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- inactive, on 03/21/2009, -5/+62Feb. 11 (AP) - Obama: Caterpillar to rehire if stimulus passes
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/29139938/
Feb. 17 (AP) - Obama signs stimulus bill
http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5 ...
Mar. 17 (AP) - Caterpillar lays off 2,454 workers in 3 states
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090317/ap_on_bi_ge/ca ... - WordsnCollision, on 03/21/2009, -1/+32Any execs getting bonuses?
- MasterGrief, on 03/22/2009, -2/+31As obsolete as correspondence through the mail is in America today, you can't deny that people need to ship physical objects to each other. You can't email someone a phone or a laptop.
- divinediva, on 03/21/2009, -2/+21There is no economic recovery.
- inactive, on 03/22/2009, -0/+18OK...so laptops aren't sent by USPS. But lots of other things are. And to places that Fed Ex and UPS will not deliver to due to their rural locations.
YOU will be long dead and buried before the US post office is gone. - ousthouse, on 03/22/2009, -1/+17No biggie, I expect Google to release a beta version of real mail delivery any day now.
- kerouac906, on 03/22/2009, -1/+17To all the people who say do away with the USPS - How much do you think Netflix would cost if it was delivered by FedEx or UPS? Go take a look at prices to ship a large envelope, yes a flat envelope with paper in it, on UPS' site. I ship these all the time and if the USPS went away, my customers would suffer higher charges and I may end up with less orders or be forced to reduce my prices to make the 'final' total the same.
Cost for a 6 oz large envelope - From LA to NYC:
USPS First class = $1.68
UPS Ground = $4.57
FedEx Saver = $16.81 - peestandingup, on 03/22/2009, -0/+15Postal Employee: "May I help you?"
Kramer: "Yeah, I'd like to cancel my mail."
Postal Employee: "Certainly. How long would you like us to hold it?"
Kramer: "Oh, no, no. I don't think you get me. I want out, permanently."
Newman: "I'll handle this, Violet. Why don't you take your 3 hour break?
Oh, calm down, everyone. No one's canceling any mail."
Kramer: "Oh, yes, I am."
Newman: "What about your bills?"
Kramer: "The bank can pay 'em."
Newman: "The bank. What about your cards and letters?"
Kramer: "E-mail, telephones, fax machines. Fedex, telex, telegrams,
holograms."
Newman: "All right, it's true! Of course nobody neeeeds mail. What do you
think, you're so clever for figuring that out? But you don't know the half of
what goes on here....So just walk away, Kramer. I beg of you."
Supervisor: "Is everything all right here, Postal Employee Newman?"
Newman: "Yes, sir, I believe everything is all squared away. Isn't it, Mr. Kramer?"
Kramer: "Oh, yeah. As long as I..stop getting mail!!" - bbliss17, on 03/21/2009, -2/+16This is getting worse
- brandita, on 03/22/2009, -1/+14Well that beats cutting one day of mail delivery. And the employees would elect to retire so that's smart really.
- inactive, on 03/22/2009, -5/+17Yeah but physical objects can be shipped point to point through private carriers (UPS, FedEx) or couriers, which take advantage of a market not made obsolete by technology. I don't think laptops really are sent by USPS anyway... their niche shipping market is slow shipment of low-value consumer goods... for other purposes, most people go with private shippers.
- badqat, on 03/21/2009, -1/+10Well, that'd be a yes...even though their performances from a service standpoint and a bottom line standpoint SUCK.
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2009/02/18/postmas ... - erhanaltay, on 03/22/2009, -1/+9While true, your statement can be misleading. The post office has access to a lot of land & doesn't have to pay taxes the same way private carriers like FedEx do.
Secondly, the US Post office has a monopoly on mail boxes, no other entity can legally place anything in a mailbox. This is why FedEx and UPS have to ring your doorbell even for small envelops.
My point -- The post office receives plenty of advantages over private couriers. - inactive, on 03/22/2009, -0/+7In a bad economy, the Post Office would have the advantage over the much more expensive Fed Ex and UPS.
- MasterGrief, on 03/22/2009, -2/+9Well, fair enough.
- XtheXlanternX, on 03/22/2009, -1/+8the government does not subsidize the post office. it operates 100% from its own revenue. the post office subsidizes first class mail with profit from packages, i think that may be where you are confused. people need to understand that the post office uses ZERO taxpayer funds.
- inactive, on 03/22/2009, -1/+7it was never about cutting Saturday delivery. It was about cutting down to 5 days, but that did NOt mean Satruday would go. They sid it would likely be Tuesday.
- CRCulver, on 03/22/2009, -0/+6"Get rid of most door to door service. Urban folks should go to the post office, Suburban to the neighborhood kiosk."
So you want massive queueing, making you wait hours to pick up a couple of letters? Some urban post offices deliver to tens of thousands of customers. - inactive, on 03/21/2009, -13/+19Sometimes recessions are what is needed to finally kill off obsolete businesses and practices. Before the great depression, in America, most farmers used farm animals (horses, donkeys, etc.) to work their fields. Afterward... nobody but the Amish used anything but motorized tractors.
Just some food for thought. Snail mail is basically obsolete... feel free to prove me wrong, but there's not much you can do by snail mail that you can't do electronically. Yeah it's good to keep it going for a while because a lot of people still don't even have computers... but there's going to come a point where it's just not practical to offer government-subsidized paper mail delivery just so a few people don't have to adapt to new technology. - nomojunkscience, on 03/22/2009, -3/+9The Post Office has an illegal monopoly on first class mail and postcards
- kingatrock, on 03/22/2009, -1/+7glad you weren't around during the great depression.
