Back then, Rep. Neil Abercrombie (D-HI) said Newt would probably privatize his own grandmother if he had the chance.

but if i'm honest, i rarely send letters by post anymore.

Via USPS, but I wouldn’t miss all the mail I get asking for money.

It's a lot easier if the option is there.

We recently had a 2 day power outage, have had 4 day outages. All weather related, but live in an area where same weather prevents quick repairs.

is when a hurricane approaches, pay the next month's bills.

it's been so long since I wrote one.

I have to pay a fee of 13 dollars to pay it online as opposed to whatever a first class stamp costs nowadays.

been several elderly people saved by postal carriers who noticed the mail piled up in the mailboxes for many days and notified police.

I do not thing UPS or FedEx would even notice if there was a large pile of boxes at the door.

along with the transition to a "cashless" and "checkless" monetary system as well. We seem to be rapidly evolving toward the complete digitalization of modern life.

... have no intrinsic value. There is no physical manifestation of digital currency; it depends on a shared delusion, just like the emperor's new clothes. and then there's the question: What happens if there is an Electro-Magnetic Pulse that makes it all go POOF?
Nothing good, we can be assured of that.
The USPS is the only business entity mentioned in the Constitution. The unbridled greed of corporatists has been the driving force behind efforts to destroy the Postal Service, such as the obscene requirement for the USPS to pay its retirement fund years in advance, which puts it in the hole every quarter. No other business entity or government agency is saddled with such an onerous demand.
Those proposing the total digitization of commerce don't give a happy rat's ass how forcing such a transition will affect those of limited means. "Little People" – meaning you and me – are given no choice in such matters, and the sales pitch is always a noxious stew of lies seasoned with veiled malicious threats if one fails to bend the knee to these sociopaths and their malign machinations.
Those of limited intellectual capacity lap up the bullshit Kool-Aid that corporatists spoon-feed them, and if it's to their own detriment, that's bad enough, but the rest of us get dragged into that mendacious sewer, too, and that's to the detriment of ALL of us, whether we like it or not.

Up until now the only thing that has saved USPS from Republicans is the Constitution.

Also, I think it's incredibly naive to think that that just means free email of bills. That isn't how capitalism works in America. They will absolutely monetize emails or charge people to pay their bills electronically.
What I am absolutely positive of is that no way in hell billionaires and corporations are not going to ensure they make even more money off of us

Is already here.

..... almost all of our money consists of nothing more than ledger entries in bank accounts. Those physical pieces of paper you carry around in your wallet have no intrinsic value beyond their usefulness in communicating updates to those ledger entries between individuals. They are really no more or less than substitutes or analogs of those ones and zeros. A means of conveying information.

And, over all, a medium of exchange that has intrinsic value, like gold, is not as good for the economy as is fiat currency - digital or physical.

... took us off the gold standard internationally in 1971 (FDR did it domestically in '33), we at least had a robust manufacturing capacity to back up the value of the dollar. Then Reagan happened. He effectively eliminated restrictions on overseas production, and... well, here we are.

And people wonder why my hatred of the Republican Party burns hotter than the surface of the Sun.

is a detrimental policy, leading to price volatility and hindering economic response to shocks (like recessions), with most economists seeing it as less stable than modern fiat systems.

Paul Krugman makes that case against the goldbugs.

Even the Ur-Libertarian, F.A. Hayek, eventually came around and admitted the value of "token money," albeit in the service of yet another odd-ball libertarian scheme: The Denationalisation of Money.

have to start flipping a microchip or iPhone?

I know some people like to still send those as a tradition. And the article did say there is an increase in young people sending letters to provide some old school personal touch in an increasingly digital world. Letters are so rare it can feel exciting to get or send one these days.

Then there are business mailings for various purposes. Electronic stuff is easier to ignore than paper mail in your mailbox.

People there can still send those, but by a private company called "Dao".

https://dao.as/en/

Their equivalent to our government-run "postal service" will be shut down after December 30.

