery in which its profits go to pay shortfalls elsewhere.
     
    dooley_womack1, Feb 7, 2013
    #41
  6. dooley_womack1

    dooley_womack1 Well-Known Member

    Re: US Post Office closing on Saturdays ... does it affect you?

    And how willing would private mail be to deliver to North St. Louis, the South Side of Chicago, the South Bronx? We got a case of Ragu's hatred of government and worship of business running off the tracks.
     
    dooley_womack1, Feb 7, 2013
    #42
  7. BTExpress

    BTExpress Well-Known Member

    Re: US Post Office closing on Saturdays ... does it affect you?

    The post office goes where others places can't, or won't.

    And they process 170 billion pieces a year.

    FedEx? 1.2 billion. UPS? 4 billion

    They're not even playing the same sport. Completely asinine that people even attempt to compare these delivery companies.

    No other business can even come close to providing the scope of service that the USPS does.
     
    BTExpress, Feb 7, 2013
    #43
  8. Uncle.Ruckus

    Uncle.Ruckus Guest

    Re: US Post Office closing on Saturdays ... does it affect you?

    LET THE MARKET SORT ITSELF OUT! I LOVE THE MARKET!

    THE MARKET IS GOOD! THE MARKET IS GREAT! WE SURRENDER OUR WILL AS OF THIS DATE!
     
    Uncle.Ruckus, Feb 7, 2013
    #44
  9. The Big Ragu

    The Big Ragu Moderator Staff Member

    Re: US Post Office closing on Saturdays ... does it affect you?

    I wish that I could have a robot that cleans my home at little or no cost. Those robots actually exist. Is it "market failure" that I don't have one? Should our Federal government step into that "breach"?

    It's not as if we live in an age of stage coach robbers, in which pony express riders have to navigate days of wilderness travel to get correspondence to people in this country. The vast majority of people can send simple correspondence or pay a bill with the click of a mouse.

    Even for those who need things physically moved around, it's not like it is some insurmountable problem that is subject to market failure. How do they get food to a supermarket in rural Montana? How do they make fuel deliveries? If there is demand for services -- package delivery, for example -- someone will provide it for a fee that finds an equilibrium point between supply and demand.

    In fact, I believe that half of the post office's business -- and this number is growing -- is for package delivery for private retailers, such as WalMart, Staples, CostCo., etc. Those retailers are not going to write off the business of people in rural areas—because they can certainly service them profitably, even without the USPS. They have every incentive to figure out how to get their goods to people and do it a cost that still keeps people buying from them. Why we need a government bureaucracy that is hemorrhaging money to help subsidize their businesses is beyond me. FedEx and UPS run so much more efficiently than the USPS. Labor costs are much less for FedEx and UPS, in particular.

    We've gone to this automatic assumption on this thread that getting a package delivered to a rural area is not going to happen without the postal service. What evidence does anyone have of that? And if anyone in this country is that isolated, how do they get their food? How do they get their electricity delivered to them? Where do they get their fuel from? If there are solutions for those things, and people are managing to do it profitably, why would you assume that there isn't a profitable solution that makes it a no-brainer for some entity or entities to get people physical letters and packages?
     
    The Big Ragu, Feb 7, 2013
    #45
  10. JayFarrar

    JayFarrar Well-Known Member

    Re: US Post Office closing on Saturdays ... does it affect you?

    It is also the Post Office that delivers a fair chunk of FedEx and UPS packages in the "final mile" of delivery.

    A made up crisis with made up solutions to fix a problem that doesn't exist.
     
    JayFarrar, Feb 7, 2013
    #46
  11. dooley_womack1

    dooley_womack1 Well-Known Member

    Re: US Post Office closing on Saturdays ... does it affect you?

    "Labor costs are much less for FedEx and UPS, in particular." Yay?

    And Jay's last sentence wraps it up.
     
    dooley_womack1, Feb 7, 2013
    #47
  12. Captain Obvious

    Captain Obvious Guest

    Re: US Post Office closing on Saturdays ... does it affect you?

    I just wish someone stepped in to lower labor costs in the financial industry, especially gold and bond trading.
     
    Captain Obvious, Feb 7, 2013
    #48
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