Adapting the Post Office To the Digital Age 299
Hugh Pickens writes "Paul B. Carroll and Chunka Mui write in the Washington Post that with projected deficits through 2020 of $238 billion, the debate over potential changes at the US Postal Service is like a fight over the dessert bar on the Titanic: email has already supplanted letters, more people will send money via PayPal rather than mail checks, people will download their movies and books, check their bills online, and receive information about their investments electronically. Delivery volume for first-class mail fell 22 percent from 1998 through 2007, tumbled an additional 13 percent last year and was down 3 percent in the first half of this year despite heavy mailings from the Census Bureau. USPS's future lies in things that need to be delivered physically: shoes, computers and other objects, and the USPS has assets that could let it take on UPS and FedEx. 'USPS needs to start with the future and work backward to the present,' write Carroll and Mui. 'It needs to forecast volumes for all types of its business five, 10 and 15 years out and design a business model that will thrive under those scenarios. Only then can it figure out what radical changes need to be made now.'"
Remove the artificial monopoly (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Remove the artificial monopoly (Score:3, Insightful)
And then remove their union contract that states that they can never decrease their workforce, even if they don't need as many workers due to reduced volume.
Here's what I don't get: the Political Left tells us out of one side of their mouth that only the government can be the perfect master of fairness in the workplace, and out of the other side of their mouth they tell us that government workers need unions. At the most, one of these can be true. Some would argue that neither is true...
Where USPS falls short (Score:3, Insightful)
Okay, here is where USPS falls short compared to FedEx and UPS:
* ridiculous restrictions on what can be shipped
* Severely under-staffed at practically every location
* Inflexible pickup policies
* Bankers' hours
* Poor package tracking (often won't indicate an item has shipped until days after it arrived at destination)
* No guarantees. "Priority" shipping "may be 2-3 days" but then again it might take a week
If I call FedEx I can get a small shipment picked up usually within an hour, often as late as 6:30 or 7. A large shipment is a little different but even if I need to ship half a ton or a ton worth of goods, I can get a pickup the same day.
UPS is a little less flexible.
I used to have a UPS vs. FedEx comparison on my web site. It went something like this:
FedEx
* if the driver bothers to find you, the package will be delivered in one piece
* If they bother to find you, the package will arrive on time
* Your package will be handled carefully
* You deliveryperson is probably an ex con
* Your FedEx air driver can't pick up ground packages
UPS
* The driver will always find you, but the package might be beat up
* Your package might sit at the local UPS hub or UPS center a day or two before going out for delivery
* Your package will have fallen off a conveyor belt 30' onto the concrete floor because UPS insists on running 60,000-120,000 packages over four hours through a conveyor system designed to handle maybe 30,000 packages over four hours
* your deliveryperson is probably an ex con
* Your UPS ground or UPS air driver can pick up either air or ground packages
UPS used to be excellent - going public has really hurt them a lot. It seemed middle management cared a lot more when they were owner-operated so their net wealth had a lot more to do with how they performed than what their perceived market value is. Now that market cap drives managements' personal profits, they have little regard for customer service.
But honestly, I don't expect the USPS can ever do any better than either of them. USPS already does a craptacular job that makes either UPS or FedEx look good.
Privatize (Score:3, Insightful)
radical changes (Score:4, Insightful)
I translate that into 'internet email tax' or 'online bill pay tax'.
Don't kill the USPS! (Score:5, Insightful)
Some of us need an alternative to PayPal... Online only works for those who carry the mark of the beast (have a bank, or PayPal account, or a credit card)
Re:radical changes (Score:3, Insightful)
Easy, you just mandate an extra $5/month charge to every ISP bill. I'm sure the politicians believe it's their right to do so.
Re:Remove the artificial monopoly (Score:1, Insightful)
FedEx, UPS, or any other carrier should only be allowed to deliver first class mail if they will deliver it to every address in the United States every day Monday through Saturday. Otherwise, fuck them. If you don't put those conditions on it you'll start to find that people in rural areas are cut off from mail service altogether.
Re:Trying to destroy one of their best traits... (Score:4, Insightful)
That would be... a lot of people.
