Gloom Day Dawning

[Towntalk]

Would I do 99.9% of my mail via E-mail and on line banking if I were truely advovating having to pay for the service? Look, I threw that suggestion up against the wall to see how one of our moderators would react, and obviously he didn't bite.

As far as I'm concerned USP and FedEx are miles ahead of the Post Office, and I tend to agree with you that the U.S. Postal Service should shut down and the service turned over to UPS with VERY limited government interference.

By the way ny moto is ... For free Take ... for buy waste time.

[Rick Rowlands]

Towntalk, are you really advocating that obsolete technologies should be subsidized by new technologies that are replacing it?

Would you have advocated that the railroads paid the owners of the canal that once ran through Youngstown?
Should the phone companies have been paying Western Union since they took all the telegraph business away?
How much should the subsidy be to the whale oil producers from the crude oil industry?

All technologies have their time and place.  The postal service served a need when there was no alternative.  There is now an alternative, so the USPS can either conform itself to serving its now diminished market or go out of business.  If USPS ceased to exist someone else would immediately step in, serve the USPS's customers and make a profit at doing so.  The only reason the USPS is having problems is because government has tied their hands and made it impossible for them to do what it takes to survive.

BTW, even though the telegraph died a hundred years ago, the two companies that provided telegraph service was able to adapt and survive.  Western Union and AT&T (American Telephone & TELEGRAPH) are still with us today.

[Towntalk]

Prior the use of e-mail how did you get your utility bills? The U.S. Mail.

Look, I don't give a hoot how I get my bills just so long as at the end of the month I can go to bed with the full knowledge that no bill collector will hound me, nor do I give a hoot how I pay my bills, or whether some letter carrier will pick them up or whether they're sent via on line banking, for as I've said, I pay all my bills electronically.

Unlike some folks, I'm not overly upset that the processing unit is closing, or that some of the sub-stations are closing. They are not social centers where a bunch of old fogies can sit around over a cup of coffee and chat up the waitress.

I simply threw the idea out there to see how our mutual friend would react, and obviously he didn't take the bate.

[Why?Town]

Tell me Why?Town how do you figure that gas, electric, phone, insurance and cable bills have nothing to do with the post office?

Likewise how do you come to the conclusion that birthday and Christmas cards have nothing to do with the post office?

I think you answered your own question:

1. All my bills come via E-mail.
2. All my bills are paid on-line.
4. All my greeting cards go by E-mail

Any "mail" that isn't physically delivered by the post office has nothing to do with the post office.

Email could be considered a form of competition provided by various IP services, there is no reason the post office should get money from its competion.

Your other comparisons are like comparing apples and brussel sprouts.

I wasn't really comparing anything, I was just proposing some other scenarios where companies could be coerced into making payments to their competitors.

[sfc_oliver]

There might be 5 or 6 in Washington that you could almost trust not to do so...........

[Towntalk]

We all know that Congress would never pass a law that would ISP's to force users to pay a fee for E-mail, or do we? I trust Congress as far as I would trust a Cobra not to bite me. If they thought for a single millisecond that they could get away with it they'd do it in a heartbeat. Without so much as batting an eye, those horse thiefs would rob you of your last penny then with a grin on their faces tell you that it was done in your best interest.

[sfc_oliver]

There might be 5 days a year I do not receive any mail.

I have mailed at least 200 letters/postcards in 2011. (Majority for the American Legion)


And I have mailed about 6 boxes to my sons in Europe......

[Towntalk]

1. All my bills come via E-mail.
2. All my bills are paid on-line.
3. 98% of my E-mail is JUNK MAIL
4. All my greeting cards go by E-mail
5. I've only mailed one small package at the post office in all of 2011, and 0 letters
6. In any given month I only receive 3 snail mail letters.

Tell me Why?Town how do you figure that gas, electric, phone, insurance and cable bills have nothing to do with the post office?

Likewise how do you come to the conclusion that birthday and Christmas cards have nothing to do with the post office?

Your other comparisons are like comparing apples and brussel sprouts.

[Why?Town]

So the post office should get money every time somone uses a service that has nothing to do with the post office?

How  about a surcharge to benefit the gas compny every time I use my electric dryer?

Or a payment to GM and Ford if I buy a Dodge?

[sfc_oliver]

So allow the Government to get it's foot in the door of the internet. Not really such a good Idea. But i would pay 50 cent for a letter. It's still not a bad deal. Would you take a letter from my house to my friends house in Missouri for 50 cent?

[Towntalk]

$5 gas, 50-cent postage stamps?

http://www.cnn.com/2012/02/26/opinion/greene-gas-price/index.html?hpt=hp_c3


A quick fix for post office. Have a program designed that would compel users of E-Mail to pay a fee for using this internet service then require all internet providers to switch to this using Pay Pal with the proceeds going to the Post Office, and block any E-Mail service that does not comply.