Ah, crap:

The financially beleaguered Postal Service announced Tuesday that it would consider closing more than 3,600 of its 32,000 post offices…In communities that lose post offices, the Postal Service may outsource basic services, like selling stamps and shipping flat-rate packages, to local businesses like pharmacies and groceries…

The USPS spokesman in the New York Times story says “The Postal Service of the future will be smaller, leaner and more competitive.” Just what we need! Teabaggy mailmen who’ll hold our packages hostage until we pay an additional receipt fee or some shit like that. I can’t wait to see what FedEx and UPS will do to their rates when the USPS eventually dies—buying over the internet will be a luxury that very few will be able to afford.

6 replies on “USPS to Close Almost 4,000 Post Offices?”

  1. Look, the Post Office in it’s current form needs to go. I recognize that it employs about 600K Americans (second only to Wal-Mart), but it operates at an absolutely heinous loss, $67B last year alone.

    As it stands, junk mail is the only thing keeping USPS around – more than half of all mail is junk, which means USPS is primarily in the direct marketing business.

    USPS should charge businesses a flat monthly fee to receive daily mail, and the same for individuals who want it. Other than that, free residential/commercial delivery should be no more than twice a week. Beyond being unnecessary, it’s a tremendous waste of money and fuel to be paying hundreds of thousands of people to ferry junk mail across the US 6 days a week. For those reasons also, the government should be incentivizing digital forms of mail whenever possible.

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USPS
    http://www.newsweek.com/2008/09/26/to-post…

  3. CC, that Times article says the USPS is set to lose about $8 billion this year. Are you sure about that $67 billion number for last year?

    Nearly all of the post offices set to close are in podunk rural towns and should have been closed long ago. (There’s one in Shaniko, Oregon – that’s a ghost town!)

  4. Are you kidding? When was the last time you wrote a letter or postcard? The only time most people use the post office is during Christmas, when they’re overworked and it’s a huge pain in the ass for everyone. The Postal Service is an insanely inefficient, poorly run company in so many ways.

    USPS is still great for businesses doing bulk mailing but the majority of that is still junk anyways. UPS and FedEx rates are tied directly to fuel costs; they hardly see USPS as a competitor when it comes to parcel shipping.

    “…a luxury that very few will be able to afford.” Yeah, like the free overnight shipping at Zappos or any number of online companies? The amazing deal that is Amazon Prime?

  6. Pretty sure that the place doing the shipping will have to remain competitive with the other place also doing the shipping.. USPS was successful because the govt kept prices down (hi taxes) but it’s antiquated.. other companies are doing it better, cheaper. USPS couldn’t compete, so ta ta.

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