<html><body><div style="color:#000; background-color:#fff; font-family:times new roman, new york, times, serif;font-size:12pt"><div><span>The Pony Express charged $5.00 per 1/2 oz in 1860. That's the equivalent of $120 today.<br></span></div><div> </div><div>Ron Force<br>Moscow Idaho USA<br></div><div style="font-family: times new roman, new york, times, serif; font-size: 12pt;"><div style="font-family: times new roman, new york, times, serif; font-size: 12pt;"><font face="Arial" size="2"><hr size="1"><b><span style="font-weight:bold;">From:</span></b> Tom Hansen <thansen@moscow.com><br><b><span style="font-weight: bold;">To:</span></b> the lockshop <lockshop@pull.twcbc.com><br><b><span style="font-weight: bold;">Cc:</span></b> "<Vision2020@moscow.com>" <Vision2020@moscow.com><br><b><span style="font-weight: bold;">Sent:</span></b> Monday, September 5, 2011 11:44 AM<br><b><span style="font-weight: bold;">Subject:</span></b>
Re: [Vision2020] Postal Service Is Nearing Default as Losses Mount<br></font><br><div id="yiv1039897364"><div>And considerably more expensive!</div><div><br></div><div>Worst case scenario, there is always FEDEX, UPS, etc.<br><br><div>Seeya round town, Moscow.</div><div><br></div><div>Tom Hansen</div><div>Moscow, Idaho</div><div> </div><div>"When all is said and done, have you done or said enough? Have you just gone along for the ride, or have you steered destiny's hotrod? When you leave this world, did you make it any better than it was when you arrived? All you need is all you've got: your wits and the clothes on your back. Your epitaph is yours to earn. Your legacy is yours to make."</div><div><br></div><div>- Author Unknown</div><div><br></div><div> </div></div><div><br>On Sep 5, 2011, at 11:03, "the lockshop" <<a rel="nofollow" ymailto="mailto:lockshop@pull.twcbc.com" target="_blank"
href="mailto:lockshop@pull.twcbc.com">lockshop@pull.twcbc.com</a>> wrote:<br><br></div><div></div><blockquote type="cite"><div>
<div><font face="Arial" size="2">This would have to be one of the excedingly rare
instances where Mr. Hanson could be correct. Selling the USPS to a private
entity, as was the pony express, would almost certainly result in a better run
system.</font></div>
<div><font face="Arial" size="2"></font> </div>
<div><font face="Arial" size="2">g</font></div>
<blockquote style="PADDING-RIGHT:0px;PADDING-LEFT:5px;MARGIN-LEFT:5px;BORDER-LEFT:#000000 2px solid;MARGIN-RIGHT:0px;">
<div style="FONT:10pt arial;">----- Original Message ----- </div>
<div style="BACKGROUND:#e4e4e4;FONT:10pt arial;"><b>From:</b>
<a rel="nofollow" title="thansen@moscow.com" ymailto="mailto:thansen@moscow.com" target="_blank" href="mailto:thansen@moscow.com">Tom Hansen</a>
</div>
<div style="FONT:10pt arial;"><b>To:</b> <a rel="nofollow" title="deco@moscow.com" ymailto="mailto:deco@moscow.com" target="_blank" href="mailto:deco@moscow.com">Art Deco</a> </div>
<div style="FONT:10pt arial;"><b>Cc:</b> <a rel="nofollow" title="Vision2020@moscow.com" ymailto="mailto:Vision2020@moscow.com>" target="_blank" href="mailto:Vision2020@moscow.com%3E"><</a><a rel="nofollow" ymailto="mailto:Vision2020@moscow.com" target="_blank" href="mailto:Vision2020@moscow.com">Vision2020@moscow.com</a>> </div>
<div style="FONT:10pt arial;"><b>Sent:</b> Monday, September 05, 2011 9:57
AM</div>
<div style="FONT:10pt arial;"><b>Subject:</b> Re: [Vision2020] Postal Service
Is Nearing Default as Losses Mount</div>
<div><br></div>
<div>The answer . . .</div>
<div><image.jpeg><br>
<div>Seeya round town, Moscow.</div>
<div><br></div>
<div>Tom Hansen</div>
<div>Moscow, Idaho</div>
<div> </div>
<div><br></div>
<div><br></div>
<div> </div></div>
<div><br>On Sep 5, 2011, at 9:44, "Art Deco" <<a rel="nofollow" ymailto="mailto:deco@moscow.com" target="_blank" href="mailto:deco@moscow.com"></a><a rel="nofollow" ymailto="mailto:deco@moscow.com" target="_blank" href="mailto:deco@moscow.com">deco@moscow.com</a>> wrote:<br><br></div>
<div></div>
<blockquote type="cite">
<div>
<div><font face="Verdana" size="2"></font> </div>
<div><font face="Verdana" size="2">
<div id="yiv1039897364fb-root"></div>
<div class="yiv1039897364header">
<div class="yiv1039897364left"><a rel="nofollow" target="_blank" href="http://www.nytimes.com/"><img title="http://www.nytimes.com/
CTRL + Click to follow link" alt="The New York Times" src="http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/misc/nytlogo153x23.gif" hspace="0" align="left" border="0"></a> </div>
<div class="yiv1039897364right"> </div></div><br clear="all">
<hr align="left" size="1">
<div class="yiv1039897364timestamp">September 4, 2011</div>