Re:not actually a monopoly (Score:4, Insightful)
Last edited by: "GP, over on Slashdot. Nah-nah, told ya so!".
USPS does a very poor job (Score:3, Insightful)
The company that gets my shipping money just needs to do a few things:
USPS fails miserably on the first and third of these. If they want my shipping business, they'll have to do all three.
In the meantime, UPS seems to have the most accurate tracking, has given us the least trouble when it comes to errors they made (like delivering packages to the wrong address, or damaging well packed items in transit), and barring really extreme weather, they almost never fail to deliver on time or sooner.
There are some less-critical areas where USPS could improve as well.
Re:Remove the artificial monopoly (Score:3, Insightful)
Why should city dwellers have to pay more for their mail delivery in order to subsidize the rural dwellers?
As the GP posted:
Also as far as USPS is concerned, a county made up mostly of farms that sees 15 pieces of legitimate mail a month is not worth their time. But when those 15 pieces of legitimate mail are vital to our food supply..
Maybe you can grow enough food for the people living in your highrise apartment building up on the roof. Good luck. Send us a postcard telling us how it went. Ooops...
Pricing cuts both ways (Score:4, Insightful)
A lot of people here are whining that the post office charges too much. So why don't you call UPS or Fed Ex and see if they'll ship a 1 pound package from Supai, Arizona 86435 to Pago Pago, American Samoa 96799 for the same $4.95 that the USPS will charge for flat rate Priority Mail.
And don't even get me started on first class mail. Even if they were allowed to carry it, I'd be willing to bet money that UPS or Fed Ex would laugh in my face if I expected them to deliver a letter just from one side of town to the other for 44 cents.
For some mail and packages, yes, UPS and Fed Ex can do it cheaper. But for *many* places and types of mail, USPS is a freaking bargain (and that's why it doesn't make money).
Re:Remove the artificial monopoly (Score:3, Insightful)
Because you live in a nation-state where everyone gets access to government services equally.
Lets take your argument to services other than mail
Why should people from states not attacked on 9/11 fight in Afghanistan? Why should states without military bases get defended by the United States military?
Why should tax money from the wealthy go to the poor?
Re:City dwellers and suburbanites might not... (Score:3, Insightful)
To my mind, that's just the trade-off you get in exchange for the advantages of living out in the middle of nowhere...
You get things like a larger house on a much larger lot, easy access to lakes, forests or whatever, peace and quiet, a lower crime rate, cleaner air, less traffic, and so on. I get broadband, culture, good restaurants, a nightlife, public transit, and other such services.
Re:Remove the artificial monopoly (Score:3, Insightful)
Actually, the increased competition will remove economies of scale, making it more expensive and less efficient. Imagine you have a street with twenty houses. As it stands, one postman walks up and delivers the mail to all twenty houses. Now imagine there are four competing companies. Four vans drive up, four postmen get out with a bag that's only a quarter full, they all walk up the street, each delivering to five houses.
You've taken four times as many man hours, and four times the transport infrastructure to deliver the same amount of mail. How does this increase efficiency and reduce costs?
Eliminate Physical Spam (Score:3, Insightful)
They need to find a way to make money without sending me physical spam, aka "bulk mail" addressed to "occupant".
What annoys me the most about mail is the huge percentage that I walk straight to the recycling bin.
However, if they enforced a regulation requiring that all such mail must be printed on compostable paper, using organic ink I'd be quite a bit happier. Into the compost bin, along with the broccoli stalks and onion peels it would go. Then, a few months later that grocery ad for fresh veggies would be turned into... fresh veggies!
In other words, everything better (Score:1, Insightful)
seen something similar in norway as well. Here the post offices outside of cities are basically gone, replaced with some kind of partnership with a local store or gas station (tho funny enough, that have lead to better opening hours, as the post offices used to maintain normal office ours, not store hours).
So the hours are better for service, but you have to go somewhere to pick up your mail.
