The New Yorker: Why does the U.S.P.S. seem to be so comparatively uncreative? To find out about new initiatives that I might have missed, I called Gary Reblin, the service’s vice-president of new products and innovation, a position created in 2012, as the postal system was beginning to recognize the depth of its troubles. Reblin told me that, in order to cut costs, he and his colleagues have been looking at closing some post offices and, instead, offering smaller-scale postal services—an approach that countries like Germany have taken, to good effect. Their attempts to generate more revenue, though, didn’t leave me feeling hopeful.  Read more.