<div class="yiv1039897364kicker"></div>
<h1> Postal Service Is Nearing Default
as Losses Mount</h1>
<h6 class="yiv1039897364byline">By <a rel="nofollow" class="yiv1039897364meta-per" title="More Articles by Steven Greenhouse" target="_blank" href="http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/g/steven_greenhouse/index.html?inline=nyt-per">STEVEN GREENHOUSE</a></h6>
<div id="yiv1039897364articleBody">
<div>The United States Postal Service has long lived on the financial edge,
but it has never been as close to the precipice as it is today: the agency
is so low on cash that it will not be able to make a $5.5 billion payment
due this month and may have to shut down entirely this winter unless
Congress takes emergency action to stabilize its finances. </div>
<div>“Our situation is extremely serious,” the postmaster general, Patrick R.
Donahoe, said in an interview. “If Congress doesn’t act, we will default.”
</div>
<div>In recent weeks, Mr. Donahoe has been pushing a series of painful
cost-cutting measures to erase the agency’s deficit, which will reach $9.2
billion this fiscal year. <a rel="nofollow" title="U.S.P.S. White paper on its situation." target="_blank" href="http://about.usps.com/news/national-releases/2011/pr11_wp_workforce_0812.pdf">They
include</a> eliminating Saturday mail delivery, closing up to 3,700 postal
locations and laying off 120,000 workers — nearly one-fifth of the agency’s
work force — despite a no-layoffs clause in the unions’ contracts. </div>
<div>The post office’s problems stem from one hard reality: it is being
squeezed on both revenue and costs. </div>
<div>As any computer user knows, the Internet revolution has led to people and
businesses sending far less conventional mail. </div>
<div>At the same time, decades of contractual promises made to unionized
workers, including no-layoff clauses, are increasing the post office’s
costs. Labor represents 80 percent of the agency’s expenses, compared with
53 percent at United Parcel Service and 32 percent at FedEx, its two biggest
private competitors. Postal workers also receive more generous health
benefits than most other federal employees. </div>
<div>The Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee will <a rel="nofollow" title="The hearing agenda." target="_blank" href="http://hsgac.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=Hearings.Hearing&Hearing_ID=a193192b-ca97-46ee-8f22-bc3db87df1f9">hold
a hearing</a> on the agency’s predicament on Tuesday. So far, feuding
Democrats and Republicans in Congress, still smarting from the brawl over
the federal debt ceiling, have failed to agree on any solutions. It doesn’t
help that many of the options for saving the postal service are politically
unpalatable. </div>
<div>“The situation is dire,” said Thomas R. Carper, the Delaware Democrat who
is chairman of the Senate subcommittee that oversees the postal service. “If
we do nothing, if we don’t react in a smart, appropriate way, the postal
service could literally close later this year. That’s not the kind of
development we need to inject into a weak, uneven economic recovery.” </div>
<div>Missing the $5.5 billion payment due on Sept. 30, intended to finance
retirees’ future health care, won’t cause immediate disaster. But sometime
early next year, the agency will run out of money to pay its employees and
gas up its trucks, officials warn, forcing it to stop delivering the roughly
three billion pieces of mail it handles weekly. </div>
<div>The causes of the crisis are well known and immensely difficult to
overcome. </div>
<div>Mail volume has plummeted with the rise of e-mail, electronic bill-paying
and a Web that makes everything from fashion catalogs to news instantly
available. The system will handle an estimated 167 billion pieces of mail
this fiscal year, down 22 percent from five years ago. </div>
<div>It’s difficult to imagine that trend reversing, and pessimistic
projections suggest that volume <a rel="nofollow" title="U.S.P.S. action plan, p.8. " target="_blank" href="http://about.usps.com/future-postal-service/ensuring-viable-usps-presentation.pdf">could
plunge</a> to 118 billion pieces by 2020. The law also prevents the post
office from raising postage fees faster than inflation. </div>
<div>Meanwhile, the agency has had a tough time cutting its costs to match the
revenue drop, with a history of labor contracts offering good health and
pension benefits, underused post offices, and laws that restrict its ability
to make basic business decisions, like reducing the frequency of deliveries.
