HA! Well, there's amtrak, I guess, only, twice as many people ride on private passenger trains than on amtrak each year, so not much of a monopoly anywhere else but the northeast corridor maybe...not sure what else there is?
Regards, TTRP
The BoyCOTT Has Begun!!
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HA! Well, there's amtrak, I guess, only, twice as many people ride on private passenger trains than on amtrak each year, so not much of a monopoly anywhere else but the northeast corridor maybe...not sure what else there is?
Regards, TTRP
I haven't had a problem with ANY delivery service. Sometimes all of them can be a day late or two. It's rare that it happens, but it does and so what.
There is Nothing on this planet that I absolutely need delivered to my house within 10 days, let alone 2-3 days.
No thanks. I wont do business with any business that doesnt have the USPS option.
Only USPS makes sure I get my packages.
UPS out here leaves them in the driveway and not near the house, by the side of the highway, or somewhere by a neighbors and my neighbors are far and few in-between. Rural here.
I hate UPS. Lazy suckers.
Cant drive the 1/4 mile down my driveway in that big truck but the car the USPS person drives has no prob!!!
Only USPS makes sure I get my packages.
UPS out here leaves them in the driveway and not near the house, by the side of the highway, or somewhere by a neighbors and my neighbors are far and few in-between. Rural here.
I hate UPS. Lazy suckers.
Cant drive the 1/4 mile down my driveway in that big truck but the car the USPS person drives has no prob!!!
A US postage stamp is dirt cheap, about half the price as in the UK. The USPS are really quite efficient for the prices they charge.
I did a stint with Airborne Express (Teamsters) our shop steward was a big burly biker dood, we all wore a uniform, he ripped the collar and sleeves off his shirt - he talked too much..
EXACTLY I fired them 2 weeks ago
http://www.e-cigarette-forum.com/forum/dietsmokes/45867-ups-new-shipper-usps-fired-2.html#post703823
What a ton of people don't know is they are changing out machines in certain hubs going nationwide in a few months.
This is b/c they are cutting back workers etc.......
What they are doing might be great 6 months from now but staying away untill they get there act together
Parked
http://www.e-cigarette-forum.com/forum/dietsmokes/45867-ups-new-shipper-usps-fired-2.html#post703823
What a ton of people don't know is they are changing out machines in certain hubs going nationwide in a few months.
This is b/c they are cutting back workers etc.......
What they are doing might be great 6 months from now but staying away untill they get there act together
Parked
If you don't like it then go elsewhere. I don't see anyone DEMANDING but you. Good luck with that...
Some suppliers offer multiple shipping options and price them accordingly. I think it really all depends on where you live. Sometimes the post office does a better job and other times it is one of the free enterprise carriers (UPS, FedEx, etc.). A boycott is ridiculous. YOU choose which suppliers you care to do business with based upon many factors, including shipping options.
I ordered something recently (nothing to do with e-cigs) that was sent by way of that combo service UPS now has with USPS where UPS picks it up from its original location and then sends it a couple of places before dropping it to a USPS center. This particular package took 12 days to get from NJ to upstate NY.
During the time I was waiting for that I got 2 e-cig related deliveries from NJ to upstate NY through FedEx both of which were at my door within 24 hours of leaving the supplier. I also got one e-cig related delivery from CA to upstate NY by way of USPS Priority mail that was at my door within 48 hours of leaving the supplier.
Also any delivery I have gotten by way of UPS in the past two years has not only been a day or two behind on updated tracking info on their site but also is delivered by lazy drivers who can't be bothered to even ring the bell to see if you're home before either leaving the package out in the open, leaving it at the wrong house because they didn't bother checking the house number, or not even left at all because the building has 3 doors and they weren't sure which one to go to.
So I don't see how anyone could think that UPS is the best option.
During the time I was waiting for that I got 2 e-cig related deliveries from NJ to upstate NY through FedEx both of which were at my door within 24 hours of leaving the supplier. I also got one e-cig related delivery from CA to upstate NY by way of USPS Priority mail that was at my door within 48 hours of leaving the supplier.
Also any delivery I have gotten by way of UPS in the past two years has not only been a day or two behind on updated tracking info on their site but also is delivered by lazy drivers who can't be bothered to even ring the bell to see if you're home before either leaving the package out in the open, leaving it at the wrong house because they didn't bother checking the house number, or not even left at all because the building has 3 doors and they weren't sure which one to go to.
So I don't see how anyone could think that UPS is the best option.
Originally Posted by Kent C
It isn't a 'kinda grey area'. It's black and white. Here's the tipoff, as you wrote it above:
"it is wholly owned by the government"
well, true, but it's a government 'private' agency
That's an oxymoron and just simply wrong. There isn't anything 'private' about the USPS. The fact that the postmaster is appointed rather than approved by the Senate is irrelevant to the question at hand. The post office is authorized by the Constitution. It was gov't in the beginning and is gov't now. And it doesn't matter who 'oversees' it either.
