On the end of USPS 1st Class Saturday delivery:

Instead of stopping Saturday mail....
Instead of increasing the cost of a stamp (1st class mail)....

How about they increase the cost of bulk mail? Bulk mail makes up 90% of my snail-mail inbox. If nothing else, that means that I'd have less snail-mail spam. i.e. 2 birds, 1 stone.

Are you a religious man? Because that's a religious statement.

What is wrong with the USPS and how would the free market make it better?

Why did Jefferson push to specifically command congress to create the USPS? (It's in the constitution.) What do you know that the framers didn't?

1) The USPS is NOT a monopoly. You are free to send your mail/packages via FedEx, UPS, DHS, local parcel and gasp e-mail.
2) FedEx and UPS both rely heavily on the USPS to remain profitable by farming unprofitable packages to the USPS.
3) The USPS is the only one that has to fund it health care 75 years in advance, this includes all government agencies and FedEx/UPS/DHS...
4) UPS is unionized and pays as well as, if not better then, the USPS so don't blame unions.
5) The vast majority of the debt is because of the pre-fund mandate and all of it can be attributed to Congress. If the USPS was allowed to act as an independent agency they would be fine. Redundant post offices not allowed to close, Saturday delivery being required, and the prefund are all problems cause by Congress not the USPS.

Or if we don't admit that USPS should be a taxpayer funded exercise, let them choose only the cost-efficient routes as other carriers do. You'd get daily delivery in urban centers and once-a-month visit anywhere in the wilderness.

My understanding is UPS/FedEx already use USPS to execute delivery in "unprofitable" areas, because USPS has to cover them, even if these routes lose money. A business that has to perform unprofitable work is pretty much a government service as far as I am concerned.

As somebody else said, very few people in the post office make $35 an hour.

I think everybody should make at least $25 an hour. Anything less and they're not making enough to support themselves in American society, and the rest of us -- government -- are going to have to make up the difference between what their employer is paying them and what they need to survive.

Minimum wage jobs don't pay enough for people to buy health insurance, so when they get sick, they go to the public hospitals and the rest of us have to pay for it.

If you can't pay your employees $25 an hour, you're an inefficient enterprise and you should go broke and be replaced by somebody who can.

Maybe the question should be "Why is the federal minimum wage set so low?" If it had kept up with inflation from when I was a kid (1960's) it would be in the $12-$14/hour range. It's people with good middle class wages like USPS workers who keep the economy healthy because the have money to spend on more than just the bare necessities.

And I'd rather the oposite. don't bother dropping shit off at my house Mon-Fri I wont be at home. How about just Saturday/Sunday delivery. Cut costs that much more.

I was somewhat snarky there, and I do apologize for not seriously engaging with you.

Mail delivery and access to mailboxes is a red herring. The definition of "mail" in that context is "items sent via the USPS" - the restrictions on other services handling mail essentially boil down to "don't pretend to be the national post office if you aren't," not "no one else can ship physical correspondence." They have unique access to the mailboxes because a mailbox is actually defined by its use as a receptacle for items intended to be shipped by the USPS - if you put a box outside your house and mark it as "not a mailbox," then anyone can take and receive packages from it as you contract with them. Have you never seen a newspaper-box mounted under a mailbox? Or, for that matter, a UPS or FedEx drop off box?

Likewise, the "manipulation of prices" - they set the price for their own service. They don't set the price for other package services. And you can damn sure send a letter by FedEx, UPS, etc.

The service that the USPS engages in is essentially delivery services. They compete in the market on packages. That's just fact - there are any number of other providers, and no forced incentive or market control that prevents anyone from using them.

There is more to it, it's not that easy.

As postal service, they're a common carrier. So that means they're not allowed to look into your parcel or to read your letter, and they're not responsible for the content of the delivery (if a mail man delivers a parcel bomb that kills you the mail man is not responsible for that). They also must accept mail from any postal address, and deliver it to any other postal address, at a fixed cost.

Urban delivery is highly profitable, cost per letter is far less than what the sender pays. That makes up for the losses of the rural and wilderness addresses.

Also the postal services are allowed to place mail collection boxes all over the place, giving them a huge competitive advantage over commercial competitors (like FedEx, UPS, etc). In many countries the postal service still has a monopoly on letters - usually defined as postal items less than a certain weight.

And for those unprofitable areas: the USPS will be happy to take FedEx parcels as well. It's a win for both sides. With all the extra parcels it may even become profitable overall, as there is now only one person running that route, instead of two persons, saving a lot on salary and vehicle costs and so.

