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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.

  1. dooley_womack1

    dooley_womack1 Well-Known Member

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

    Now you've gone and crashed the Net!
     
  2. YankeeFan

    YankeeFan Well-Known Member

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

    They already have. It's called electronic trading.
     
  3. The Big Ragu

    The Big Ragu Moderator Staff Member

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

    It's not a value judgment. It's reality. We both live in a world in which we have a lot of unemployment and most people don't earn what they would like. It's generally a world where resources are scarcer than people's wants and needs. Labor markets reflect reality.

    Pretending that some magical Federal entity can afford to borrow endlessly without there being an end, and selectively (because only certain people benefit) subsidize certain things or certain people to create false prosperity. ... doesn't actually change that reality It either drives up costs for the rest of us, because the burden gets passed along, or we pile on debt -- which is why we are in a $16 trillion hole right now. We could easily give everyone a Federally-subsidized raise and bring our debt to default levels. We're all made worse off by that kind of behavior.
     
  4. BTExpress

    BTExpress Well-Known Member

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

    Of course.

    They deliver to the big burb, and hand it off to the USPS to finish the delivery to the small town. Nice to have the USPS around to leech off of, isn't. Makes being "efficient" a little easier, eh?

    170 billion ---USPS
    4 billion --- UPS
    1.2 billion --- FedEx

    Major league baseball vs. tee-ball.
     
  5. The Big Ragu

    The Big Ragu Moderator Staff Member

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

    I was renting a car last week, and the guy at the counter and I got into a conversation. He used to work as a pit trader on NYMEX and lost his job sometime after the merger with CME made what he did obsolete.

    It's the same old story as the buggy whip maker who suffered as the result of the automobile, while everyone else benefited. Electronic trading has lowered costs, democratized things that used to be esoteric and unavailable to the vast majority of people, and got rid of a lot of fraud -- brokers in charge of managed accounts used to route orders however they wanted. They would take profitable trades and assign them after the fact to favored clients and fuck another client in the process. Which, for example, was how Hillary Clinton turned $1,000 into $100,000 in 9 months prior to electronic trading. ...
     
  6. The Big Ragu

    The Big Ragu Moderator Staff Member

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

    The USPS has had a government-enforced monopoly since the 1790s -- it is law. You make it sound as if it isn't possible for a for-profit entity to do what it does in this day and age more efficiently. How would you know? Yes, it delivers a lot of stuff. They legally restrict their competition to prevent anyone from taking business from them.

    Allow competition and see if anything steps in to fill the void. If there is demand for delivered packages -- and there is -- it's a service that will be provided. Just like a gazillion other services that get provided pretty efficiently without a government bureaucracy that racks up debt.
     
  7. Uncle.Ruckus

    Uncle.Ruckus Guest

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

    I'm guessing UPS and FedEx will have to borrow billions to finance the new planes and trucks they'll need if the USPS goes away.
     
  8. cranberry

    cranberry Well-Known Member

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

    Ensure mail delivery to every address in the United States.
     
  9. DanOregon

    DanOregon Well-Known Member

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

    I used to have my two-out-at-a-time plan locked down to perfection. Now I can't remember what it was, mail on Monday, Thursday and Friday? I've gone to three-at-time now and don't really care between the stuff I have on my DVR, the streaming etc.
     
    Last edited by a moderator: Jan 1, 2015
  10. YankeeFan

    YankeeFan Well-Known Member

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

    I was a floor trader in the early 90's. You could see where the industry was going even then.

    If you actually owned a NYMEX seat, you owned something of value. I had a seat on the NYFE, a shitty little exchange owned by the NYSE, and then sold to the NYCE.

    I should have leased a NYMEX or COMEX seat, and tried to make enough money to buy one.

    But even so, the industry was always moving towards electronic trading.

    Captain Oblivious should look at what it costs to trade commodities now vs. 30 years ago. Per trade costs and commissions are much lower today.
     
  11. micropolitan guy

    micropolitan guy Well-Known Member

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

    I guess we have a solution then. Pit Traders and other unemployed captains of Wall Street can deliver first-class mail to rural Montana much cheaper than the USPS.
     
  12. YankeeFan

    YankeeFan Well-Known Member

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

    This thread is silly.

    We've had people here standing up and proclaiming for years their willingness to pay more in taxes for the the greater good. (Though, they usually mean they're ok with others paying higher taxes.)

    But, they're unwilling to settle for three, four, or five day a week mail service?

    Fuck, if you live in rural Montana, haven't you already made a lifestyle choice? Haven't you already traded the conveniences of the big city for a different life.

    How different would your life be if you lived in rural Montana and received basic mail delivery only once a week?

    Even if you paid all your bill by regular mail, the turnaround time would be sufficient.

    And, if packages and prescriptions were still delivered daily, what would be the big deal?
     
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