Senate cancels postal service hearing

[Stephen + 67]

A Senate hearing about reforming the U.S. Postal Service that could have scrutinized what Amazon.com Inc and others pay for package delivery has been delayed, three sources familiar with the matter told Reuters, moving back President Donald Trump’s effort to hike the world’s largest online retailer’s rates. President Trump ordered a task force to study the Postal Service’s financial health and what it charges customers like Amazon for delivering packages. The study was ordered with the report release set for August 10. The White House hasn’t yet released the report, forcing the Senate to delay its reform hearing scheduled for September 5. 

[Meanwhile + 49]

'Trump's Amazon crusade delayed' would be better title

[Stephen + 67]

Just now, Meanwhile said:

'Trump's Amazon crusade delayed' would be better title

whatever. Postal service FY17 revenue was down $1.8B Y/Y to $69.6B with $72.2B in operating expenses. The drop was due to declines in First-Class and Marketing Mail, partially offset by an 11% growth in package volume. 

[李伟王芳 + 77]

Just now, Stephen said:

whatever. Postal service FY17 revenue was down $1.8B Y/Y to $69.6B with $72.2B in operating expenses. The drop was due to declines in First-Class and Marketing Mail, partially offset by an 11% growth in package volume. 

but stamps.com shares are up 1.4% after the news.  

[Sefko Trafikant + 35]

3 minutes ago, Stephen said:

A Senate hearing about reforming the U.S. Postal Service that could have scrutinized what Amazon.com Inc and others pay for package delivery has been delayed, three sources familiar with the matter told Reuters, moving back President Donald Trump’s effort to hike the world’s largest online retailer’s rates. President Trump ordered a task force to study the Postal Service’s financial health and what it charges customers like Amazon for delivering packages. The study was ordered with the report release set for August 10. The White House hasn’t yet released the report, forcing the Senate to delay its reform hearing scheduled for September 5. 

But this is a non event --the USPS negotiated a deal with Amazon--if it was not in their favor thats their fault. So the price goes up a few cents, who cares

[Stephen + 67]

Just now, Sefko Trafikant said:

But this is a non event --the USPS negotiated a deal with Amazon--if it was not in their favor thats their fault. So the price goes up a few cents, who cares

My gut is that it does not have anything to do with Amazon and the contract with USPS, but with the Washington Post which is owned by Jeff Bezos and Trump wants to punish him. I don't think Bezos's standard of living will be impacted by anything the Trump does

[Ajan Bosnjacki + 27]

6 minutes ago, Stephen said:

A Senate hearing about reforming the U.S. Postal Service that could have scrutinized what Amazon.com Inc and others pay for package delivery has been delayed, three sources familiar with the matter told Reuters, moving back President Donald Trump’s effort to hike the world’s largest online retailer’s rates. President Trump ordered a task force to study the Postal Service’s financial health and what it charges customers like Amazon for delivering packages. The study was ordered with the report release set for August 10. The White House hasn’t yet released the report, forcing the Senate to delay its reform hearing scheduled for September 5. 

My guess is that the study results didn't confirm what Trump was saying, that USPS is being badly used by AMZN. So until he can figure out how to twist the report, he will delay the release.

[JohnAtronis + 78]

2 minutes ago, Stephen said:

My gut is that it does not have anything to do with Amazon and the contract with USPS, but with the Washington Post which is owned by Jeff Bezos and Trump wants to punish him. I don't think Bezos's standard of living will be impacted by anything the Trump does

 the Washington Post has a minimum of 2 hit pieces on Trump per day. of course there are much deeper issues with USPS, like every government entity it is poorly run and bloated. Trump pretty clearly just taking a shot at Bezos because they despise one another.

[Ajan Bosnjacki + 27]

5 minutes ago, Sefko Trafikant said:

But this is a non event --the USPS negotiated a deal with Amazon--if it was not in their favor thats their fault. So the price goes up a few cents, who cares

USPS is another government agency where there is no monetary incentive to do the job better, smarter, or more efficiently. Why? It is because the workers, including the management of the USPS, will get paid the same no matter how bad or how good they do their respective jobs. They will be paid no matter what.

