Video - USPS fails and shuts down this winter.
FoxNews | The head of the U.S. Postal Service said in an interview that the organization will default -- perhaps as early as this winter -- unless Congress intervenes.
Postmaster General Patrick Donahoe's comments reflect a well-known reality that the Postal Service is in dire financial straits. The rise of email and online bill-paying has steadily eroded its profits over the years while labor costs soar. Donahoe is calling for a host of changes, including the elimination of Saturday delivery, to close a deficit projected to top $9 billion this year.
But he said Congress needs to step in to help keep the service alive.
"Our situation is extremely serious," he told The New York Times. "If Congress doesn't act, we will default."
According to The New York Times, the service will be unable to make a $5.5 billion retiree health care payment later this month and is expected to run out of money to pay workers and other expenses early next year. This could force a shutdown in delivery.
Averting that outcome doesn't necessarily mean a bailout. One thing the service wants from Congress is a law to effectively nullify a contract prohibition on layoffs -- part of Donahoe's plan involves laying off 120,000 workers, but he needs Congress' help.
Some in Congress are also looking at letting the organization recover billions in supposedly overpaid pension payments.
Postmaster General Patrick Donahoe's comments reflect a well-known reality that the Postal Service is in dire financial straits. The rise of email and online bill-paying has steadily eroded its profits over the years while labor costs soar. Donahoe is calling for a host of changes, including the elimination of Saturday delivery, to close a deficit projected to top $9 billion this year.
But he said Congress needs to step in to help keep the service alive.
"Our situation is extremely serious," he told The New York Times. "If Congress doesn't act, we will default."
According to The New York Times, the service will be unable to make a $5.5 billion retiree health care payment later this month and is expected to run out of money to pay workers and other expenses early next year. This could force a shutdown in delivery.
Averting that outcome doesn't necessarily mean a bailout. One thing the service wants from Congress is a law to effectively nullify a contract prohibition on layoffs -- part of Donahoe's plan involves laying off 120,000 workers, but he needs Congress' help.
Some in Congress are also looking at letting the organization recover billions in supposedly overpaid pension payments.
14 comments:
"I don't use 'em for a dayyium thing anymore"
Wait until you have adult kids and grandkids out of town. USPS is (currently) a much better deal than FedEx/UPS for small packages...
and FedEx/UPS aren't in the news because they're going broke, right?
USPS is not going to go collapse. They will get bailed-out/re-defined somehow and survive. There are 600,000 total USPS employees - the political fallout from that many new suddenly-unemployed would be intolerable. Also, USPS does the actual delivery for a lot of FedEx/UPS packages out in the rural boonies, farms, etc. There would be hell to pay like never before...your FOREVER stamps are safe.
They will get bailed-out/re-defined somehow and survive.
Nothing squeals quite as satisfyingly as a teabagger whose pet ox gets gored...,
the political fallout from that many new suddenly-unemployed would be intolerable
L00z3rz...,
The political fallout from the "planned" 120,000 employees (doubtless the youngest, least seniority-having, and most productive muscle in the food-powered make-work mass) will be bad enough.
There would be hell to pay like never before...your FOREVER stamps are safe.
I don't own a single stamp.
I think my wife has mailed things before. I know we have a box out by the street that has to be emptied into the trash on weekdays.
I use the USPS three or four times a month: have two bills I still pay by mail because I refuse to pay a $1.50 "convenience fee" for one and the other only accepts e-payment under specific circumstances that I'm not willing to establish at this time.
Most of the mail I recieve is unsolicited and unwanted; I wonder how much handling all that bulk mail costs; I can't imagine revenue even approaches the neighborhood of costs.
C'mon CNu, you still have a MAILBOX, don't you? You know, the one where you received all
those credit cards in your wallet.
And how about your Drivers License, Passport, Concealed Weapons Permit? You get that by
UPfkgS? Or the fat envelope Ivy League acceptances
for your kids, those don't come in online yet, do they? That stuff all comes in the MAILBOX.
What about the annual license tabs to stick on your cars? You can apply and pay online, but the physical
sticker comes in the MAILBOX.
You need certified
birth, death, marriage certificates, for
something? Those come in your MAILBOX. BD has done extensive genealogy and family
history research. Very few county
recorders and historical societies are digitized and can operate online.
How about Magazines?
Alumni news. Majority of that
good stuff is still not available online.
If the USPS goes away, it will be chaos; it will get fixed one way or another. Tell BD when you take down and scrap your MAILBOX, it is still essential...(ROTFLMAO)
And when an EMP or the next Stuxnet virus takes out all those crucial records, you've got stored in the cloud off-site, Good Luck...!!
BD keeps Hard Copies of all critical financial records and cancelled checks, records that will stand up in court if ever needed.
All stuff, of course, that COMES IN THE MAILBOX...
Do you think the tea party is going to back the post office? It seems to me I remember the conservatives having a lot of fun with the point you argued and Obama used when justifying government health care
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0AIHc5ckGVo&feature=player_embedded
I have one ol-timey client that still needs a letterhead invoice. That and a copuple off annual bills are the only thing I've used stamps & stationery for in years. OTOH, we get Fedex SmartPost stuff via the USPS all the time. Woot!
Anyway, I don't see a reason why they couldn't go to three full (T/W/Th) and two partial (M & F) days delivery. Let them work four tens with underlap (deliver all overnights and half the delivery addresses) each Mon & Fri. I mean, it's not like the USPS doesn't know all the delivery addresses. If they do it right, the employees get every other weekend as a four-day, and they could easily let every one at each address know which delivery phase they're in and so when to expect mail delivery. If somebody needs/wants every-day delivery, they can pay. I could probably get by with once per week delivery
They want to take pension out of the contract, and probably high cost Medical Plans, which would be independent of Federal Program. There are two major contract talks now. And the APWU - clerks contract - they didn't even touch pensions and their input into the Health Care went up, yet; they agree to what is now being called "non-tradition" work force, basically non-union, part time employees, who can be separated from PO easier. Remember FedEx was created by the government on non-union agreement. Unions will be craft/skilled employees and a small % to a growing part-time working majority. They want to reduce the workforce by 220,000, by 2015. The USPS has some of the oldest workforce in the Nation. USPS is app. 580k employess.
"Join the CIA's National Clandestine Service. Live it 24/7 - priceless.....,
Don't have a single credit card.
CCW - didn't involve the post office.
Nitwit's messed up my son's passport application and we had to resubmit.
Pay all bills electronically.
You know what BD - without the food-powered, make-work chicanery of the ultimate l00z3r parasite class, lawyers/courts/beauracrats - it appears that a significant chunk of the USPS value proposition goes poof!!!
Everybody hates lawyers.....until you NEED one.
The judiciary is the hidden tax and real redistribution of wealth in this social order we call the USA. I can see why someone with a great deal of money would want to try to have a water-bound nation free zone in the middle of international waters, just to avoid the 33% tax legal fees cost them in any transaction the consummate.
I'd be willing to try to arbitrate with anyone rather than face the inside of a court.
I'd go so far as to say that experience of the oxygen-thieving malarky that is the legal system in the U.S. is an absolutely mandatory prerequisite for cultural and political adulthood.
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