Yeah, count those zeros. Five- Billion- Dollars.
CNS News: For most businesses, losing over $5 billion would be a shock. Share prices would plummet, and management would fear for their jobs. But over at the U.S. Postal Service, which on Friday morning announced a $5.1-billion loss for its just completed fiscal year, it’s nothing new.
Losing money has become a bit of a tradition at USPS, which now has strung together nine losing years in a row, surpassing even the Redskins for Washingtonian haplessness. more here
What are FedEx and UPS’s losses?
And the USPS wants to do payday loans? They do better as Syrian Refugee Centers.
Wait! No! I’m kidding, Barky!
Not funny dude. Don’t give ’em any ideas.
More proof that global warming, climate change is real?
According to USPS the nominal rate is just now catching up with the inflation rate that has been on a steady rise ever since 1968 after giving us their last 1 cent price hike (5 cents to 6 cents). The silver in our coinage also disappeared around the same time. A silver dime today is worth $1.01, or two 49 cent letters, the same as a dime would have got you in 1968. Essentially the PO has been getting the same amount of money for sending letters since 1863. The difference now is mad volume with more population – ANY private company would have turned that into a cash cow for all shareholders.
They charge $11.50 to ship a 70lb flat rate box from Va. to Ca. in 3 days opposed to UPS charging $63.00 for a 7 day delivery.
Do the math……
http://investors.fedex.com/news-and-events/investor-news/news-release-details/2014/FedEx-Corp-Reports-Strong-Earnings-Growth/
http://www.marketwatch.com/investing/stock/ups/financials
(let me google that for you lol)
Bottom line, they both made money. Which they have to do, you know, being actual businesses. That’s the point.
If FedEx and UPS didn’t make money they wouldn’t exist very long.
So what you’re saying, their staggering losses MIGHT …. just MIGHT …. be due to not charging enough?
Yeah … got nothing to do with all those fat, lazy, union slobs sitting on their fat, lazy, union asses doing nothing – and can’t be fired from their $100,000 / yr jobs for sitting around on their fat, lazy, union asses doing nothing?
FedX and UPS make money because they skim off the profitable part of the mail business (i.e., parcel deliveries) and leave USPS with the loser stuff (mostly letters and junk mail). I personally don’t see any reason the U.S. Mail should have to turn a profit. At one time, it was a taxpayer-supported part of the Government, just like the military. Nobody expects the Army to be self-funding.
Anyway, all USPS has to do to break even is start charging actual cost for mail delivery, but you’re not gonna see that happen because businesses and the public would scream bloody murder. Easier to do it through deficit spending, because this way people don’t think about the fact that ultimately they’re paying for it, no matter how you run the numbers.
🙂
I still have not heard a reason why not to cut labor cost in rural areas drastically by going to every other day delivery. I on average only get snail mail about 4 out of 6 days. So If half the delivery area got it’s mail MWF and the other half TTHS wouldn’t it cut gas cost
and manpower cost about in half? And I would not even notice
the change of service. I would just know to only go out to the mailbox every other day.
But that would require those running the postal service to think like a business man who is trying to stay in business and not like braindead pseudo gov’t employees.
Impossible, the government cannot lose money. They have a golden goose called the taxpayer to tap whenever and however the need. They will be in the black again very shortly and smiling all the way to the bank. Besides it is that time of the year to award bonuses for showing up most of the time!
Let’s see, my local PO just got a new facade out front, is closed noon to 2:30 and uses $16 an hour subs to deliver the mail.
Nah, nothing wrong.
Don’t forget going on disability literally at the drop of a hat
http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/ten-usps-employees-1-navy-worker-charged-with-disability-fraud/article/2548191
That is a nice fantasy, but reality is far different.
The USPS asked for, and received, legal protection from Congress to prevent FedEx and UPS from getting involved in what you are calling the “loser stuff”.
Look into it. They claimed, truthfully, that if they got competition in that section there would be nothing for them to do.
I would prefer getting mail 3x/week.
The USPS generates and image, front and back, of everything they handle, plus an image of what is in every box etc etc.
I sent a plastic squirt gun to a friend, the package was opened and inspected.
OK everybody, send a plastic squirt gun tomorrow and a few other toys to a kid you know. Get back to us if the box was opened and inspected.
And we won’t mention the unsustainable pay and benefit packages extorted by the postal unions. Just wait until these stamp lickers get to train their H1B replacements. BTW, the USPS was losing money well before UPS and FedEx were a wet dream.
So what’s your point? That USPS should have wanted to co-operate in their own demise? Plus, I don’t see FedX and UPS petitioning Congress to allow them to provide the rest of our mail services. For one thing, they don’t have the staff or the infrastructure to do it. They would have to literally take over the existing postal system, and then they would be subject to the same problems as USPS unless they implemented massive rate increases. No, they seem to be perfectly happy to “get by” with the share of the pie they currently have. And we’re still paying for that pie, no matter how you slice it.
Back to my point. Why should the mail service be anything but a part of the U.S. Government (like it used to be!) maintained as a taxpayer EXPENSE, not a self-sustaining “business”. And unless I’m mistaken, public sector unions’ contract negotiations are limited by the size of government budgets, not future earnings projections.
Why couldn’t they lose some of that money in my mailbox?
Postal management leaves a lot to be desired and I mean a lot.Management is like a big sloppy lasagna with many layers and the incompetence is staggering.
However, congress ordered the USPS to tuck away enough money to cover pension and health care costs for retired workers through 2075!!!! There are billions in that account but they won’t allow it to be used toward the debt.
At -5.1b, they almost qualify to be a bank.
A few years ago I was doing an on site install. I was put up in a cheap hotel across the street for a swanky one. Every evening I would eat at the restaurant up the street with a guy I met there earlier. He worked for the USPS as an area manager. He was put up in the swanky hotel, had a fifty dollar a day per diem for meals. Said he had been there a month already and would be there for anothe, said he was making six figures working and didn’t really do very much. … The per night at the swanky was 148 a night. Tell me why they are loosing money.
Are they STILL BITCHING about having to “fully fund” their own GD pensions ??? UNLIKE the other state and feral emps that have screwed us and your grandkids with “Unfunded liabilities ” into the TRILLIONS.
LOSING
Considering the US is a capitalistic society, the USPS should be required to cover it’s expenses. IT should be run like a business or don’t charge anything at all. The problem is the USPS doesn’t do anything fast or slow, just half fast….
If it loses money and tax payers are on the hook year after year then it stands to reason, it’s a hidden tax foisted upon those that pay taxes!
Last time I paid my P.O. box fee, it had gone up over a dollar a month. Increased by $7 for a 6-month period. That’s a hell of a jump.
I may have to get a regular fucking mail box. Bastards!