</div>
<div>Congress is considering numerous emergency proposals — most notably,
allowing the post office to recover billions of dollars that management says
it overpaid to its employees’ pension funds. That fix would help the agency
get through the short-term crisis, but would delay the day of reckoning on
bigger issues. </div>
<div>Postal service officials say one reason for their high costs is that they
are legally required to provide universal service, making deliveries to 150
million addresses nationwide each week. They add that a major factor for the
post office’s $20 billion in losses over the past four years is a 2006 law
requiring the postal service to pay an average of $5.5 billion annually for
10 years to finance retiree health costs for the next 75 years. </div>
<div>But the agency’s leaders acknowledge that they must find a way to
increase revenue, something that will prove far harder than simply slicing
costs. </div>
<div>In some countries, post offices double as banks or sell insurance or
cellphones. In the United States, the postal service is barred from entering
many areas. Still, the agency is considering ideas, like gaining the right
to deliver wine and beer, allowing commercial advertisements on postal
trucks and in post offices, doing more “last-mile” deliveries for FedEx and
U.P.S. and offering special hand-delivery services for correspondence and
transactions for which e-mail is not considered secure enough. </div>
<div>Mr. Donahoe’s hope is to cut $20 billion of the <a rel="nofollow" title="Paper on U.S.P.S. costs, p.1." target="_blank" href="http://www.uspsoig.gov/foia_files/RARC-WP-11-007.pdf">$75 billion in
annual costs</a> by 2015. To do that, he wants to close many post offices
and slash the number of sorting facilities to 200 from 500 and trim the
agency’s work force by 220,000 people, from its current 653,000. (A decade
ago, the agency employed nearly 900,000.) </div>
<div>The postal service has the legal authority to close facilities, although
community opposition can make the process difficult. To placate critics and
cut costs, officials say they would seek to run some postal operations out
of stores like Wal-Mart or to share space with other government offices.
</div>
<div>Cutting the work force is more difficult. The agency’s labor contracts
have long guaranteed no layoffs to the vast majority of its workers, and
management agreed to a new no layoff-clause in a major union contract last
May. </div>
<div>But now, faced with what postal officials call “the equivalent of Chapter
11 bankruptcy,” the agency is asking Congress to enact legislation that
would overturn the job protections and let it lay off 120,000 workers in
addition to trimming 100,000 jobs through attrition. </div>
<div>The postal service is also asking Congress for permission to end Saturday
delivery. </div>
<div>Given the vast range of stakeholders, getting consensus on a rescue plan
will be difficult. </div>
<div>Senator Susan Collins of Maine, like many lawmakers from rural states,
vigorously opposes ending Saturday delivery, which would trim only 2 percent
from the agency’s budget. Ms. Collins, the ranking Republican on the
committee overseeing the postal service, said the cutback would be tough on
people in small towns who receive prescriptions and newspapers by mail. </div>
<div>“The postmaster general has focused on several approaches that I believe
will be counterproductive,” she said. “They risk producing a death spiral
where the postal service reduces service and drives away more customers.”
</div>
<div>The post office’s powerful unions are angry and alarmed about the planned
layoffs. “We’re going to fight this and we’re going to fight it hard,” said
Cliff Guffey, president of the American Postal Workers Union, which
represents 207,000 mail sorters and post office clerks. “It’s illegal for
them to abrogate our contract.” </div>
<div>Senators Carper and Collins do back several of the postal service’s main
ideas to avoid default, including recovering around $60 billion that some
actuaries say the agency has overpaid into two pension funds. Although the
Obama administration is working closely with the senators to find a
solution, it has signaled discomfort with the pension proposals, questioning
whether the postal service really overpaid. </div>
<div>Meanwhile, Representative Darrell Issa, the California Republican who is
chairman of the House Oversight Committee, says the pension proposals would
amount to an unjustifiable bailout that would not solve the agency’s
underlying problems. He is pushing a bill that would create an emergency
oversight board that could order huge cost-cutting and void the postal
service’s contracts — a proposal that not just the unions, but Senators
Carper and Collins oppose. </div>
<div>Fredric V. Rolando, president of the National Association of Letter
Carriers, warned of disaster if partisanship keeps Congress from acting.
</div>
<div>“This is about one of America’s oldest institutions,” he said. “It
survived the telegraph, it survived the telephone, and we have to do
everything we can to preserve it and adapt.” </div>
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