Post office faces cash shortage by end of year

[The Northerner]

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The Republican-controlled House opened the envelope of postal finances on Wednesday and what it pulled out wasn't pretty.

Unless things change, the post office will run out of money by the end of the fiscal year in October, Postmaster General Patrick R. Donahoe told the House Oversight subcommittee on the postal service.

Donahoe said that as of Sept. 30 his agency will owe the federal government a payment of $5.5 billion to fund medical costs, in advance, for future retirees, and in November it will need to make a $1.3 billion payment for worker's compensation.

"The Postal Service will not have the cash available to make both of these payments. We need legislation this year to address that fact," he said.

Read more: http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/U/US_POSTAL_FINANCES?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2011-03-02-16-32-28

[arbusto_baboso]

1. Wasn't the USPS semi-privatized some years back?

How exactly did that "save us money" again????

[customerserviceguy]

2. Double the cost of junk mail

Then we'll see who the distributors of sorted litter really feel they need to send crap to.

Buy something from a company once, and they'll piss all the profit from that sale away on multiple attempts at trying to sell you some other junk. If that works, and the suckers buy more stuff, then keep sending the catalogs and such, but if two or three mailings don't entice a person to plunk down more cash, then stop killing trees to send out 3-D spam.

You'd think that the captains of industry would figure that out, but if you increase the costs of distributing nonsense, then maybe they'll make the calculation a little faster. And if they don't, then they can subsidize the post office before it dies.

[msongs]

3. USPS = world's biggest handler of recyclable trash nt

[customerserviceguy]

4. The only problem is

by the time it makes it to the recycler, much fossil fuel has been used to haul it from coast to coast.

Junk mail should have a carbon tax on it, if nothing else.