I guess charging for a service and receiving taxpayer funding isn't enough anymore
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I recently had some stuff shipped to an old address and had to scramble to get things corrected. Since the seller had already shipped it, I had a change of address filed with the postal service. I did this online for speed, and since this is a non-profit that charges a fee for the convenience, it should be fairly no-nonsense, right?
![[The penultimate page has one of those misleading offer thingys]](http://files.miffthefox.info/choa1.png)
![[The final page has a big ad that makes it unclear you've finished.]](http://files.miffthefox.info/choa2.png)
I was looking for the "skip" button on the final page there until I noticed the text that said the process was complete.
At least it went through. I hope.
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Does the Post Office receive taxpayer funding now? When did that happen?
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@blakeyrat said:
Does the Post Office receive taxpayer funding now?
They are going to need it due to the increadibly generous retirement plans they have to pay for and not being able to close service in areas that are moneypits, but yeah you do have a point.
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@blakeyrat said:
Does the Post Office receive taxpayer funding now? When did that happen?
Oh, I assumed they did since they were ran by the government.
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I asked someone and he said they got a one-time infusion of money to keep their pension plan from failing, apparently. Other than that, they're self-sufficient, and in some years actually make a profit.
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@blakeyrat said:
they got a one-time infusion of money to keep their pension plan from failing
IIRC it has happened more than once and we are getting really close to needing another one.
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Well whatever, at least they aren't Amtrak.
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@blakeyrat said:
Well whatever, at least they aren't Amtrak.Oh, sorry I didn't mean to imply that they aren't leaps and bounds ahead of most of the government run things; just that there is a big gap between good for a government run operation and not run terribly.
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So where exactly is the WTF of presenting additional possible actions that some consumers may indeed want..after they have clearly displayed (twice that I see) that your desired action was completed???
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There's no WTF, Miff is just kind of dim.
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No, the USPS doesn't receive any taxpayer funding -- in fact, it is required by law to make large payments to the US Treasury each year. Over the past few years, the USPS has reported large losses, but these are entirely due to the required payments to the Treasury.
The two most recently due payments were missed; Congress is supposed to do something about this but hasn't. But in no sense is this a taxpayer subsidy of the USPS. The USPS pension plan is still solvent, actually in much better shape than most private companies' pension plans.
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@OfficeMigrant said:
it is required by law to make large payments to the US Treasury each year.
Areuh?
Is this why stamps cost so much?
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@dhromed said:
@OfficeMigrant said:
it is required by law to make large payments to the US Treasury each year.
Areuh?
Is this why stamps cost so much?
There are a number of factors. The single larests is the insane requirements being imposed regarding funding of the pension plan far into the future [something no private corporation in America is required to do].
If you own (or hypotheticaly owned) a business, could you afford to provide complete funding TODAY, so that every employee (assuming they all stay till retirement age) would have a fully funded pension (i.e. all the anticipated payments which may occur up to thrity years in the future is sitting as "cash in the bank" today)????
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@blakeyrat said:
I asked someone and he said they got a one-time infusion of money to keep their pension plan from failing, apparently. Other than that, they're self-sufficient, and in some years actually make a profit.
They do receive funding for the free shipping of media for the blind.
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@locallunatic said:
and not being able to close service in areas that are moneypits
The Postal Service is required to deliver mail everywhere. And that's not an entirely unreasonale thing. Even in this modern age of the interwebs, mail service is still important and the Postal Service can't just tell people "Sorry, no mail for you. Deal with it".But unprofitable rural post offices aren't the real problem. Employee pensions wouldn't be a problem either, except Congress passed a law in 2005 requiring the Postal Service to make insanely excessive payments into the pension system that essentially amount to setting aside money for the pensions of employees that haven't even been hired yet. The real problems are (a) Mismanagement that far exceeds any WTFs ever posted here and (b) The Postal Service continuing to cling to the bizaare idea that delivering billions of pieces of junk mail at a loss can somehow be profitable.
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In the olden days, you could just go to the post office and fill in a piece of paper. No body plastered you with ads. In fact, you can still do this today. It's just that this online thing is so amenable to advertising that something as simple as an address change requires 6 web pages, with plenty of opportunity to get you hooked.
The WTF is that it requires 6 web pages to complete a change of address, where at the physical post office it's a 3x5 slip of paper.
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Congress passed a law in 2005 requiring the Postal Service to make insanely excessive payments into the pension system that essentially amount to setting aside money for the pensions of employees that haven't even been hired yet.
You misspelled "born".
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@DrPepper said:
In the olden days, you could just go to the post office and fill in a piece of paper. No body plastered you with ads. In fact, you can still do this today. It's just that this online thing is so amenable to advertising that something as simple as an address change requires 6 web pages, with plenty of opportunity to get you hooked.
The WTF is that it requires 6 web pages to complete a change of address, where at the physical post office it's a 3x5 slip of paper.
On the other hand it will be quicker for you to fill out the form on the website and cilck through the 6 pages, then it would to hand fill the form, stand in line, and deal with the USPS employee.
Also good luck finding a post office that still has paper forms that haven't been pilfered for the lowes coupons.
