<font color=skyblue>Early next year, the USPS is thinking to petition for a .41¢ stamp, which would also raise the cost of every other thing above it as well.
I see this as a neverending cycle.

1. People decide to use the internet to pay bills online.
2. Post Office cannot afford internal costs, so thy raise the bar.
3. People are are turned off to the high cost and pay more bills online.
4. Post office cannot afford internal costs, so thy raise the bar.
5. People that were not using online banking now do so.
6. Post Office cannot afford internal costs, so thy raise the bar.
7. Etc.</font>

<font color=skyblue>The good that may come of this would be less mailings of bulk advertisements and credit card apps...which would save on paper consumption and save a few trees. That would mean more e-mail spam and pop-ups, but those can be deleted and only fills up a "virtual" trash can. </font>

Yeah, and I wont have to leave the room anymore!! [img]tongue.gif[/img] :D

The Post Office should be disbanded. What need have we for a government-granted monopoly on non-express mail? I almost got the cops called on my last time I was in the post office by the time I got through yelling at them for being the laziest, rudest, least-reliable business I work with on a daily basis. They suck. The lady rudely told me where the line was, and that I'd go there if I wanted service. I asked her is she was too dumb to know what a [expletive] customer was.

UPS/DHL/FedEx are all champing at the bit to do what the USPS does -- and all would do it better and cheaper.

<font color=skyblue>Good post, TL. I know exactly what you are talking about, down to the last word. The USPS are a rude bunch of people to work with. They think that they are needed, so they don't have to show courtesy. </font>

Well, living in a relatively small community, I don't see that, but since we're on the subject, the USPS DOES need major reform. They simply are the least streamlined business in existence, and they try to encourage Americans to pay for their excesses. Unfortunately, many of the same people ARE needed, and even if the postal system was privatized, then many of the same postal workers would be picked up by the new companies.

The point is not whether or not the workers get picked up, but whether the customer standing in line has another option by which to send non-express mail. If he can walk next door to the UPS store and send the same letter for the same price, then the P.O. employees won't be so rude or slow. Maybe your local P.O. employees a great and fast and efficient -- but we don't want that to be mere coincidence, we want it to be done regularly throughout the country. And, that requires competition.

<font color=skyblue>I think my problem is that I am in a district that has a post office in a bad neighborhood...even though I personally do not live in that bad section. Therefore, no good-mannered person would work in an enviroment where he or she felt threatened by those in the community around them, so the only people to get jobs there are the ruffians that live there, for they cannot get a job anywhere else with their poor performances and personalities.</font>

The USPS is a company that needs to review its practices. However, to put it differently... how much would you expect to pay to send a letter from Chicago to California? You have to admit that .37 or .41 is rather cheap, compared to sending it via Fedex or some other carrier.

Put another way, how many .25 cent (arbitrarily chosed) envelopes would you have to carry to justify delivering them to any given address?

The issue is the infrastructure -- the USPS has it, and no one else has come up to duplicate it yet. Once they do, life will be different, for sure.

Fedex has an infrastructure that's optimized to get packages anywhere throughout the world. So does UPS, and DHL, and... the list goes on. But they're not optimized to deliver small items for low costs... yet.

On the issue of service... that's something else entirely. I don't put up with bad service. Frustrates my wife more often than not, because I'm somewhat demanding that way. I'm the customer, and my money pays your salary, whether you're a clerk, a cashier, a technician, a doctor, or a lawyer. Treat me respectfully, and I'll do the same. Treat me like a cash cow, and watch me leave.

Is it to pay the drugs bill for the Cycling team ?