Well honestly, why should you expect to live way out in the countryside and expect to have mail delivered to your doorstep, any time, for hardly any money? That doesn't seem realistic or efficient long term. Either the post office needs to jack up stamp rates quite a lot to pay for this extra service, or people that have the privilege of living in isolated environments simply have to put up with getting mail when they go into town (or when neighbors go into town).
I used to live in the countryside as well; I greatly prefer it and would not mind having less regular or centralized mail service as a tradeoff.
Re:Remove the artificial monopoly (Score:3, Insightful)
There's a big problem with this: if you remove the monopoly on low-priority mail (1st class and below), then the USPS will go bankrupt quickly if the other carriers are able to do it cheaper in big cities. Then, you'll have mail delivery in major metro areas, and nowhere else. Small towns, rural areas, will all no longer get mail service.
The Founders knew that mail delivery was vital for democracy (and if they could be resurrected, they would say the exact same thing about the Internet), and that it had to be protected. Leaving it to private interests would not guarantee service to ALL Americans (including the farmers that supply our food, or at least are supposed to if they weren't being put out of business by big agribusiness corporations), only those where it's profitable to give them service.
Basically, you're trying to lead us into a corporatist fascism where big corporations provide everything that the government is supposed to, and services will no longer be provided fairly and equally, but based on profitability.
Re:Remove the artificial monopoly (Score:3, Insightful)
The only other possibility is that prices in the countryside explode to ridiculous levels to compensate for the lack of profit in these areas.
Or, instead of simply removing the monopoly protection, extend it to any participant who wants to meet the same terms. If City Mail wants to deliver mail to any part of the country, then they have to deliver mail to ALL parts of the country.
Mail Monopoly (Score:1, Insightful)
"... and the USPS has assets that could let it take on UPS and FedEx"
Yeah, its called a monopoly, a coercive government enforced monopoly. Its hard to have real, fair competition when your competitor makes the rules and can send people with guns to come and take your money, lock you up, or kill you if you are too good at competing against them.
Re:Remove the artificial monopoly (Score:1, Insightful)
I don't see why people get so upset about that. There are a lot of trade-offs to living out in the sticks, and driving to town to get mail would be a minor inconvenience compared to some of them.
Why profitable? (Score:5, Insightful)
The article starts from a false assumption: that the postal service must be profitable, or at least break even.
Framing the issue this way has nothing to do with what the USPS should or should not carry, or how much they should charge.
Why is that so for the postal service but not for the military, department of transportation, or most any other government agency that provides a service? Universal free mail delivery is something that the citizens of the US want -- or at least did at one time. As a government service, it's something taxpayers agree to pay for.
Now clearly the two authors of this article, management consultants, have a different view of that need. Perhaps they are ideologically inclined to expect that government services should break even or better, in which case, they ought to take on a real challenge and explain to the Pentagon how they can "save" the armed forces. Or perhaps they have a financial interest in private delivery services like FedEX and UPS, who knows? It's clear from early in the article, "Should the federal government continue to compete against the private sector?" that the authors have a sense that somehow there's money to made for UPS, FedEx, and other private delivery services if the postal service was forced to compete on the same level as them. I'm sure they wouldn't advocate for reforming USPS if they thought it would take money away from the private sector.
In any case, before people go trying to reform USPS, let's first decide if we want to continue to support the current expectation of free (for the recipient) door-to-door mail service for everyone in the country everywhere. If citizens clearly want that, then budget (and tax) for it, and shut up about billion dollar "losses" that pale compared to the "losses" racked up by other services we expect as a modern nation. On the other hand, if the country decides that hey, we don't need to deliver everywhere any more, then go ahead, revamp the postal service to be just another profit-motivated competitor.
Re:USPS does a very poor job (Score:3, Insightful)
You must live near one of the few crappy local post offices in the US. I've found the USPS to be the most economical and reliable of all between them, UPS and FedEx. It's gotten to the point where I only use USPS when shipping anything, and when I have a choice regarding how I want something shipped to me, I request USPS.