You MIGHT have a case if you were talking about Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae, but even that is bull.
who's CEO, the PostmasterGeneral, is appointed by the Board of the US Postal Service, and does not have to be approved by the Senate, as opposed to a 'public' government agency, such as the Internal Revenue Service, which is under congressional oversight, the head of which is not a "CEO" and who does have to be approved by the Senate.
AGain, none of this matters. It's a gov't entity, has been from the start. There is no aspect of 'private' to it at all in the normal use of the term. Your attempting (unsucessfully I might add) to cover up your original mistake with a bunch of irrelevant but true facts.
Fact is the Post Office _ SHOULD_ be privatized entirely. There is no reason for a service that can make money in the private sector to operate in debt year after year as a gov't agency.
I have shipped thousands of items via UPS and USPS as well as received many (no, not e-cig related).
In my experience, UPS Ground can be insanely slow. USPS Priority Mail is reliably faster. The tracking is no good for Priority Mail, but it is cheap and fast, and tracking is probably unnecessary due to the dependability of it.
UPS Ground is good for shipping large, heavy items, such as cardboard boxes filled with bricks. These will slide down the chutes and crush your light items which should have gone USPS Priority Mail. I worked a holiday season in a UPS warehouse once. I would NEVER ship small light items via UPS after that, and I can tell you as a shipper (and receiver) of packages, USPS is faster and less prone to damage. The UPS warehouse floor was often coated with the contents of shredded packages, small packages are chewed up between the streams of large packages of bricks and bolts and logs and they pop open, releasing their contents. Sometimes they get crudely taped back together. If the package is entirely destroyed, it may be impossible to even determine whose it was in the first place. UPS is for shipping furniture and crates of auto parts, not small padded envelopes filled with e-juice.
Go Fedex overnight or USPS 1 or 2 day if you are in a hurry. If not, order via USPS from a supplier nearest you. Priority USPS will almost always get coast to coast with 2-3 days, or overnight sometimes if in the same area.
Factor origin location when making a purchase, is it worth it to save a dollar or two on the price of an item if it is further away and will take longer to deliver?
The other Friday I tracked a UPS package in at the delivery warehouse 4 miles from my place. (Thought it would ship USPS or I would have made special arrangements). 6:57 PM Monday the truck finally rolled up. So on the Saturday (a full day of trucks out delivering for UPS), they could not get a package 4 miles to my place.
The tracking for USPS is questionable. If a shipper prints electronic postage at home, it generates the first tracking number you may get, before they have gone to drop off packages or the mailman has picked them up. Generally the postage is printed for the day it is shipped, but can be printed in advance (such as printing Sunday for a Monday ship-out). You may not get another tracking update at all until delivery, if even then. Still, if it has actually shipped it is fairly safe to assume it will be there in a day or two, unlike UPS ground which can take over a week to go across country and pretty much tracking is required so you know your package hasn't been mislaid or somehow vanished, slid out of the back of a truck somewhere, etc.
For large heavy packages such as 20 lbs sacks of gravel or carefully-wrapped cement blocks, ship USPS Ground as then it is economically reasonable. Otherwise use any other shipping method or service.
In my experience, UPS Ground can be insanely slow. USPS Priority Mail is reliably faster. The tracking is no good for Priority Mail, but it is cheap and fast, and tracking is probably unnecessary due to the dependability of it.
UPS Ground is good for shipping large, heavy items, such as cardboard boxes filled with bricks. These will slide down the chutes and crush your light items which should have gone USPS Priority Mail. I worked a holiday season in a UPS warehouse once. I would NEVER ship small light items via UPS after that, and I can tell you as a shipper (and receiver) of packages, USPS is faster and less prone to damage. The UPS warehouse floor was often coated with the contents of shredded packages, small packages are chewed up between the streams of large packages of bricks and bolts and logs and they pop open, releasing their contents. Sometimes they get crudely taped back together. If the package is entirely destroyed, it may be impossible to even determine whose it was in the first place. UPS is for shipping furniture and crates of auto parts, not small padded envelopes filled with e-juice.
Go Fedex overnight or USPS 1 or 2 day if you are in a hurry. If not, order via USPS from a supplier nearest you. Priority USPS will almost always get coast to coast with 2-3 days, or overnight sometimes if in the same area.
Factor origin location when making a purchase, is it worth it to save a dollar or two on the price of an item if it is further away and will take longer to deliver?
The other Friday I tracked a UPS package in at the delivery warehouse 4 miles from my place. (Thought it would ship USPS or I would have made special arrangements). 6:57 PM Monday the truck finally rolled up. So on the Saturday (a full day of trucks out delivering for UPS), they could not get a package 4 miles to my place.
