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Wednesday, September 7, 2011

What are we going to do without the mailman??!!??

No not this mailman.

This one.
Seriously.  I've been reading some very ominous news stories about the US Postal Service.  Seems that the USPS is going to be broke by next year if something isn't done.   Pshaw you might say, who cares?

Well first off I do.  Second, the USPS has been around as long as America has been America, and is the only one of a few government agencies explicitly authorized in the Constitution. 

I guess I care because I live in a place where the Post Office is the cheapest way to send stuff.  Living in Alaska, UPS and FedEx are hella expensive to use, since we can't get ground rates.  This means my collecting, trading, and selling future could be in jeopardy!!  Now I realize that something is going to be done.  What?, that is is above my pay grade.  I can see Saturday delivery being halted.  That's alright with me.  I'm bummed that up to 200,000 people might lose there jobs though.  It's funny they talk about layoffs and cut backs but whenever I go into a Post Office it seems there's only one person working the counter and there's a line out the door.  Seems the PO is the place to work being the second largest employer in the US, behind Wally World and not a bad one at that, of course it wasn't always like that, anyone ever read Post Office by Charles Bukowski? 

And I know that the Post Office is often the only government presence in some areas.  Especially rural Alaska, and the lower 48. 

Sorry it just got be thinking what it would be like with out the US Postal Service.  Some say let the private carriers take up the slack.  Hmmm.  I don't know, I distrust corporations as much as I do big government. 

Any thoughts?

How could this affect you?


cb out
at

2 comments:

  1. Potch September 7, 2011 at 10:15 AM

    I would be stunned if this went away for good but I imagine there will be some pain (with the obvious being the lost jobs).

    I can live without Saturday delivery and even another day without (although I haven't heard that discussed) but I imagine on top of it that some folks will wake up one day without a nearby post office.

    Funny, until I got back into card collecting, I had little use for snail mail, so I guess I was part of the problem. Since February though, I'm a frequent guest.

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  2. Paul HadsallSeptember 7, 2011 at 4:13 PM

    They've been talking about closing a bunch of post offices along with cutting back the number of days of delivery.

    USPS has the best package rates, so that's who I use when I want to mail stuff. Between mail order, card trades and autograph request letters, I do more than many to give the postal service my business.

    We're probably going to have to decide if USPS is important enough to run as a service even if it loses money, or let it go, though.

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