The Post Office - Too Big To Fail?
However, he points out that it would be unrealistic to think that the USPS would ever be shut down completely.
According to Brett, "It’s probably one of those agencies, like banks, that are simply too big to fail. The USPS also has too much importance in American history to not exist. After all, there is a governmental decree stating that the USPS is obligated to serve all Americans, regardless of geography, at uniform price and quality."
He goes on to say, "According to recent USPS figures, however, mail volume is down nearly 20 percent since 2007. The decreased activity has landed USPS in a situation where the cost of operating its processing and delivering network exceed the revenue brought in by the price of postage and products. USPS also reported that collection mail was down nearly 50 percent over the last decade."
Robert Cavinder, USPS Appalachian District Manager in an opinion piece for a local newspaper is quoted in the piece as saying, “Even when the economy recovers, mail volume is not expected to return to previous peak levels. The decline has left the Postal Service with a mail processing network that is too large for the amount of mail it now processes.”
To read the entire article, click here.
In a related article that appears in the Washington Post, staff writer Ed O'Keefe says Postmaster General Patrick R. Donahoe, shown above, is "targeting about 2,000 postal stations and branches - smaller, mostly leased sites often in skyscrapers or shopping plazas - that don't employ letter carriers," for closure.
Donahoe is quoted as saying, "We have post offices out there that we have two customers, or three customers come in in an entire day. Remember the Maytag repair man? He used to have the loneliest job in the world. We probably have about 5,000 postmasters that have the loneliest job in the world."
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