Sequester = Excuse to Avoid Obligations

dforeman · Post by **dforeman** » Tue Mar 12, 2013 6:22 pm

I agree, junk mail is a big part of the Postal Services income. However, the point I received out of this is that the Postal Service does not have the ability to control their rates based on the open market. Their rates have to be passed through and voted upon by Congress. Thus it puts them at a disadvantage in competing with private industries that have the ability to set their own rates. And, they are also required to bring in their yearly budget and maintain all of their own retirement obligations in advance. From what I understand, the Postal Service does not receive any funding from taxes. Or, at least they were not orriginally set up to anyway.

dusty · Post by **dusty** » Tue Mar 12, 2013 6:35 pm

Ed in Tampa wrote:Those pieces of junk mail is what is keeping the Post Office functioning. Why do you think they give them discounts. If the Post Office didn't want to deliever them they would charge them the first class rate instead of the deeply discounted rate they do now.

Junk mail is to the Post Office as the commercials are to TV, that's their bread and butter. If my the Post Office didn't deliver junk mail it would be doing the route most days with nothing to deliver. I rarely go a day without mail but I only get 8 first class mailings a month and only mail out 2 a month on average. Figure out so who is paying for my carrier? The junk mail they deliver everyday.

Fed ex and or UPS would love to have the business.

I don't think so. When they get it now, they farm it back to the Postal Service.

terrydowning · Post by **terrydowning** » Tue Mar 12, 2013 7:02 pm

Ed in Tampa wrote:Fed ex and or UPS would love to have the business.

There is nothing stopping FedEx/UPS from going after "Junk Mail" except economics and profit.

If they really wanted the business, they would offer competitive rates to junk mailers.

BuckeyeDennis · Post by **BuckeyeDennis** » Tue Mar 12, 2013 11:00 pm

I give junk mail a half-life of maybe five years, max. I follow my own industry news 98% online, and I'm far from the youngest guy on the block. The traditional printed industry rags pile unread up for six months or more, until I can finally pitch the oldest pile into the trash with only just a little guilt.

I also happen to think that SS is wise to spend their limited resources online, instead of on paper catalogs and physical trade shows. This very forum is an outstanding example of "viral marketing". I hit it many time with Google searches before I became an active member. If SS is wrong, it is only because they mis-timed it by a couple of years.

Even first-class mail is surely a short-timer. I just had my first experience with a utility discontinuing hardcopy bills WITHOUT my permission. And then there is the bank that will let me make loan payments using electronic loan payments, but only from their own accounts. Too much hassle, that.

I now chafe every time I use expensive inkjet ink to print an expensive paper check, and then use an even more expensive 1st class stamp on it. It adds up to almost a buck, just to pay a single bill the traditional way.

None of this bodes well for the USPS. And they have fierce and extremely competent competition in the overnight and parcel-delivery niches. They seem to do well with the flat-rate boxes, which are definitely popular with eBay sellers. In the very near future, mail-type service will only deliver stuff -- not information. Information can now be delivered virtually for free.

paulmcohen · Post by **paulmcohen** » Wed Mar 13, 2013 5:11 am

dusty wrote: If the trust fund had not been pilfered by Congress, would Social Security be solvent today?

Yes, but without indexing for longevity it would still have failed in 2030. A previous president (Regan and/or Clinton to be none partisan) improved the situation by making some minor adjustments in the retirement age. When SS was first proposed the life expectancy was 65 and payout started at 65 so few people were expected to be paid and for everyone collecting something like 10 people were paying in. Today average life expectancy is ~80 and it is about 2-3 workers paying in for each person getting benefits.

The plan was people would collect for the last few years of their life not decades.

paulmcohen · Post by **paulmcohen** » Wed Mar 13, 2013 5:17 am

frank81 wrote:Technically, there is "money" in the trust fund the same as there ever was. They never kept an all cash balance, like any company or fund they put the cash in low risk high liquidity investments. They always owned treasuries, they are just directed to ONLY own treasuries now.

Large organizations forecast their cash needs on a daily basis, and the day before sell enough cash equivalents, treasuries, etc. or buy commercial paper to cover (or vice versa if they had positive cash flow). They rarely keep millions in cash laying around in an account.

They own treasures but there is noting behind the treasures except that the treasury can print money and then that happens your money will be worth $0 its called hyperinflation.

skou · Post by **skou** » Wed Mar 13, 2013 5:18 am

Paul, I've been paying into SS since 1974. What is MY benefit?

No, that payment was NOT voluntary.

What good has it done me?

And, is SS constitutional?

steve

paulmcohen · Post by **paulmcohen** » Wed Mar 13, 2013 5:26 am

swampgator wrote:We've discussed this point before. The fed had not subsidized the Post Office since 1971. The Post Office pays the Congress billions of dollars each year to pay for retirement funds, premiums for health and life insurance. Otherwise, the post office pays its own way, that's why it is in the red and has been for the past 10 years or so. Here's a link that may interest those who believe that we give tax dollars to the post office.

http://about.usps.com/who-we-are/postal-facts/welcome.htm#H4 and scroll down to What the Postal Service wants you to know. There you will read from the Postmaster General that the Post Office gets no tax dollars.

You can't be billions in debt and still run a business unless the government is guaranteeing the debt. So yes technically they are not getting government funding they can just borrow from the government and never pay it back and I can't compete with them they hold a monopoly. It was like the old AT&T before deregulation where you could have any phone as long as it was black and connected with a wire to the wall.

The last nail in the post office coffin is the acceptance of electronically signed documents which have just started to be accepted widely.

paulmcohen · Post by **paulmcohen** » Wed Mar 13, 2013 5:41 am

BuckeyeDennis wrote:
None of this bodes well for the USPS. And they have fierce and extremely competent competition in the overnight and parcel-delivery niches. They seem to do well with the flat-rate boxes, which are definitely popular with eBay sellers. In the very near future, mail-type service will only deliver stuff -- not information. Information can now be delivered virtually for free.

I am on the board of a couple of non-profit groups and last year they did everything by paper mail and most of our budget went to printing and mailing with the average cost of a mailing being over $1,000 and all the labor to do the mailing was free the money went to postage, and printing. Now we ONLY do electronic mailings they are free and we can do them more frequently with shorter lead times and with Facebook and Twitter we can push short announcement out immediately. We cut our postal budget from $15,000 to $50 in one year now we have more money to service the people we are trying to help.

paulmcohen · Post by **paulmcohen** » Wed Mar 13, 2013 5:48 am

terrydowning wrote:There is nothing stopping FedEx/UPS from going after "Junk Mail" except economics and profit.

If they really wanted the business, they would offer competitive rates to junk mailers.

Only the post office can put something in your mailbox, the one you paid to have put on your house. FedEx or you, would have to install FedEx receiving boxes everywhere there is a mailbox. That is one reason for small packages FedEx use the Post Office to the last mile because they don't want to leave a small box stilling on your porch and don't want to spend the time personally delivering the item. On Long Island I had a Post Office mailbox and a newspaper mailbox for the same reason before they started just throwing the paper on the driveways.