Ebay Shipping via USPS

[RandyM]

The USPS financial troubles are based in the fact that the congress passed a law requiring it to fund their retirement program to 100%. Add to that they are still bound by agreements with other countries that were made in the 1800’s. They are in a situation no other companies face.

Most Fortune 500 companies fund at 75% to 80% and update contracts and prices as situations change. USPS doesn’t have this luxury. Congress must approve rate and contract changes

After the GM bankruptcy the government decided USPS must fully fund their retirement program. GM just handed it over to the Union. GM still pays the Union the agreed upon contributions. However it’s not all going into the retirement fund. The UAW retirement system is under funded and currently in trouble.

In our area anything sent to a local address goes to Milwaukee for sorting. Then it comes back to the local branch for delivery. The decision was made several years ago that it would be more cost effective to send everything on a 80 mile round trip than it was to maintain a local sorting facility

Thanks for proving my point.

 

[twraska]

That is actually far more efficient than every post office having to sort the mail locally and having multiple trucks going in all different directions. If the local post office did the sorting, each of them would need to have trucks making stops at all the other post offices. By sending to a regional sorting facility, they do the sorting and there is one truck going to the destination instead of many. I would not want to even dream of how expensive postage would be if each local post office did their own sorting and distribution.

But,,,, we used to have a slot for our local town mail. The workers took it from that slot and put it in the boxes. Now it goes to Houston or whatever distribution center is less crowded, sorted, then sent back to be put into the boxes. No way in hell is that cheaper.

 

[jwmay]

It’s funny to me how so many of us, with admittedly no actual real world experience on the subject at hand, can so easily and confidently assert single cause explanations for remarkably complex international affairs.

I’d now ask the moderators or the person/people who want to blame single formerly elected officials to revise his post, as it is a blatant violation of forum rules.

I have useless, divisive and completely unproven theories about political leaders too. It has no place on the hobby machinist forum.

 

[Ischgl99]

But,,,, we used to have a slot for our local town mail. The workers took it from that slot and put it in the boxes. Now it goes to Houston or whatever distribution center is less crowded, sorted, then sent back to be put into the boxes. No way in hell is that cheaper.

You have to pay a worker at your local post office to sort that mail, it costs pennies to do that at the regional sorting center, so yes it is cheaper, otherwise they would have kept them. They probably get very little mail as well, other than a few Christmas cards, I can’t think of anything I have mailed locally in years, and those go into my mailbox or the drive up box outside the post office.

 

[projectnut]

I do recall 1 post in this thread that mentioned an elected official. However in keeping with the no politics rule it has been deleted

Everyone realizes it’s a complicated issue and many reasons have been forwarded for the situation that exists. Many of us have had years of experience with the logistics of supply chains. Those same principals apply to any product moving from one destination to another.

It doesn’t matter whether the product is a machine, a machine part, or a letter of certification. The most direct route isn’t necessarily the most efficient or least expensive for either the shipper or the recipient.

No one is claiming to have a simplistic solution. Knowing some of the intricacies of system does allow for a little more patience and understanding as to why it might take as much time as it does to get something from point A to point B

 

[ltlvt]

I do recall 1 post in this thread that mentioned an elected official. However in keeping with the no politics rule it has been deleted

Everyone realizes it’s a complicated issue and many reasons have been forwarded for the situation that exists. Many of us have had years of experience with the logistics of supply chains. Those same principals apply to any product moving from one destination to another.

It doesn’t matter whether the product is a machine, a machine part, or a letter of certification. The most direct route isn’t necessarily the most efficient or least expensive for either the shipper or the recipient.

No one is claiming to have a simplistic solution. Knowing some of the intricacies of system does allow for a little more patience and understanding as to why it might take as much time as it does to get something from point A to point B

I totally agree with you and jwmay I should have not used the name and included politics into my reply. When my mind gets triggered to the reality of life my keyboard becomes unbridled. I did feel ashamed as I was writing the reply but just could not put lipstick on the pig. I commend those who called attention to it not meeting the guidelines and also commend the moderator who deleted it. My hobby as a machinist is what I live for in my old age and is my escape from the political soap opera. Please accept my apology for getting carried away.

 

[RandyM]

It’s funny to me how so many of us, with admittedly no actual real world experience on the subject at hand, can so easily and confidently assert single cause explanations for remarkably complex international affairs.

I’d now ask the moderators or the person/people who want to blame single formerly elected officials to revise his post, as it is a blatant violation of forum rules.

I have useless, divisive and completely unproven theories about political leaders too. It has no place on the hobby machinist forum.

The best way to report a forum violation is to use the report button on the offending post. That way it assures the staff will see it and attend to it and the violator. A post on a thread can be easily missed by the staff.

 

[woodchucker]

I would totally agree that the salaried workforce at GM got the short end of the stick along with the taxpayers and the stockholders. While neither my wife nor I worked for GM at the time we were both in the other two categories. At the time it was hard for me to believe stock that once sold in the $80.00 range suddenly became worthless, and long agreed on pensions were cut to the bone.

We also had a POS 2008 Buick Lucerne at the time. Every time we turned around something else either fell off or broke. The heated windshield washer tank was just removed as part of a recall because they kept starting fires, the blind side traffic detector was replaced twice, the lane keeping feature was a joke, the driver's door handle fell off, the driver's memory seat was repaired 5 times and eventually replaced, and the list goes on and on. With all the problems it had we spent more time in the dealership than we had with any previous car. The final blow was when the service manager at the dealership told us how lucky we were that they were even repairing the vehicle under warranty since it was built under the old GM that was now bankrupt. Until that time, we had always bought GM cars, I even worked in one of their assembly plants while going to school. That was the final straw. We switched brands of vehicles, and I don't see ever going back again.

Learning from the experience of others I was glad I had the option to take a one-time buyout when I retired. I didn't trust the new management of the company I retired from any more than I trusted the management of GM. It turned out to be a good decision. The company was split into 2 new companies, and the one that I would have been working for was sold. They're still in business but struggling compared to where they were 20 years ago.

that took you a long time. I bailed in the 80s. Quality was just not there. Once I went to Honda, I never went back to American. I tried a few times, but they weren't matching up. It didn't matter which American company.

 

[projectnut]

I did have some loyalty to GM. My father worked in the Janesville Fisher Body plant for 25 years as a steam fitter. I worked there 5 years while going to school. We had no problem with their products until the late 1990s. We took one more chance in 2008 hoping sales would increase sufficiently to avoid bankruptcy. It was a bad choice and we ended up with a terrible product

I didn’t go quite as far afield as you did. Since then we’ve purchased 6 Ford products and have been completely satisfied with all of them. We usually put 100,00 to 125,000 miles on each before trading them in

 

[woodchucker]

Google news pushed this on the news screen.

It may explain why USPS is struggling.

Google News

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