USPS to Cut Saturday Mail

The sad thing is that the USPS is not all that bad off financially. Rather, Congress is requiring them to make completely unrealistic pension payments decades in advance, for employees who may or may not exist yet.<p>No other organization could operate under such a burden, and no other federal agency faces such a requirement. It makes one wonder if the requirement is in place as an attempt to kill the USPS and privatize mail delivery entirely.

It's interesting that a country such as the US which, in my view from the outside, seems to generally oppose far-reaching public services, still has a postal service that delivers mail and packages on Saturdays.<p>I'm from Sweden, which I guess falls somewhere close to the opposite end of the spectrum in many people's eyes, and we've <i>never</i> had that, in my lifetime at least. :)

Best part of the article:<p>"Over the past several years, the Postal Service has advocated shifting to a five-day delivery schedule for mail and packages — and it repeatedly but unsuccessfully appealed to Congress to approve the move. ... It was not immediately clear how the service could eliminate Saturday mail without congressional approval."

I get an error a out being able to view on "my mobile device." Yahoo needs to move a little quicker on mobile.

End the government-mandated monopoly on mail -- let the market take care of the issue. Probably 50% of the mail I get is stuff I don't even want in the first place.<p>In fact, it's a criminal act to deliver mail without paying the USPS: <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Private_Express_Statutes" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Private_Express_Statutes</a><p><a href="http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/1693" rel="nofollow">http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/1693</a>

Does this mean I'll get 5/6 of the junk mail? Or will it be redistributed between the other 5 days?

If you have to get congressional approval anyway, why not attempt to fix the underlying problem by not requiring all employee pensions to be funded <i>up front</i>? IIRC, that's the crux of their financial woes because it ties up billions in a move that no other industry is required to make.

I think Canada Post should switch to 3 day delivery for residential addresses. Given the push to electronic bills and payments (many companies charge extra if you opt for a paper bill) 90% of whats in my mailbox is junk mail. Improved parcel service would be nice however, online shopping should be increasing interest in that product.

The mail used to be delivered several times PER DAY. Saturday delivery is a relic of that bygone era. I probably only need to receive postal mail once a week. Maybe three times a week during holiday season. Saturday won't be missed here.

I wonder if Netflix DVDs are considered packages or mail? Saturday delivery worked really well for Netflix. If we dropped our Netflix disk at the main Post Office by Thursday @ 2PM, we could expect a disk on Saturday.

The plan is to cut Saturday letter delivery but keep package delivery intact.

If self-driving google robots were delivering mail it could be delivered continuously.

Well, 75% to 90% of my daily mail is unsolicited junk. I estimate that we throw out five to seven pounds of junk mail per week. If this is typical of most households this is a remarkable amount of stuff that is being thrown out on a daily basis.<p>Our of memory, the majority of the legitimate mail we get is from government agencies (bills, voting packets, etc.), a couple of catalogs and companies who haven't gone 100% online yet.<p>We switched to online banking and online bill payments a long, long time ago. Nearly every package delivery we receive is via FedEx or UPS.<p>You have to wonder, if the USPS was not allowed to deliver bulk junk mail, what would their financials look like?<p>According to this US census, there are over 132 million housing units (homes and apartments) in the US.<p><a href="http://quickfacts.census.gov/qfd/states/00000.html" rel="nofollow">http://quickfacts.census.gov/qfd/states/00000.html</a><p>If each of these homes is throwing out just TWO pounds of junk mail every week --just TWO POUNDS, not five like we do-- that represents TWO HUNDRED AND SIXTY FOUR MILLION POUNDS of garbage per week and over FOURTEEN BILLION POUNDS (14,256,000,000) of garbage per year!<p>I am NOT a crazy environmentalist by any stretch of the imagination, but, I'm sorry, but that's just-about criminal. That is a disgusting amount of trash moved by the USPS for no reason whatsoever.<p>The problem doesn't end there. Besides environmental impact, think of all the fuel and waste by-products consumed by moving and having to deal with fourteen billion pounds of trash. Think of the USPS delivery pipeline, trucks, vans, airplanes and unnecessary people. Think of the additional capacity requirement in local trash pickup trucks and the fuel they burn. And think of the excess power, people, area and fuel required to process and recycle this trash.<p>Based just on the the above I'd say that, yes, the USPS either needs to go away or seriously shrink down and stop this nonsense.

One less day I won't receive kindling. Good riddance.

I'd like to find the best way to "opt out" of the postal system.<p>When I go out of town and put hold on my mail, they never work. The postal worker just delivers until the box is full and then returns the letters. Of course, the box is full because of junk mail (which you can't opt out of). I'd consider a post office box, but it is inconvenient, plus I'd have to change my address with everyone who sends me legitimate mail - you know, the things that you still can't handle electronically like W2s, etc.<p>I've heard that there are services which can have your mail forwarded to, who scan it and send it to you electronically, but I'd be concerned about identity theft.<p>It's just a broken system and there's no way to opt out.