The tracking for USPS is questionable. If a shipper prints electronic postage at home, it generates the first tracking number you may get, before they have gone to drop off packages or the mailman has picked them up. Generally the postage is printed for the day it is shipped, but can be printed in advance (such as printing Sunday for a Monday ship-out). You may not get another tracking update at all until delivery, if even then. Still, if it has actually shipped it is fairly safe to assume it will be there in a day or two, unlike UPS ground which can take over a week to go across country and pretty much tracking is required so you know your package hasn't been mislaid or somehow vanished, slid out of the back of a truck somewhere, etc.
For large heavy packages such as 20 lbs sacks of gravel or carefully-wrapped cement blocks, ship USPS Ground as then it is economically reasonable. Otherwise use any other shipping method or service.
One of the major reasons the PO won't be privatized is the concept of universal service. You really think any private company will deliver to any address in the country? Private carriers only worry about one thing - profit margin. God help you if you live in the boondocks. And btw, the PO was in the black as recently as 2007, before the economy took a nosedive.
If there is ever serious consideration towards privatization, you can expect small businesses and constituients of rural districts to be up in arms - meaning a lot of Republicans as well, I suspect.
If there is ever serious consideration towards privatization, you can expect small businesses and constituients of rural districts to be up in arms - meaning a lot of Republicans as well, I suspect.
They (gov't types) made the same type of arguments before the opening up certain parcels to UPS and FedEx way back when. But they were wrong. Libertarians were right.
The USPS lost over $5 billion in 2007, close to $3 Billion in 2008 and are on track to lose $7 billion this year.
USPS 2008 Annual Report: Connecting People and Business
The post office have stopped many successful "black market" operations to carry first class mail over the years.
EDIT: and the main reason they went red in 2007 was the prefunding of retiree health benefits, which no other company (private or public) is required to do. The payment amount was upwards of 5bil, IIRC.
Okay, guess it was 2006 when they turned a profit of 900m.
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I've got other figures that show that despite the fact that they say they have stopped getting subsidies since '82, that about every two years there is an item in their annual reports (eg. '03 and '05) that states 'government appropriations'. Plus they got a $3 billion subsidy (considerable sum, relative to the time) in '82 to kickstart the transition to raising rates to pay for their losses instead of taxpayer subsidies each year. That said, raising rates is what should be done and with a $7 billion deficit facing them this year, it will be a certainty, unless this is one of those years where they get that 'gov't appropriation' again.
And this hidden subsidation isn't anything new or uncommon. The Gov't has been doing the same with Amtrak for years too. You just don't see it in the gov't run media.
If you can't get through to them AT ALL, it might be your ISP. The ISP I use from home has been snarly for the last couple of days - I listen to a radio station via the net, and it's cut out on me more than a dozen times in the last 24 hours. BUT I had no problem reaching USPS or their tracking page yesterdy.
Well I hope they don't go out of business then, because they are sure faster than UPS Ground for long distance deliveries.
Raising rates? Isn't just south of 50cents a letter high enough? I like to mail in my bills. And I like to mail birthday cards and holiday cards and invitations and thank you notes, too. Fifty cents is too much already for a simple envelope. (five bucks is ok for a small box, tho, I can live with that.) If you're going to advocate to raise rates, at least limit it to box rates and not plain ole envelope rates. Of course, we could get rid of the blasted unions.....which shouldn't be in government entities anyway.
TTRP
They are considering closing hundreds of post offices, last I read. And I happen to agree with you on speed. Any delays I've had except for one - Boise ID on an Innovapor order - has always been customs in this country not the USPS.
TTRP,
The point here is - with a gov't function like this (and to an extent the gas tax for the DOT), is that it's either raise rates on the people that are actually using the service, or force everyone - through taxation via direct subsidies to make up the difference. I think it is more fair for the people that actually use the service to pay for it. Same way with gas taxes - people that use the roads pay for the maintenance through gas taxes. (except now - since Clinton - some of the gas tax goes into the general fund - it should all go for roads, bridges, etc. )
Fully agree with you about gov't unions. Kennedy (who actually would have been considered a right wing radical today), allowed the gov't employees and teachers to have full union status - except for air traffic controllers and the army, navy, etc. As the gov't unions have grown, private employee unions have shrunk to all time lows and so has their power with a few noted exceptions -uaw. When you work for the gov't you shouldn't be able to 'strike' against your employer - 'the people'. If you don't like that set up - go out and get a real job.
As it is now, the only 'safe' job is a gov't job. If you have one, don't quit, you are now an apparachik and soon you will be telling the rich people how much square footage in their big houses they will be allocated, while you move your friends into their rec room. lol.
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