USPS announces new clothing line (swallow drink b4 reading)

Don't say I didn't warn you! You'll have to clean your monitor!

Yeah .... you read that right. A CLOTHING line. Leave it to the government to come up with this one ....

So who's gonna run out there and grab a postal parka!?!?

http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2013/02 ... -clothing/

Can I get some cargo shorts and knee high black socks?

BAAAAD visual, Pete ...

Yeah, this isn't going to save the USPS. lol

That's for certain, IOF - all 5 items that they will sell to all 3 people isn't going to do much.

I will play the devils advocate on this one....

Heres why:
The US post office faces a 20 billion dollar deficit this year
...mainly due to the fact that federal law requires them to "secure" ALL future payments in their balance sheets . These payments include but are not limited to pensions and insurance payments to both retired AND non retired postal workers...to the tune of 75 billion dollars
... think about that for 1 minute..!
They are required to set aside money that they need to spend years down the road.
when you consider the service they provide... and the magnitude of their operation... it could actually run in the BLACK...if alowed to operate like a traditional business (such as FedX...or UPS
...in an attempt to close that $20 bil. gap...they will be eliminating saturday deliveries starting this summer (when they could just raise price of postage)
this will save them on estimated $2 billion this year alone .
At least they are making an effort.
Will a clothing line fill the rest of the gap ? Most likely not.
There is a reason UPS or FEDX wont send a letter acoss the country for 42 cents...

All true Rigar.

The USPS is run like every government agency spending "FREE" money ....

All true. But, perhaps the USPS should either be completely shut down and disbanded or cut lose from the government and allowed to run itself as a for profit business like everyone else.

Who in the hell writes letters anymore? No one. You pay bills online, get bills online, newspapers are online, magazines are online. Want to write grammy in the next state? No problem, grammy has a 'puter and receives email. Everything is online now.

Anytime you order a package or something the USPS is on the bottom of the list, it's slow, antiquated and stuck in the past. Either get with the times or GTFO. Yeah, ok, the government is holding a gun to their head and telling them to do this or do that to save their skins. They've set fourth some insane goals that they'll never be able to hit. Ooh, we'll get rid of Saturday delivery and save $2b and ooh we'll sell our uniforms to the public and make $300 total for the year of 2013. They'll spend more money producing civilian grade USPS clothing than they'll make. Sorry, everyone in the USPS that can take their retirement now, should and those not able to should go find a new job. It's a lose lose for them.

I would think it would be better if they worked on improving there delivery time. There is no reason that a letter being mailed within a county should take 3 days to get there.

I know in "Miracle on 34th Street" it was the Post Office Department, but the Postal Service has for decades been a self-sustaining, "quasi-independent" agency that receives very little federal funding. Over the years, I'm under the impression that they've done a pretty good job of innovating to reduce costs. For example, the last I knew most mail is now sorted by machine (instead of armies of mailhandlers) using optical scanners that can decipher even my handwriting. When being sorted for delivery it is placed by machine in the order of addresses in which the carrier delivers the route, so letter carriers can spend most of their day on delivery (instead of spending half the day in the office manually putting the mail in the right sequence). Where mailers could perform processing functions more efficiently than the Postal Service, it offered substantial "worksharing" discounts. AFAIK, the Postal Service also pioneered the operating model for overnight delivery services that FedEx and others eventually copied, and subcontracts its overnight mail movements to those carriers where it is efficient to do so. It has been run largely like a business for a long time, and even before being whacked by the internet it had a pretty good record of innovation and cost control.

In addition to the pre-funding obligations mentioned previously, it has to live with a universal service obligation, and congressional involvement in facility closures. Historically it also was hampered by a cumbersome ratesetting process and prohibitions against contracting with individual mailers, though some of those restrictions have been eased. Overall, I agree that they aren't going to be saved by a new line of clothing, but I don't think they should be criticized for doing what they can to try to survive. And if you're not in a big urban area but still like the idea of having regular mail service, you might consider buying a t-shirt.

Mike

SMITTY wrote:All true Rigar.

The USPS is run like every government agency spending "FREE" money ....

Except, the USPS DOES NOT receive free money from the government. All operating money comes from postage sales, not tax money.
http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2011-09-19/news/chi-110919turney_briefs_1_postal-jobs-postal-service-health-benefits

carlherrnstein wrote:I would think it would be better if they worked on improving there delivery time. There is no reason that a letter being mailed within a county should take 3 days to get there.

My transplant list acceptance letter was sent to me by FEDEX from Boston to North East Ct by 2 day delivery. It only took 7 days to get here.

Bottom line - the government is involved in it's operation in some way. Otherwise, I wouldn't have to render myself defenseless by leaving my sidearm locked up & unloaded with the loaded magazine in a separate locked location, when visiting the post office to mail a letter. Everything the government touches gets *censored* up. Case in point ....

Just FYI, I've used Fed Ex for years and have never had an issue with them. They're cheaper than UPS & more efficient than the Post Office ... and more importantly, they're held accountable for lost or damaged goods, of which I have yet to experience. The USPS on the other hand ...

Rigar wrote: They are required to set aside money that they need to spend years down the road.

That's true to some extent but consider this. The PO has something like 500K employees and a declining business, as that business declines so will the revenue. This last year setting aside the 10 billion in pension obligations they could not meet they had more than a 2 billion operational loss. When you consider the dire straits many of these pension programs are in at the state and local level insuring they can meet these obligations in the future instead of leaving the taxpayer on the hook is imperative.

when you consider the service they provide... and the magnitude of their operation... it could actually run in the BLACK...if alowed to operate like a traditional business (such as FedX...or UPS

Yes they have some limitations but they also benefit from a monopoly on first class mail which also means they have a reason to deliver to every house on the street. Having been in the delivery I can tell you that the way you make money is by having an area saturated, they have 100% saturation. It's a lot harder to make money running around all over the place stopping at one house on block instead of all of them. . They also have other benefits like exclusivity for the mail box.

Having said that I'd agree, they have to allow them to operate more like a private business. For example cut service to the more rural areas down to once a week, etc. If they are going to do that though they have to also lose the monopoly and other benefits.

There is a reason UPS or FEDX wont send a letter acoss the country for 42 cents...

The reason UPS and Fedex doesn't offer a "when it gets there" first class mail service is because it's illegal for them to do it. They only thing they can offer for letters is specialized service like next day service and it's actually a minimum set in law how much they have to charge for it.

beemerboy wrote:Except, the USPS DOES NOT receive free money from the government. All operating money comes from postage sales, not tax money.
http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2011-09-19/news/chi-110919turney_briefs_1_postal-jobs-postal-service-health-benefits

Right now they are 15 billion in debt to the US treasury plus another 10 billion in pension obligations they did not meet this last year. Who is it you think is going to be on the hook for that debt and the pensions if they can't pay it?