Neither rain nor sleet nor snow but lack of money

.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
Unless something gives, the US Post Office is gonna tank. The question is: What does this mean to you?

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=138690714

One way to crash a Post Office.

The problem is government interference. No surprise there, right?

Here's why. In 1971, the Post Office was set up to be self-supporting. It is supposed to generate enough revenue to operate.

It never has.

So, Congress has stepped in with subsidies. This means Congress gets to dictate how the Post Office operates.

This also means things are run incredibly irresponsibly. No business can stay in business if it is forced to keep and run unprofitable locations. The Post Office is ordered, by Congress, to operate unprofitable locations.

The government dance.

Take the county where I live f'rinstance. A PO in a one of the towns here shucks out $1,500 a month rent for a building the size of a house. $1,500 a month would get you 3K feet plus of commercial real estate downtown. The Post Office is several miles from the mail commercial district and in a residential neighborhood.

If you tried to rent the place out as a house, you MIGHT get $500 a month. Sell the building and you MIGHT get $75K. Last time it sold, this being well before the peak of the housing market, it went for $200K - because of the Post Office rental income.

If (which is unlikely on the order of me liking any of the past 5 presidents) the Post Office makes a major change in operation how will it affect you?

In more ways than you can imagine.

1) SCOTUS has ruled that the US Post Office is the only agency allowed to deliver first class mail. While you may do much of your bill paying online, indeed you may do all of it online, this is not universal. Some business still send bills through the mail.

Actual laws.

2) Certified mail (which is a major crock as I have opined before) is the legal method for notifying you of certain government and court related activities which directly affect you. Such as being sued, IRS notice, etc.

The IRS does not send emails to individual taxpayers. If you get such an email, it's a scam.

3) Because certified mail is a legal standard, even if the letter is not accepted, it allows you to send information and notices out and not worry about the receiver saying "I never got it."

4) Doing away with certified mail will dramatically increase the cost of correspondence that is handled that way. One CL may run $5. Getting it hand-delivered? No telling what that'll cost.

5) As I mentioned, some businesses don't take online bill pay. You may not have any, but many people do.

6) If you get caught in Identity Theft, your accounts get hacked and so forth, eventually you are going to need certified mail to get this corrected.

7) Complain as much as you like - the US Post Office is dependable. At least at the local level. Neighborhood carriers are people you know (especially in rural areas like where I live). I have more success sending stuff (except newspapers) through the mail than any of the parcel carriers.

When it comes to newspaper delivery, the farther you get from the originating county, the less likely the paper will get delivered. In large part because of this, we're recommending out of town subscribers take the online version. More and more newspapers are going to this - which means even less revenue for the Post Office.

8) Some stuff simply can't be sent electronically, which means you take it, go through a shipping company or the Post Office.

9) Money orders. You can go to a convenience store or you can get a world-recognized money order at the Post Office.

10) Passport applications.

11) The simple convenience of being able to put a letter in a mail box and know it it'll get there.

But mostly the Post Office is an outfit we take for granted. If it's gone, then you'll really see how much you miss it.