fuck us

In Europe, the post office acts as much like a bank as a place to send letter... times change. Did we all fear for the future when the phone company faced real competition? Change is scary for many, disruptive at times, and needed forever.

"Change is scary for many, disruptive at times, and needed forever."

very well stated:-)

@MrAnthony

I like such simple approaches. Make something "competitive" and it'll cure all problems.
But sad thing is - IT DON'T WORK. So, called "invisible hand of the market" can't even wax your carrot in reality.

All you is is process of dismantling social services. USPS is one of such services.
This is why you constantly hear about it's problems, and why money spend is calculated in such a way to cause such problems.

@Vitaliy: Please do not put words in my mouth. I never said that making something competitive would cure all problems. That is simply a simplistic straw man argument to try and make me look stupid and you are much smarter than that.

USPS is hardly a "social service." Quite simply, it's been badly managed, unable to adjust because of bloated bureaucracy, crippled by an inability to change. It's required by law to make crazy amounts of payments for health and retirement coverage far in excess of what is actually needed. For years it couldn't raise rates without Congress interfering in some way.

Since you don't live in or really understand the U.S., let me explain some realities to you. The USPS got by financially for years on bulk mail--basically advertising sent through the mail system. It's the original junk mail, as any American with a mailbox would understand. Nobody else could deliver that mail, by law, and for years it was profitable. It was a government-backed monopoly. E-mail and the Internet have killed the bulk mail business, as well as first-class mail. So basically, you've got an organization that can't raise its prices thanks to Congress, can't lay off it's workers thanks to Unions and Congress, can't close offices or cut back services thanks to Congress, is forced to pre-fund benefits excessively due to Congress, and is losing business because it operates with essentially 18th Century technology/business model in a 21st Century digital world. This isn't about dismantling social services. If it were, it would be getting tax dollars and wouldn't be about to go under. It's about bad management, an outdated business model, and what happens when government goes too far in dictating how a business should be run. It should be a warning to everyone who thinks the government will do well running public health in the U.S.

I hope they stay because it is the only affordable packet system to buy things in the USA. Companies like bH and lots of ebay sellers would loose a lot of money from overseas buyers like me. For example I never buy anything from Adorama because they only have USPS and FEDex.

>Yes, I am a fan of efficiency (as opposed to inefficiency, like the GH1 codec), the digital world (or we wouldn't be here) and parts of the free market (really, I like having choices and options, but some things definitely need to be monitored/regulated from airlines to utilities)... The USPS is by all standards is a social service?

OK, here is situation.
You worked hard all your life at USPS.
You also have chronic disease, thanks to the work.
Now according to efficiency plan your post office will be closed and will be thrown out with cut to your pension savings and other cuts resulting in problems with medicine. Also in your small town no post office will be present anymore, so you need to go 80km to nearest post office.
You can even send complains via email, thanks to digital age.
This is how your fucking "efficiency" looks in real life.

Just my humble opinion:

1. Any job, even sitting doing nothing, can result in disabilities as we get older. Do post workers have more physical stress than a dentist? Probably not. Just a different type of stress. Dentists save their income and plan for retirement....can't demand pension anymore.....I'll stop here on this point.
2. USPS definitely needs to be more efficient.
3. 7 out of 8 of my last residences have community mailboxes. Post workers don't really have to walk all that much anymore. Just drive to a cluster of box and insert the mail.

I suggest we should start privatizing the privatizers. How does that sound?

@ Mihuel I would not call that a theft, rather an expropriation. When something is taken away from the crooks and thieves (or bourgeois Nazi collaborators like it happened many times in Eastern Europe after it was liberated by the USSR) it is not thievery by any account. My point was if somebody is calling for privatizing more (as a sort of remedy for the current economic incurable pains) he should start that privatization from his own backyard. These crazy neoliberal myths only work until you find yourself or your own family in poverty, hunger and unemployment. The world has just started reviewing the lessons of the Great October Revolution, 1917. There is a long way ahead.

@ Mihuel "Private interest of individuals is more important than the interests of society." — this is the fundamental illusion used as a justification for the bloodiest crimes the Western Imperial system committed during the last 100 years (or more). In reality it doesn't care about individual freedoms at all.
Just think — every human society needs some sort of collective will to survive. Not to thrive, not to dress or dine or buy new Iphones every now and then, but to survive physically. It was not so obvious during the Cold War as it is now when the planet's resources are pushed to the limit and there's no more countries the West can silently exploit. So like in every tribe, like in every Army (and I use these extreme examples because for the tribe or for the military unit survival is the only, the ultimate objective) the word or the freedoms of an individual do not mean a thing if compared to the goal of the group. Throughout its history the "liberal", capitalist world had sacrificed its citizens' rights or even lives for the sake of profit or "national interest" so many times that is absolutely naive to believe that the westernization of the Slavic Europe will ever bring freedom to its residents. Yes, you were rather poor in the Soviet block, but your children were safe, you had healthcare and high quality education affordable to everyone, your daughters were not starred in the cheap porn movies or trafficked as prostitutes, your streets were free of drugs and safe to walk at night. You traded all this to get an abstract freedom. Was it really worth it? What freedom? To be bought and sold? What happened to your manufacturing sector? To your culture? A freedom for the few? For the tiny clique of lucky thieves? I believed in that crap too until I realized there's no wealth or Iphone that will mean to me more than the safety and decent future for my kids. That is what it is about now - die consuming or survive through self-restrain and mobilization.

@jaecjaec I know it well. The confusion derives from the US though, because both your liberals and conservatives are actually liberals in everything related to the economy. While in Russia being a communist means to be conservative and a liberal is usually someone promoting free market and privatization. This is an interesting cultural phenomenon, because communism actually took over from the strong Othodox Christian tradition, which essentially claims that it is BAD to be rich. While the US is based on protestant/evangelical capitalist ethics. God wants you to prosper — that is what your right wingers pray to. Russia tends to believe in the opposite.