Special Report: Towns go dark with post office closings

[dipsydoodle]

(Reuters) - Postal officials were blunt in December when they stood before 120 residents in Dedham, Iowa, to tell them why their town's post office has to close. The Internet, officials said, was killing the U.S. Postal Service.

"Well, I have no Internet," resident Judy Ankenbauer said at the meeting. Like many of Dedham's 280 residents, Ankenbauer said she still relies on the post office to buy stamps and send letters and packages.

Dedham is hardly alone in its dependence on the Postal Service. Some of America's poorest communities - many of them with spotty broadband Internet coverage - stand to suffer most if the struggling agency moves ahead with plans to shutter thousands of post offices later this year, a Reuters analysis found. Nearly 80 percent of the 3,830 post offices under consideration are in sparsely populated rural areas where poverty rates are higher than the national average, demographic data analyzed by Reuters shows.

Moreover, about one-third of the offices slated for closure fall in areas with limited or no wired broadband Internet, Reuters found.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/02/14/us-usa-usps-idUSTRE81D0M620120214

[CanonRay]

1. The Rethugs want to run it like a business, not a government agency

and this is the result. Would UPS keep Dedham, IA office open? I think not. Maybe these people in rural places will be reminded that government does have a role, and that it isn't a business.

[Liberal Veteran]

2. In many areas, UPS uses USPS for the last leg of delivery.

Since it isn't cost efficient to drive a package to someone in a smaller town or rural setting, UPS uses the post office.

In a very real sense, UPS is using the USPS infrastructure to subsidize their private business.

[area51]

5. Great quote.

"In a very real sense, UPS is using the USPS infrastructure to subsidize their private business."

[BlueToTheBone]

3. Another, in a long list of sins

committed by the republicans. Stealing our postal service funds for personal gain and shuttering our towns. Bastards who came from no woman.

[expatriate2mex]

4. One correction. The postal service is supposed to be a self

supporting part of the government, there are no postal service funds. The postal service runs deeply in the red.

As a retired postal worker and retired chief union steward for the NPMHU I put a good portion of the blame on the postal service itself, it's horribly run. Not to mention deeply spending on machinery that only made delivery times longer. I don't know of anyone I worked with that did not see this coming.

I'm not saying I like it, just that I have never seen any company as badly run as the postal service. There were no decent supervisors, you could actually make more money on the floor with overtime (supervisors were paid straight hourly overtime) so it was the weasels that went that route. One that had been supervisor for 3 years, 1st tour graveyard shift outgoing mail, did not even know the time outgoing mail (to smaller locations) left. Many were incompetent like this and left in charge.

I hate to say it, but getting support from our own union was very tough. Several Chief stewards quit before me for that reason. The postal service would cut our craft jobs, grievances would be filed and they would be traded off on a district level for something that benefited the guys at the top. I filed tons of money grievances, promised the members they would see something, but not one made it through. The guys at the top traded them off for themselves. I never quit though, i figured the members deserved that much.

I really hate that this is happening, but it's been coming for some time now.

I'm just being honest

[dipsydoodle]

6. You sure its supposed to be self supporting ?

Public utilities conventionally use utility pricing structures designed to ensure a service is provided at an acceptable cost to users. From that it may be assumed that the service may be run at an acceptable loss which is covered by general taxation.

I'm remote from this because I'm UK but as I've said before I think USPS is wonderful having had at least 150 instruments shipped here in reliable and perfect safety over the past 10 years or so.

[expatriate2mex]

7. I'm positive.

The postal service is set up differently than other government agencies here and they are the only one. The usps has not always ran in the red. The point is there is no funding for it, it is not set up that way. It has been set up to run like a business, that does not make a profit nor lose money, since 1971. As it is set up now rates would have to be raised very high to sustain.

http://money.cnn.com/2011/02/09/news/economy/postal_service/index.htm

The USPS, a self-supporting government agency that receives no tax dollars, said it suffered a loss of $329 million in the first quarter of federal fiscal year 2011.

http://www.postalmuseum.si.edu/industrywhitepapers/R41024_20100119.pdf

Since 1971, the USPS has been a self-supporting government agency that covers its operating
costs with revenues generated through the sales of postage and related products and services.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Postal_Reorganization_Act

The Postal Reorganization Act of 1970 abolished the United States Post Office Department, a part of the cabinet, and created the United States Postal Service, a corporation-like independent agency with an official monopoly on the delivery of mail in the United States. Pub.L. 91-375 was signed by President Richard Nixon on August 12, 1970.[1]

From my point of view one of the problems was the decline of 1st class mail due to email. It took a huge and quick nosedive, dropped very significantly. Bulk, or "junk" also fell off sharply. This is, or at least was the bread and butter of the usps. Lots of lost revenue due to email.

I don't know the answer, I very much hate to see this happening, but as I say everyone knew times were changing and not for the better. The usps invested heavily in equipment for 1st class and it decreased.

Funny, when the mail was sorted by hand we ran in the black.

[ellisonz]

8. If this goes through...it is a national disgrace. n/t

[Kablooie]

9. Does that mean they cant get any mail? Sounds barbaric.