- inactive, on 03/22/2009, -0/+6The plan was never for Saturday, it was for Tuesday.
- inactive, on 03/22/2009, -1/+7economy fail.
- akula89, on 03/22/2009, -1/+6laptops are sent by USPS.. not in the numbers you see with UPS/FedEx but they are for sure.
- XtheXlanternX, on 03/22/2009, -0/+5unlike fedex and UPS, the post office is mandated by law to deliver everywhere in the US. this means they have to run routes in north dakota where the carriers drive a few hundred miles a day for a couple hundred houses. when you couple this with the fact that more and more people are getting their bills via email/online and the declining revenue from magazines and ad mail, it is easy to see how the post office could be having trouble. also consider how amazing it is that you can drop something in the mail for 42 cents in california and it will be across the country in a few days. 42 cents. seriously. for 10 bucks, someone will take a pair of shoes from LA to new york for you, picking them up at your day and dropping them off at your friends door. i'd say we're getting a pretty good deal, and the post office is going to have to reevaluate how it is structured in order to adjust to the declining amount of mail is being sent.
- dmbftp, on 03/22/2009, -0/+5"1) Move to 3 day/week delivery (Stagger all of the routes MWF and TuThS and cut the number of carriers in half)"
Business would not like this. - h8f8kes, on 03/22/2009, -0/+5Funny you ask -
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2009/feb/17/in ... - PeppermintPig, on 03/22/2009, -0/+4It would be nice to see what would happen if there wasn't a monopoly involved.
- Dumbledorito, on 03/22/2009, -4/+8FedEx and UPS are no substitute for Postal Service, and they don't want to be. They cherry-pick the more lucrative shipping options (packages) and couldn't replace the USPS's infrastructure which provides pickup and delivery to every address in the nation 6 days a week.
- Trekhawk, on 03/22/2009, -1/+5Normally I'd use this as an opportunity to bash the inefficiency of government and praise private industry, but FedEx isn't immune from the recession either. http://www.bizjournals.com/sanjose/stories/2009/03 ...
- Duncan3, on 03/22/2009, -1/+5All they do now is cram a big pile of junkmail in my box six days a week. That's it.
They clearly cannot compete with email, which does the same thing all SEVEN days a week. - Chakat, on 03/22/2009, -0/+4They don't cherry pick, it's against the law for them to go into the first class mail business. And even with packages, the law requires them to be more expensive than the post office.
- erhanaltay, on 03/22/2009, -0/+4RobotLeAwesome, they didn't 'kill' their competition. All monopolies are created by governments. No other entity is allowed to compete with the US Post office on mail delivery and no other entity can place objects inside residential mail boxes.
- NorthMass, on 03/22/2009, -0/+3So the way you are painting it is that it is a privatized company that is kept a monopoly due to federal regulations? I always assumed it was simply government controlled, but I stand corrected.
- XtheXlanternX, on 03/22/2009, -1/+4the post office is essentially privitized. their board of directors is congress. they don't use government funds. the only way the government interferes is by saying they have to run to everyone in the country so that takes a chomp off of their profit.
- charliebucketts, on 03/22/2009, -2/+5Stop my junk mail!
- CRCulver, on 03/22/2009, -1/+4Not illegal. The Founding Fathers believed a public postal service was vital for the nation, and ensured it was instituted by law. You might as well rave about how the government has an illegal monopoly on coinage.
- inactive, on 03/22/2009, -1/+4Yeah, they've sure killed their competition in such a lucrative business there...
- JustinCase18, on 03/23/2009, -0/+3They also like that friendly young man at the gas station, who checks their oil, cleans their wind shield and fills up the old petrol.
- ianweller, on 03/22/2009, -0/+3The post office should not be privatized. That would be like privatizing e-mail providers or telephone companies.
Oh, wait. - davechua, on 03/22/2009, -0/+3Yeap. But it's practically a sunset industry, with continued revenue decline.
- coolio911911, on 03/22/2009, -0/+3whats better, college acceptance on the computer or in the mail? personally, i enjoy getting that massive envelope instead of clicking and getting an accepted, i like the paper :)
- kerouac906, on 03/22/2009, -0/+3I ship prints to people that I sell online with USPS. Their 'privatized' competitors UPS, DHL, & FedEx are much more expensive and far less reliable. My customers enjoy saving their cash while getting relatively fast shipping for the price. I sell more prints this way too.
- kerouac906, on 03/22/2009, -0/+3Tell that to the 60 & up crowd. They love their mail, their daily newspaper, their nightly news shows, etc...
- faskippy, on 03/22/2009, -0/+3You are so full of *****.
- ousthouse, on 03/22/2009, -3/+5Weird... so the ONE failing major company that doesn't get a bailout happens to be the one that's already owned by the US government?
- CRCulver, on 03/22/2009, -0/+2Because, to look at the disastrous example of a few Western European countries, privitization results in lesser service, higher prices, and less reliable delivery. The USPS, able to deliver to any place in the country (even rural routes) six days a week, and whose business relies entirely on the post (instead of trying to make ends meet by selling candy and gum in post offices) is in fact the envy of some EU private postal services.
- scaaven2, on 03/22/2009, -0/+2shouldn't you be wearing the bucket?
- ianweller, on 03/22/2009, -0/+2"Allow opt out of junk mail."
Junk mail kind of helps the postal service. - umanchik, on 03/22/2009, -1/+3I guess they are not getting any bail out money
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