the staff of the Ridgewood blog
Ridgewood NJ, on July 27th the Postmaster General Louis DeJoy delivered some grim news on the US Postal service, “The Postal Service is in a financially unsustainable position, stemming from substantial declines in mail volume, and a broken business model. We are currently unable to balance our costs with available funding sources to fulfill both our universal service mission and other legal obligations. Because of this, the Postal Service has experienced over a decade of financial losses, with no end in sight, and we face an impending liquidity crisis.
Congress and the Postal Regulatory Commission must enact legislative and regulatory reforms to help address the situation. At the same time, it is imperative for the Postal Service to operate efficiently and effectively. Indeed, there are alternatives to every product that we offer, and the only way that the Postal Service can continue to provide prompt, reliable, and affordable universal postal services for all Americans over the long-term is by vigorously focusing on the efficiency of our operations.
To start with, we must better adhere to our existing operating plans, which were developed precisely to ensure that we meet our service standards in an efficient and effective manner. It is evident that the Postal Service has the ability to improve in that area. On the day that I was sworn in as Postmaster General by our Board of Governors, the Postal Service Inspector General issued a report entitled “U.S. Postal Service’s Processing Network Optimization and Service Impacts.” In that report our Inspector General indicated that the Postal Service spent $1.1 billion in mail processing overtime and penalty overtime, $280 million in late and extra transportation, and $2.9 billion in delivery overtime and penalty overtime costs in FY 2019. Yet, even after incurring these additional costs, the Postal Service has not seen material improvement in our service performance scores. While we did not fully agree with all aspects of OIG’s report, we did not dispute the fundamental conclusion that we need to redouble our efforts to focus on our plans to improve operational efficiency and to further control overtime expenditures. The Postal Regulatory Commission has also recognized in its most recent reports that the Postal Service is not on a sustainable path, and that we continue to fall short of achieving our service targets with regard to the majority of our market dominant products.
The Postal Service has spent the last four years unsuccessfully trying to obtain reform legislation from Congress and pricing reform from the PRC, while remaining focused on the efficiency of our operations. Given our current situation, it is critical that the Postal Service take a fresh look at our operations and make necessary adjustments. We are highly focused on our public service mission to provide prompt, reliable, and efficient service to every person and business in this country, and to remain a part of the nation’s critical infrastructure. However, changes must be made, and we will refocus on all of the items within our control, and propose changes to some that are not, in order to ensure that we will be able to continue to fulfill our universal service obligation to all of America.”
Interesting that in an era of online shopping ,with everything from books to coffee to computers getting shipped , the US Post office finds itself in a “financially unsustainable position”, “stemming from substantial declines in mail volume”. Wait what? , but didn’t Al Gore invent or discover the “internet “. Since 1994 when the internet went mainstream and regular folks started emailing and messaging each other , it was obvious that mail would decline .
It is now 2020,that is 26 year since the internet went mainstream and the US Post office is just now recognizing ,” substantial declines in mail volume”?
Yet the postal service now claims it’s organizational structure is focused on three business operating units:
Retail and Delivery Operations — basic mission: Accept and deliver mail and packages efficiently with a high level of customer satisfaction.
Logistics and Processing Operations –— basic mission: Process and move mail and packages efficiently to the delivery units, meeting service standards.
Commerce and Business Solutions — basic mission: Leverage infrastructure to enable growth.
Apparently its time for Amazon to take over the postal service .
Anytime someone online writes about internet history, the comments inevitably fill up with jokes about Al Gore. Al Gore once claimed to have invented the internet, which means many people think that “Al Gore” works as both a set-up and a punchline.
Wolf Blitzer: “Why should Democrats, looking at the Democratic nomination process, support you instead of Bill Bradley?”
Al Gore: I’ll be offering my vision when my campaign begins. And it will be comprehensive and sweeping. And I hope that it will be compelling enough to draw people toward it. I feel that it will be. But it will emerge from my dialogue with the American people. I’ve traveled to every part of this country during the last six years. During my service in the United States Congress, I took the initiative in creating the Internet. I took the initiative in moving forward a whole range of initiatives that have proven to be important to our country’s economic growth and environmental protection, improvements in our educational system.
Two days after Gore appeared on CNN, libertarian writer Declan McCullagh posted a story on Wired News mocking him for claiming to be the “father of the Internet.” McCullagh never used the word “invented,” but it took only a few days before it mutated into its current form, helping to cement the public perception of Gore as a serial exaggerator.
So while some people in the media for some irrational reason blame President Trump for the decline of the US Postal Service (I guess they still don’t use the internet) the Ridgewood blog blames former Vice President Al Gore for creating the internet in the first place. The say way some people blame Christopher Columbus for the ills of 21st century America .