[Cokiga Damke + 53]

Just now, Ajan Bosnjacki said:

USPS is another government agency where there is no monetary incentive to do the job better, smarter, or more efficiently. Why? It is because the workers, including the management of the USPS, will get paid the same no matter how bad or how good they do their respective jobs. They will be paid no matter what.

Fedex and UPS are much more expensive for shipments. Probably because they are trying to achieve a profit. USPS should increase price as well. My postman is a nice man

[Hajga Loma DK + 47]

4 minutes ago, Cokiga Damke said:

Fedex and UPS are much more expensive for shipments. Probably because they are trying to achieve a profit. USPS should increase price as well. My postman is a nice man

A business that annually has a net loss of over $5 billion a year for the past 10 years .... that is a well run entity?

[Joanna + 68]

In other news, The U.S. Postal Service says it made a mistake in releasing the official personnel file of a Democratic candidate to a Republican-aligned super PAC after the candidate claimed that a GOP super PAC had obtained the file improperly. A spokesperson for the Postal Service said Thursday that the agency made an "unfortunate error" when releasing the personnel file of Abigail Spanberger, a former CIA officer who is challenging Rep. Dave Brat (R-Va.) for his House seat.

[Joanna + 68]

1 hour ago, Ajan Bosnjacki said:

USPS is another government agency where there is no monetary incentive to do the job better, smarter, or more efficiently. Why? It is because the workers, including the management of the USPS, will get paid the same no matter how bad or how good they do their respective jobs. They will be paid no matter what.

The USPS could be profitable if Congress let it charge market prices--but it doesn't.

[margaret + 3]

Well working for the post office myself, I don't see how USPS loses, they've doubled some days of our package load, without a penny raise. Every so often there is a mail count. Which determines how much time it takes to deliver that amount per route. Your pay is based off of that. So for the second time....Amazon signs a contract with USPS AFTER the mail count. Every postal worker now handling them packages works more, and longer, sometimes multiple trips to the office(not enough room) since the contract with Amazon. No clue how USPS gets away with that one, and whats weird....I can't find much about it anywhere online.

[Jan van Eck + 7,558]

It would appear that the Postal Service has a unique burden - to provide "today" for the retirement benefits that accountants think will be called upon to be paid "tomorrow," at 100% of funding,  Nobody else does that.  Nobody - and I mean Nobody - attempts to provide for all possible future benefits payments out of current revenues. 

If the USPS did not have that pre-payment burden, but paid retirement benefits as they went along, my guess is that postage rates would be half of what they are today, at least for letters, and the Service would run just fine. 

I recall that back in the 1950's first-class letter mail was delivered six (6) times a day in Central London, the business district. 

In the USA, at that time (and before, back in the 1930's)  the USPS had these railway cars that took on and dropped off sacks of mail "on the fly," using special platform posts, and collecting hooks attached to springs on the rail cars. The train whistled through doing 70 and the town's mail was picked up by the train postal crew from that pole and they also tossed the incoming town mail out onto the platform from the doorway of the moving railcar.  Worked fine!  Could not do that today, OSHA would complain. 

In Canada as late as 1970  (probably later) mail and small packages were sent along on fixed-route inter-city buses, dropped off and picked up as they went.  Another cheap system that worked like a charm. 

In all the above, the systems worked fine and gave exemplary service, as long as Congress and the politicians stayed out of the picture.  Once the politicians started being busybodies, the innovation collapsed and the Service started bleeding cash. The effort to deliver small packages, both for Amazon and for DHL e-parcel, is to optionalize the strengths of two delivery systems:  the trunk trucking of the non-post carriers, and the local-delivery systems optimized in final, "last-mile" delivery by the post office.  Management should be complimented for its efforts to spread the overhead and bring in new revenue streams. 

Edited September 18, 2018 by Jan van Eck