I've had UPS leave packages on my front porch that are blown off and found weeks later underneath the porch and worse. Their customer service is awful. They require signatures when it's unnecessary and get no signatures when they're really needed. If I want to send something I have to go stand in line at one of the service centers (I can put stuff in my mailbox and the mail carrier will take it for me). When I drop a Netflix DVD in the mail at 4pm, it registers as having been received by Netflix in as little as 4 hours. I don't know how they do that, except maybe they have a deal where Netflix is notified when the USPS scans the bar code or something. I'd like to see FedEx or UPS offer that kind of service at no cost to the end user. Funny, when Netflix, who probably ships as many parcels as anyone in this country, chose a carrier for their business, they chose the USPS.
I can ship a 3 pound textbook to Hawaii for under 4 bucks via USPS and I've never had one not show up (I sell books on Amazon occasionally).
Personally, I don't care that the USPS takes a few days off, because I take lots of days off. But then again, my life is not so heavily scheduled for it to matter to me. For all I care, USPS can stop Saturday deliveries and I'd still think they were the far superior of the three major shippers.
When UPS can deliver an envelope from New York to San Francisco for under 50 cents, I might re-evaluate. Until then, I'd much rather live with UPS or FedEx disappearing tomorrow than the US Post Office.
Re:City dwellers and suburbanites might not... (Score:3, Insightful)
it's tough to pay extra to a telco or cable company to extend service to an area they decide isn't worth it.
But, but, but... the Free Market is the be all and end all! It's perfect!
told there just wasn't a process for that, they just wouldn't give me a price.
This is the down-side of the computerized business: greatly reduced flexibility.
Re:In other words, everything better (Score:4, Insightful)
Well honestly, why should you expect to live way out in the countryside and expect to have mail delivered to your doorstep, any time, for hardly any money? That doesn't seem realistic or efficient long term.
Indeed, which is why we've been doing it that way for a couple of centuries...oh, wait.
There's 2 options, either we consider mail to be a vital part of the infrastructure of the nation and treat it as such, or we keep following the path Reagan and Thatcher have laid out for us and eventually abandon it altogether except where it pertains to junk mail, which we'll collectively block through a sticker on the front door.
Re:Remove the artificial monopoly (Score:5, Insightful)
Why do you care what contract postal workers have? You don't pay for it. The USPS has been self-sufficient since 1972 and have a much higher customer satisfaction rating than either UPS or FedEx. They have higher public favorability ratings than the National Park Service, the US Forest Service or NASA. Apparently most Americans don't agree with your criticisms of the USPS
And what makes you think you know what staffing levels they need or don't need?
Here's what I don't get about the Political Right: They claim to believe in "free markets" but don't want workers to be able to collectively bargain for their own best contracts. The only reason the US had a healthy middle class for so many years is because of labor unions. It's not accidental that the attacks on Labor that started under Ronald Reagan and the subsequent decline of unions has coincided with the decline of the middle class and the decline of the US manufacturing sector. Manufacturing in the US was healthiest when labor unions were healthiest. Germany, which is arguably the most successful free manufacturing/exporting economy on Earth happens to be the country with the most favorable laws regarding labor unions.
Re:Remove the artificial monopoly (Score:3, Insightful)
Just post as yourself, "EriktheRed". Sockpuppets are embarrassing (or should be).
Re:Remove the artificial monopoly (Score:3, Insightful)
I'm going to give you a chance to supply one example of "the Political Left" saying this. Please. Here's your opportunity to prove that you're not just making stuff up.
All it has to be is some citation that says anything even close to what you're claiming. One single example that supports your argument is all I ask.
Re:not actually a monopoly (Score:2, Insightful)
And yet, FedEx and UPS will gladly deliver a sheet of paper in an envelope for you without requiring an immediate response.
They just can't use mailboxes. But there's no law saying I can't put up a box on my lawn for UPS or FedEx.
And what you're saying this "monopoly" if it ever existed, has not existed for the last thirty years.
Re:yes it's not fair (Score:5, Insightful)
The problem is that any government agency or quasi-government agency that works well, that is popular with Americans and has a much higher customer satisfaction rate than any of its private competitors, is a stone in the shoe of the Anti-US Government Right Wing.
Thus, it cannot be allowed to exist because it endangers their world view.
