Government Unemployment Watch: USPS To Close 3,653 Post Offices (one out of every 9) list included

[stockholmer]

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/government-unemployment-watch-usps-close-3700-post-offices

The problem with bloated central planning is that when austerity hits, the bloat goes away, and millions of government employees suddenly find themselves trying to enter the private sector, realizing they have absolutely no real competitive and marketable skills (more or less like investment bankers and hedge fund managers). And while America has yet to even remotely sniff austerity, the unemployment rate is already set to spike, after the USPS just announced it was preparing to close 3,653 out of its 32,000 total post office sites. Per UPI: "The U.S. Postal Service is expected to announce a plan to close 3,653 post offices, mostly in small communities, in a cost-cutting measure, officials said. http://www.upi.com/Top_News/US/2011/07/25/USPS-to-close-3653-post-offices/UPI-73191311626009/

A USPS spokeswoman said the post offices were chosen because they get the "least amount of foot traffic and retail sales," The Wall Street Journal reported Monday." Trust the bureaucrats to try spinning this bad news as good: "They also were selected because there may be local businesses that could provide some postal services to the community, spokeswoman Sue Brennan said." Well by that logic there are private businesses that cover every aspect of the government's "job" much better, and much more efficiently, up to and including that of the Fed (sorry, that already is private). Does that mean we should outsource every aspect of the bloated centrally planned economy that America has become? Of course the answer is yes, but that just does not jive with the current iteration of kleptofascist socialism.

More:

The list of the closures, http://about.usps.com/news/electronic-press-kits/expandedaccess/statelist.htm

amounting to about 11 percent of the USPS' post offices nationwide, was made public Tuesday by Postmaster General Patrick Donahoe,

snip

So between corporate and now public sector layoffs, expect the unemployment rate to resume climbing steadily to double digits, hitting it some time in Q4, at which point QE3 will be inevitable, as Goldman predicted yesterday.

[CountAllVotes]

1. three of them are not far from where I live

Rest in peace Honeydew Post Office! :cry:

Bit by bit, America is being destroyed and the history goes with it.

:(

:kick:

[Enrique]

2. do you agree with the RW spin in that article?

just for the record...

[stockholmer]

7. USPS is losing over $1 billion per month, and unfortunately there is no way that a

20 year on-the-job mail carrier will ever come close to replacing the pay scale they were making in the US private sector. They do, for the most part, lack the skills demanded by private firms to attain that level of compensation. Be that fair or not, it is regrettably a modern economic truism in the US of 2011.

http://postandparcel.info/40593/news/usps-freezes-staff-bonuses-as-losses-hit-1bn-per-month/


That being said, it would be easy to subsidize the USPS, if the US were not bailing out (in corporate fascist manner) private banks with trillions in looted wealth, as Bernie Sanders just exposed http://sanders.senate.gov/newsroom/news/?id=9e2a4ea8-6e73-4be2-a753-62060dcbb3c3 and spending $1.2 trillion + per year on empiric wars and the police state. http://motherjones.com/politics/2011/03/real-us-national-security-budget-1-trillion


I agree that the public sector employees are being scapegoated overall, and this is due to the fact that for the last 50 years plus (up until 10 or so years ago), a public sector job was NOT paid more than a private sector job, but came with additional security. Now that the private sector jobs(and salaries) are being crushed by design, the public workers find themselves defending what is simply a 'status quo' (or even a loss in pay, but less than how much the private worker has lost on average) in wages and benefits.

It is not that public sector workers are over-paid, it is that the private sector has been decimated.

[SoCalDem]

9. It's sad, but many people no longer even use the Post Office

It's been YEARS since I set foot in one. I use online bill pay, and the only "mail" we get is JUNK which goes from mailbox to recycle bin.

packages get sent via Fed Ex or UPS..and I even send them to work with my husband & they get picked up..(no waiting in line)

I suspect that more will get shut down as time goes by:(

[Davis_X_Machina]

3. I looked at the Maine list...

...and it looks like the "least amount of foot traffic and retail sales," except for the Portland downtown PO, and Augusta - Water Street, was pretty much the case.

The 'post office' in a lot of those places was a desk and a scale and a set of pigeonholes in the corner of a local store well within living memory, and the postmaster was the storekeeper. I imagine we'll go back to that.

The preservation of the service, with universal coverage, at a more or less flat rate, is what needs to be defended tooth and nail.

[snappyturtle]

4. Thanks. nt

[indurancevile]

5. "central planning"? discount the source.

[FreeStateDemocrat]

6. How many workers would lose their jobs in a bad economy?

Correct me if wrong, but I don't think most postal workers would not be in demand in the private sector.

[angryxyouth]

8. A foreshadow

The B Free Franklin post office in Philadelphia is on the chopping block. snip. 316 Market Street is the only active post office in the United States that does not fly a United States flag (because there wasn't yet one in 1775). The postmark "B. Free Franklin" is still used to cancel stamps.

[stockholmer]

10. thanks for the interesting factoid, what a shame they are closing such an important part of history

:(

[jwirr]

11. One in MN that is being closed is so small it is in a private home.

The operator is elderly. That will not hurt much.