U.S. Postal Service

The following is from Newsmax.com. The story fails to emphasize the obvious and makes the real reason of the U.S. Postal Service's financial failure a secondary reason--it is the postal workers union APWU, the AFL-CIO and other unions involved in the postal system in this country that have driven our postal department down the tubes, not any electronic diversion.

"Most Foreign Postal Services Are Profitable

With the U.S. Postal Service drowning in red ink so deep that it’s planning to close nearly half of its processing centers and lay off thousands of workers, observers are questioning whether a “snail mail” service can survive in the Internet age.

A look at postal services in other high-income countries provides the answer: Yes, they can.

The USPS has lost $25 billion in five years, including $5.1 billion last year, and forecasts a $14 billion loss this year.

One major factor cited for the fiscal woes — in addition to generous retirement health benefits and pensions — is electronic diversion, the shift from traditional mail to email and other Internet services. American households paid 75 percent of their bills by mail in 2002, but the figure fell to 47 percent in 2010.

Foreign postal services are also dealing with electronic diversion. But a study by the Universal Postal Union (UPU), a United Nations agency, shows that most services in high-income nations — those with a per capita gross national income over $9,205 — are avoiding the consistent red ink of the USPS.

The study of high-income nations and territories’ postal services found that only three out of 34 reporting posts lost money in 2007 (9 percent), eight out of 32 suffered losses in 2008 (25 percent), 11 out of 29 lost money in 2009 (38 percent), and 12 out of 33 lost money in 2010 (36 percent).

The USPS lost money in all four of those years. Only one other jurisdiction’s postal service lost money in all four years — Macau.

The countries reporting positive returns in most recent years include France, Italy, Germany, Sweden, Switzerland, Australia and New Zealand.

In medium-income jurisdictions — with per capita gross national income from $746 to $9,205 — only two out of 34 reporting services lost money in all four years.

The Institute for Research on the Economics of Taxation, a nonprofit economic policy research and educational organization, issued an “Advisory” on the UPU report and concluded: The study’s findings are simultaneously heartening and discouraging.

The results are reassuring because foreign posts demonstrate that postal operators can remain financially viable despite electronic diversion and the after-effects of the Great Recession. Posts can continue to deliver the mail and supply the public with postal access while still breaking even or turning a profit.

The results are disturbing, however, because they emphasize how poorly the U.S. Postal Service is doing in terms of meeting its expenses.

The U.S. Postal Service is among the world’s great posts in many respects, but it is badly underperforming financially.”