Re: The US Postal Service

On 2/18/2025 11:46 AM, Roger Merriman wrote:

AMuzi <am@yellowjersey.org> wrote:

On 2/18/2025 10:10 AM, cyclintom wrote:

On Thu Feb 13 21:43:55 2025 Roger Merriman  wrote:

>
If it?s not funded by government ie has to fund its self, then services
will always come 2nd to profitability, ie if one wants no or low junk mail,
and for it to be run as service then will need some government funding. EX
postie in UK which has been privatised and now a commercial company with
totally expected results ie worsening service.
>
Can?t see Trump wanting to fund it somehow!

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Roger, I know that you look through the lens of socialism being taught
that in school but EVERYTHING is moving by mail. If Amazon Prime can
give you cut rate prices and deliver the next day, the US Postal System
can make a profit on 10,000 times the movement of mail.
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Not 'can'; 'could'. But they do not.
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Logistics contract negotiators at Amazon are really first
rate and richly informed.  It took UPS years of losses to
cancel their largest customer but they really had to do that
to stem the losses on Amazon delivery.
>
USPS employees are quite vocal about their current Amazon
arrangements and mystified that the rate/volume continue.
>
It's really true that one cannot sell at a loss and 'make it
up in volume'. Not in logistics, not in bicycles, not in
banking...
>

 Also a van plus man is a much more attractive option financially even low
cost items + delivery are going to be quite a bit more than the postage
cost for letters.
 parcels are another option all together, and with the rise of internet
shopping has been on the rise all of this century and been clearly what
mail delivery organisations should be focused on in terms of profitability,
and has been obvious for two three decades!
 Ie state carriers should be using the parcel side to fund at least
partially the universal mail delivery, which if they cut out junk mail etc
could be reduced in terms of staffing, essentially more like post worked in
the 60/70’s with fairly low volumes of mail and each postie covering larger
areas.
 Roger Merriman
 

Yes you're right overall.
Logistics is on the cusp of engineering and economics and postal systems are a very difficult area.  Move up the parcel rates and unit volume drops, while you still have the vehicle expenses, labor contracts and facilities to support the former larger volume.  Tricky decisions all around.  All postal systems wrangle with this as noted by the 25 year old paper I referenced regarding Brasil Post. The principles and issues have not changed.
--
Andrew Muzi
am@yellowjersey.org
Open every day since 1 April, 1971