Like evolution. Or global warming.
Basically, if Ronald Reagan, a third-rate actor with Alzheimers, didn't like it, it cannot be allowed to exist.
Re:USPS does a very poor job (Score:3, Insightful)
Very funny. The fact is they (the USPS) can't either, which is exactly why they are projected to lose hundreds of billions of dollars over the next decade.
Re:Remove the artificial monopoly (Score:3, Insightful)
Hi there, I am a member of the "political left" (whatever the hell that may be), and I completely disagree with the first point, and somewhat agree with the second point.
Out of curiosity, who the hell is this "political left", why is it a "political" left, and not some other flavor of left, and how is it telling us anything?
Last I checked, the left was far more fractured and disorganized than the right, even when holding a majority in power.
Re:yes it's not fair (Score:3, Insightful)
Well, I live in the heart of what could be considered fairly right wing territory, and I have yet to hear anyone dis the post office or call for its removal. I think you are classifying "blue" area urban rich people millionaires who are globalists anyway, not nationalists, in with the normal regular folks.
There's really a wide range of opinion here, it isn't all conservative or liberal, and globalists are neither, they are monetarists and fascists, they just latch on to whatever support they can get..like Hollywood "blue" liberal millionaires who still want all their profits private, but want government to protect them as well, ie, xxAA type folks. All for liberal causes, like you mention global warming, but it doesn't stop them running Ferrari, private jets, having huge energy hog mansions, etc. Are they the same "liberal" as some college student eating ramen living in a dorm and walking everywhere?
So you can't really generalize all that much. Heck, I am a rural person, socially liberal, and old time civil rights worker back in the day, but economically conservative, enough so that I think bailing out the banks and GM was a horrid idea, it made no sense from either a right nor a left wing view, but again, wanting some control on mega corporations so they don't usurp government. So, mostly hands off..but let them fail when their biz model fails. What does that make me, liberal or conservative? I like green power a *lot*, I think solar power is our only practical fusion power and should be widely adopted, all the way to 100% tax credits, am one of the few people here who bought solar panels instead of some gaming rig or three, but I also think carbon credits and cap and trade "to fight global warming"!! is not only wrong, but insanely wrong and won't do jack squat to save the environment any, just make wall street skunks like goldman sachs richer, like they really need it. To think they have so many greens faked out on this... Am I liberal or conservative?
I could go on with a lot of other examples, but this left/right deal the uber goons keep trying to force people into, like it is carved in stone you must be one "wing" or the other, is quite destructive and is playing into their hands and is part of their "keep the people divided and conquered" routine.
Left and right have no bearing in today's world if you really think about it, it is globalist billionaires who co-opted government versus their prey animals, which is everyone else. *That* is the real political divide, the one worth noting and working against, because it is so inherently unfair and outright criminal how much they control so called "elected" governments. That other crap is what they want to keep most people trapped in, because that means all the victims point fingers at each other constantly, instead of looking just one more step upstream where the real problems occur, and at that level, there is no "left versus right" that exists very much, they all look and act the same at that level, they are the new aristocrats, or what I call the technofeudalists. Back to the casino bank bailouts, when the shrubbery did it, it was a "right wing" gift to some "right wing" billionaires..but then later on mr. party animal did the same thing....see how it doesn't matter, those labels? All part of the big fake out, along with that ludicrous "don't waste your vote"! and only vote for some hand picked for you candidate from the short list of approved and compromised millionaire globalist candidates. Remember when our big fat choice was between skull and bones frat boy millionaire and skull and bones frat boy millionaire?
Anyway, the post office..most real old fashioned "paleo" conservatives (as opposed to neocons) I know support the Constitution and as such, are in favor of the post office and public roads, the "post roads". It's the globalist already billionaires who want privatized everything, and that notion flows downstream from the mega "blue" areas, like NYC and wall street (for the most part and I am really just generally speaking)
Re:Remove the artificial monopoly (Score:3, Insightful)
Farming isn't all beautiful waves of grain and rolling meadows with horses frolicking. Some things need to be out in the middle of nowhere. But those places also need to be connected to the rest of the country.
