GO US POST OFFICE!

I am not sure of what the solution could be long term but delaying the pension payment of billions coming up would be far better then a large scale lay offs at this time.

I love some of the logic here at a time when the government should be doing their best to keep jobs the government awarded a grant of 250 millions dollars to my local power company FPL to put internet connected power meters into homes and the results were somewhere on the order of ten thousands meter readers jobs gone and the ability to get all kinds of minute to minute power information on customers that is a worry concerning privacy.

Then a few hundreds toll takers had just been replaced with an electronic system that cost about the same as the toll takers.

It does speed up traffic at the cost of those jobs and the creation of a data base of all cars using the toll roads.

I dont know what the solution is either, but I suspect that cutting at least Sat delivery and ending the low low prices on the junk mail that clogs up our mailboxes would be part of it. How much money is spent processing mail that the recipient does not even want, mail that goes straight to the trash can? Most of my mail does just that, it does not even make it inside the house. Most of this trash enters the mail system at very low price per piece too, is the post office making any money facilitating this clutter in my mail box and generating paper waste piles at the recycling center?

Maybe the post office would have been better off going for producing a service that improves our lives rather than one that bogs us down with trash, maybe then we citizens would be willing to support it with tax dollars.

How did you reach this conclusion? The problem is that people aren't sending nearly as much mail as we have in the past. It seems to me that half the number of processing centers should be able to handle half the mail without any change in transit time.

Of course I can send email in a fraction of a second.

The post office says so...they should know, they are the one who drew up the plans.

http://www.burlingtonfreepress.com/article/20111206/NEWS03/112060301/Wrong-time-to-cut-postal-jobs-Sanders-says?odyssey=tab%7Ctopnews%7Ctext%7CFRONTPAGE

Wrong time to cut postal jobs, Sanders says


6:02 AM, Dec. 6, 2011 | Comments

The U.S. Postal Service says at least one Vermont site is on its list of those targeted in plans to close more than 250 mail processing centers across the country.

A list released this year of processing centers to be closed included facilities in Essex Junction and White River Junction.


But the Postal Service later said that a study determined closing the White River Junction center and moving mail processing to Essex Junction and to Manchester, N.H., would be more efficient.

Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., said Monday it is wrong-headed of the Postal Service to cut jobs while the country remains "in the middle of a recession."
Sanders, who has taken up the cause of postal workers in Vermont, said the financially stressed Postal Service, which lost more than $5 billion last year, has plans to cut as many as 100,000 jobs in an effort to save money. Cuts in service, he said, would exacerbate the Postal Service's financial problems by driving more potential customers to email or other commercial services.
Strong bipartisan support exists in the Senate, Sanders said, for measures to ease the pressure on the Postal Service. He and several co-sponsors, including Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., introduced legislation that would allow the Postal Service to recover some of the money it has paid for future retiree health benefits -- a unique cost mandated by Congress, Sanders said, that has required the Postal Service to "pre-fund 75 years ... of health benefits in just 10 years."

That cost has put the Postal Service in the red, Sanders said.


The legislation also would create a blue-ribbon commission to put together a new business plan for the Postal Service, Sanders said. That plan could allow it to provide services such as issuing hunting, fishing and driver's licenses. Sanders said the United States can learn from other countries that also have seen traditional mail volume decreased by the growth of easily available alternatives.

Sanders said the current 6-day delivery schedule should be maintained, and the Postal Service should not close rural post offices, which are gathering spots in many small towns.
Postal Service spokesman Tom Rizzo told the Burlington Free Press that the Postal Service has recommended the closing of the 245-employee mail-processing center in White River Junction.

Sanders said the proposal is "not a done deal," and he wants a public hearing regarding the closing -- the meeting had been set for the week before Christmas -- delayed until early next year.

"The Postal Service has done what it can do under its own authority," Rizzo said. "We can't control the state of the economy or congressional mandates, and the vast majority of our financial problems arise from those two issues as well as the public's evolution away from hard-copy mail to electronic