They need to control their costs instead of raising prices twice a year. Every rural address doesn't need 6 day a week delivery. They must have sunk money into post offices, interiors and exteriors and parking lots have gone through an upgrade in my area. 15 years ago the postmistress would hire a local elder to vacuum twice a month. Now it's cleaning services, floor waxers, carpet shampooing, painting, window films, paving.

Posted in response to: we're going that route here too

something which no private company is required to do. GOP wants to kill the USPS and turn it all over to Venture Capital, and what better way to do that than to force price increases through arbitrarily imposed costs, thus driving away customers ?

The arguments about offering "too much service" is a GOP talking point to distract from their attempts to explode the USPS budget.

There is no requirement to "fully fund" the retirement for USPS.

USPS retirement benefits are either FERS or CSRS (the latter for those who were hired before 1984).

The USPS Inspector General described what was going on with the actual pension (annuity) - What is the debate about the Postal Service’s share of pension costs?

USPS OIG paper on the history - Postal Retirement Funds in Perspective: Historical Evolution and Ongoing Challenges

In a nutshell, the issue is that the postal service has to do their contributions from their own revenue (employees contribute per the percentages from CSRS or FERS).

The one financial killer was the pre-fund of health benefits mandate that occurred in 2006 under Shrub and THAT was repealed 3 years ago -

H.R.3076 - Postal Service Reform Act of 2022

GOP Congresscritters had come up with an arbitrary, indirect way to handicap USPS so as to cripple it vs private delivery, and use the declining profits to excuse privatizing it. Glad to see the reforms, but they didn't clawback the damage that has been done. We need a Dem Congress to take care of that.

I had actually forgotten that DeJoy wasn't there anymore. There was so much other chaos going on at that time that that announcement got lost in the brown noise. (Also, I seem to recall there were multiple announcements that he "could" be leaving "sometime soon".)

and THAT was what threw them into massive debt, along with a loss of business as people started going more electronic. The pre-fund went away 3 years ago but the massive hole is still there.

And that provision was added in 2006 under Shrub and that year was also an election year, where for the first time in 12 years, Democrats took the House back, and installed Nancy Pelosi as Speaker (and in 2007, that is when we focused on getting the damn minimum wage increased from $5.15/hr to the current $7.25/hr). That minimum wage increase was slid on as a rider to an appropriations bill -

H.R.2 - Fair Minimum Wage Act of 2007

When I commuted to work, I used to drive by Ben Franklin's original Post Office/Printing Shop that was a couple blocks from my office (and they still sell stamps, including commemoratives and I would buy stamps in there at lunch time ).

I’ve lived in my town for 46 years now and we have the same PO building and parking lot we had 46 years ago during which time our population went from less than 10,000 to over 30,000. And my Democratic Congressman lives in my town!

Usage has dropped enuf yet to match the drop in usage that Denmark is seeing.

Once this goes into effect, they’ll have to figure out who is going to deliver ballots to voters. Maybe they’ll use Dao.

"Online" (electronic) voting...

Some day.

Of course some in the GOP are convinced that the entirety of the U.S. is like their podunk town and should be required to go vote "in person".

In special locations and citizens outside the country can vote at embassies or consulates.

Day of you show up with your polling card to a voting location.

is that the population of the ENTIRE country of Denmark (6 million) is 2 million LESS than the population of New York City (8 million).

The sheer number of Americans in rural areas is what makes the USPS a requirement.

And that is why UPS and FedEx pay the USPS to deliver in many rural locations.

Musk on steroids.

The use of the mail system was getting too expensive even with that density and the fee up to 3,5 Oz. Nearly $4 per letter.
US has a large subsidy through the junk mail delivery. They also get a fair amount from UPS delivery in more remote areas.

Cost of mail in Germany is just over a dollar for 3/4 Oz. And $1.40 for international. The US is cheap.

I foresee a price rise from Dao in the not too distant future