Since a pig farm or a slaughterhouse needs to be in the middle of nowhere, why not make the pig farm or slaughter house pay the increased cost of providing mail delivery? Since nearly all pig farms and slaughterhouses need to be in the middle of nowhere, no one pig farm or slaughterhouse is put at a disadvantage by paying higher postage. The higher costs are simply passed on to the consumer in the form of higher prices instead of higher postage.
Note that I'm not suggesting that the USPS stop providing mail service to isolated areas (which would almost certainly be the effect of removing the USPS's limited monopoly), but charging most customers in rural areas the true cost of providing mail delivery. To the extent that some customers might not be able to afford the true cost of their mail delivery, it might be better to subsidize their relocation to other areas rather than continuing to subsidize services.
Re:Remove the artificial monopoly (Score:3, Insightful)
didnt you just disassemble the whole competition == efficiency meme that seems to be stuck like a plague in MBA classes?
Re:Remove the artificial monopoly (Score:2, Insightful)
Many people consider me to be on the "political right", and though I'd argue I'm somewhere off at a right angle to that spectrum, I'll try to put forth an idea or two.
Manufacturing in the US was healthiest when labor unions were healthiest
I'd argue it the other way--unions were strongest at the time when manufacturing was strong, because of a lack of competition. The auto industry was king 40+ years ago because it had no outside competition. When strong competition from the Japanese (and later Korean) auto manufacturers arose, the unions refused to adapt, insisting on keeping the same inefficient practices versus new automated methods because the latter would eliminate some (union-held) jobs.
I work at a US company that manufactures big expensive things. We are the best in our field and make products known and used worldwide. I'm sure you've heard of us. There are no unions on site, and no real interest among the employees (blue or white collar) in organizing. Everyone I've asked, from junior guys on the assembly line to master machinists to senior engineers, opposes the idea. Many have worked in union shops before and decided they want no part of it. And for the record, neither do I.
Unions can be a good thing when faced with truly horrible or dangerous working conditions like those seen 100+ years ago. Today, they're still pushing for safety innovations that management resists due to a "bottom-line only" mentality. But you also see a whole bunch of stupidity coming out of them, too.
Take Chicago, for instance. Union presence there is so strong that people participating in a trade convention are not allowed to move or plug in their own equipment. That's right, any suitcases, boxes, tables, displays, etc. that you are using in your display booth must be carried/carted in by a union worker. You can't do it yourself. Need something plugged into the wall? Gotta get a union electrician to do it. We're not talking major wiring changes in the building here, but rather the simple act of putting a regular plug into a standard AC outlet--a skill that pretty much everyone past the age of 5 has mastered. Failing to abide by this can get you fined or kicked out from the convention center and/or "accidental" damage to your equipment.
Heavy unionization can also lead to "not-my-job-itis", where an entire worksite comes to a screeching halt because a simple mindless task needs to be done, but it's not the stated job of anyone present. I've seen an entire machine shop sit idle for two hours because the material was sitting in the back of a truck, but the guy whose job it was to get the pallet jack and move the material thirty feet to the work area was out. I've known engineering departments to be held up because the printer jammed and only the unionized repair guy was allowed to open the cover and remove the offending piece of paper.
Sometimes, unions can be so shortsighted and narrow-minded that they drive themselves right out of a job. Some of them would rather refuse a relatively small paycut now and wind up unemployed in a year, than take a cut and still be employed in five years. Or, they'll back themselves into a corner and have to give up a lot of pay to keep a job, when they could have saved a lot of trouble had they taken a little cut earlier. (to be fair, there's a lot to be said for a management team that cuts everyone else's pay and then awards themselves bonuses, and very little of it is nice)
Unions are also known to be very politically active, often supporting candidates that many of their members oppose on issues outside labor.
And finally, though it's rational from the union's point of view, the treatment of "scabs" really bothers me. When a union workforce goes on strike, they're essentially saying "I don't want to work under those conditions, so I'm not going to". Someone else, maybe with some kids to feed and with very little left in his bank account, will come along and decide "well, I think that's a good d