I mentioned Finland because they are the most egalitarian country in the world, and one of the wealthiest (and least corrupt). They have a pretty good standard of living.

Hundreds of thousands (maybe millions) of students went through City College of New York free on the taxpayer's dime, and practically free through the New York State University system, the California State University system, and the land grant colleges around the US. They also worked hard, and CCNY graduates like Andrew Grove created the computer revolution. Up to about 1980, you didn't have to put yourself through college on your own dime. If anyone has to put himself through college on his own dime now, he should blame the politicians who changed the rules and made him pay for college, including himself if he was stupid enough to vote for those politicians.

Yeah, I'd rather pay that dishwasher $50,000 a year on unemployment benefits if Denny's can't pay him $25 an hour. I don't want people living in poverty in the US. We don't need it. We're a rich country that benefited from technology (most of it from government-subsidized research). We have rich bastards like Dick Cheney who can well afford to pay more taxes.

If Denny's can't run a restaurant that pays its workers at least $25 an hour, they're incompetent. Let them go out of business. Let's invite German and Swedish fast-food chains in here that can pay their workers $25 an hour and still make a profit.

But they won't, because American workers have turned into a bunch of suckers. Employers don't give you a high income, you have to demand it. Now that the Bible Belt has taken over America, we have a work force that doesn't know how to join a union, or how to demand anything. They're content to be making half as much for the same skills and job as workers in countries like Germany, and content to be facing an old age in poverty when their employers don't need them any more.

If you're not making at least $100,000 a year (and probably more), you'd be better off in a European industrial country like Germany.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/frederickallen/2011/12/21/germany-builds-twice-as-many-cars-as-the-u-s-while-paying-its-auto-workers-twice-as-much/ [forbes.com]
Frederick E. Allen
12/21/2011 @ 5:42PM |60,178 views
How Germany Builds Twice as Many Cars as the U.S. While Paying Its Workers Twice as Much
In 2010, Germany produced more than 5.5 million automobiles; the U.S produced 2.7 million. At the same time, the average auto worker in Germany made $67.14 per hour in salary in benefits; the average one in the U.S. made $33.77 per hour. Yet Germany’s big three car companies—BMW, Daimler (Mercedes-Benz), and Volkswagen—are very profitable.
How can that be? The question is explored in a new article from Remapping Debate, a public policy e-journal. Its author, Kevin C. Brown, writes that “the salient difference is that, in Germany, the automakers operate within an environment that precludes a race to the bottom; in the U.S., they operate within an environment that encourages such a race.”
There are “two overlapping sets of institutions” in Germany that guarantee high wages and good working conditions for autoworkers. The first is IG Metall, the country’s equivalent of the United Automobile Workers. Virtually all Germany’s car workers are members, and though they have the right to strike, they “hardly use it, because there is an elaborate system of conflict resolution that regularly is used to come to some sort of compromise that is acceptable to all parties,” according to Horst Mund, an IG Metall executive. The second institution is the German constitution, which allows for “works councils” in every factory, where management and employees work together on matters like shop floor conditions and work life. Mund says this guarant

I see that this spawned a long thread on the efficacy of the minimum wage, but that covers over the more major flaw in this argument: if you are going to make a comparison in compensation, it should not be against the minimum wage but rather to the typical compensation for the same work in the private sector; that is, FedEx, UPS, etc. To compare to the minimum wage is directly implies that postal work would be a minimum wage job in the private sector, which it is clearly not.

Perhaps that Single Worker is a mother of 2?

You fucking moron.

I, jjsimp, have declared that the average household doesn't need daily deliveries.
I know everyone's situation.
I know everyone's needs.
I don't write letters, nor appreciate the care and respect that goes into physically writing to my loved ones, old or overseas.
My postman isn't a friend, a neighbor; he is an invader! a random stranger I have never seen nor talked to, and I wish he would get off my lawn.

(excuse the artistic license...but having written while deployed and to those deployed, I can tell you...the reception of a hand written letter is a wonderous thing, particularly when far out of the way and the nearest net acess might as well be on the moon)

23 an hour, really?

I work in a highly technical field, that controls most of modern everyday life, and keeps people by the thousands safe, the machinery running, the satellite and planes in teh air, etc etc. and the average private sector pay for it is 18-22 an hour; to get 24 and up, you have to do it for the government via gov contracting, typically on a military base.

how in the hell does a "mail sorter" or "clerk" rate that much pay? i could see a case made for managers making more, and carriers going door to door, due to the physical demands.

but basic, not even GED required (in terms of skill level), sorters and clerks? no sir.