The Postal Service has released its financial statement for January 2013. Compared to January of last year, First Class revenues are down slightly less than 1%, while Standard Mail revenues are up 2.6%, Periodicals are up nearly 3%, and Packages are up over 4%. Total revenues are up 4.4% for the month and up almost one percent for the year … Read More
Leveraging intellectual property: Where’s Mr. ZIP when you need him?
Last week the Postal Service announced that it is partnering with Wahconah, a Cleveland-based clothing manufacturer, to develop a new line of "smart apparel" (also known as "wearable electronics") called “Rain Heat & Snow.” The USPS press release about the announcement can be found on the Wahconah site, but for some reason it has disappeared from the USPS website, leaving a … Read More
The Magical Postal Publicity Tour: Over 7,000 POStPlan Meetings, and Counting
The Postal Service is plowing ahead with its community meetings on POStPlan.  As of Friday, it had held 6,741 meetings, and it has scheduled an additional 474 through March 15. That’s a total of 7,215 meetings — well more than half the list of 13,000 post offices that are seeing their hours reduced.  Before last week, implementation was complete at about … Read More
New survey shows over 80 percent oppose ending Saturday delivery
Last week, the Postal Service released a survey it had commissioned with IPSOS, a Paris-based market-research company, showing that 80 percent of Americans supported the Postal Service’s decision to end Saturday delivery.  Save the Post Office conducted its own survey over the past week, and it shows something completely different: 84 percent were strongly opposed to moving to five-day delivery.  (Thanks … Read More
On the Privatization of the Post Office
Published on Feb 16, 2013 Update on the attempted privatization of the US Post Office. Guest is Portland Oregon retired letter carrier Jamie Partridge. Jamie addresses the fraudulent ongoing corporate spin portraying the Post Office as losing money due to email and the internet. Besides losing Saturday deliveries,the Post Master General is seeking to close many processing plants which would … Read More
It’s Presidents’ Day: The good, the bad, and the BOG
BY MARK JAMISON On Wednesday, February 7, Postmaster General Patrick Donahoe stood before members of the press and the American people to announce that the Postal Service would end Saturday mail delivery and collections in August. An announcement like this was inevitable. No one who has followed the travails of the Postal Service over the past few years could have … Read More
The Postal Service has a survey on ending Saturday delivery: So do we
The Postal Service has just released the results of a survey it commissioned on its plan to end Saturday delivery. The Postal Service press release says the survey shows that 80 percent of Americans support the new delivery schedule. Before you take that conclusion very seriously, there are a few things you should know about the new survey. First, … Read More
The Postal Service Q1 2013 financials — not bad, but Saturday delivery still must go
The Postal Service has just released its 10-Q financial statement on the first quarter of the 2013 Fiscal Year (i.e., the last three months of 2012). Â Despite all the doom-and-gloom talk about its humongous deficit, the Postal Service had a decent first quarter. Â While First-Class mail dropped off again (compared to last year’s first quarter), Standard Mail and parcels were … Read More
The Postal Service Q1 2013 financials — not bad, but Saturday delivery still must go
The Postal Service has just released its 10-Q financial statement on the first quarter of the 2013 Fiscal Year (i.e., the last three months of 2012). Despite all the doom-and-gloom talk about its humongous deficit, the Postal Service had a decent first quarter. While First-Class mail dropped off again (compared to last year's first quarter), Standard Mail and parcels were … Read More
Nothing stays these couriers (except on Saturdays): The Postal Service moves to five-day delivery
The Postal Service is going to stop delivering mail on Saturdays. The change will take place in August. The Postal Service will continue to deliver parcels and to PO boxes on Saturdays, but that's about it. The Postmaster General says the move is expected to save $2 billion a year once the plan is fully implemented. What about … Read More
A Bronx Cheer for the Postal Service: The Fire Sale of Historic Post Offices Continues
Earlier this week the Postal Service announced that it planned to sell the historic post office on the Grand Concourse in the Bronx, New York. There's an excellent article about the post office by David W. Dunlap in Friday's New York Times. The Bronx General Post Office is the largest of twenty-nine Depression-era post offices in New York City. Built in … Read More