Link I personally think this is long overdue. Snail mail is no longer as important as it used to be, considering the technological advances we have made in the last 15 years. Speaking primarily for residential residences, and especially rural routes, I believe we should goto a 3 every other day system. You could essentially cut the man power in half. I understand any commercial might need to be delivered every day. Instead of increasing postage every year or so, we could actually decrease it and then have a new class of mail that would be a bit more if you needed it delivered ASAP. Also, I think implementing an opt out option for junk mail would be really nice. Everyone wins. Postal service doesn't have to deliver additional mail, I don't have to throw out the junk mail, and the advertisers can save money on people who will never read it in the first place.
Yeah right, try imagining the nightmare of differentiating between what constituted junk mail and what didn't. I'd hate to not get some of my mail b/c of some technicality. Advertisers gauge whether it is worth it to spend money and how to actually go about doing it. Considering that the economy is suffering, i would assume that they would cut costs and cut back ont he production a bit.
Not really. Junk mail isn't thrown into one of the blue mailbox on a street corner. Advertisers pay up front in bulk to deliver. A Do not distribute junk mail list of course is voluntarily, so if you want to continue to receiver those walmart ads, generally worthless coupons, ect ..., you can continue. Its a very simple method that you can implement.
Good comments but the postal service has become a jobs program. Reducing manpower can't happen quickly. What might be possible is a hiring freeze that would allow attrition to shrink the USPS faster. The notion of per unit costs going down is a total pipe dream. That doesn't happen when activity shrinks. Lobbying efforts by junk mailers would nuke any move to separate junk mail from the rest. They have allies.
I think it's a great idea, but I hope it's not Tuesday they choose. I understand the theory, but doesn't Saturday just make more sense?
My cousin used to be a Postmaster at a small post office. If I remember what he said, junk mail is the real money maker for the post office. If not for junk mail, first class would either be a lot more expensive, or we'd have a lot lower level of postal service.
as long as they kept some post offices open on saturday and got rid of delivering mail, it'd would make sense to me.
I'm all for cancelling mail delivery on Saturday. I'd really like to see more automated postage machines in post offices. It is so much faster, and it allows you to go take care of your postage needs on any day, and at any time.
How about they just take Saturday off like UPS and FedEx do? Why pick a weekday when businesses are always open and need/want mail delivered?
right? in my business the mail is really important. when i drop something in the mail, it's deemed filed. with court deadlines to hit, i can't imagine what it would look like if they took a weekday off.
Yep, just what we need... more criminals getting off on technicalities. I'm telling you the time is ripe for a vigilante super hero with a tortured past and cool technology.
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I don't doubt that for an instance. That is a guarantee delivery to every box that does not require sorting. Unfortunately, the burden is carried to the postal worker.... s/he does not get paid per delivery, but is still expected to complete the same route. Perhaps it could be on the receivers end ... like putting a stamp on your box that tells the postman he doesn't have to deliver junk mail. Im against dropping Saturday. Too many people work m-f and need the PO open on saturdays. Also, two days back to back w/out mail delivery can be a killer, especially to a postal deliver.
The post office is government spending. Therefore if we eliminated it, we would be taking another step toward having a great economy and all be rich.
Isn't the post office self sufficient and funded from postal services (e.g. postage fees, etc.) and not by the U.S. government?