Postal Service facing bankruptcy.

[moneysense]

There will be a broader announcement about this, but the post office needs to make $3B in reductions to trim costs and they will be doing a lot of cut backs in the near future.

It is said that these efforts would push more businesses to the internet which is a lot of the problem and why the post office is so in the red what with people emailing each other instead of writing letters and paying bills online takes away from the post offices coffers.

It is expected that by next March 250 of the 500 Mail Processing Centers across America will be closed.

Also, a one cent increace on stamps, to 45 cents per stamp will go into effect on January 22nd.

The Postal Service has operated in the red for the past 5 years and needs to make cuts of $20B by 2015 to be working in the black again.

[moneysense]

I have read another article on the post office problems and this one said that it will eventually be hard on older people because in some cases it may be necessary to drive a hundred miles to get their mail because of future post office closings.

One would think that they could go back to the way they did things in the old days. Have the post office in a local business like they used to have. At least that way the post office could save money on property taxes, rentals, and buildings and that would help somewhat.

We could also buy postal money orders with which to pay our bills. But with people in the hurry that they are these days, getting online and paying bills seems to be more important than having a post office nearby.

People will ignore he situation until their local post office is gone and then do what the American people do best. Bitch, whine, and moan about it. Instead of trying to help keep this from happening to begin with.

[moneysense]

I read yesterday where the post office where forego closure of post offices until May of 2012 which is a good thing because it is going to be mighty inconvenient to have to travel to another town just to pick up the mail.

I know that paying bills etc online or automatically through your bank is really handy but then there is the safety issue in doing things this way. It seems to be awfully easy for someone to get your information from the internet and that is something that really worries me.

[moneysense]

It seems that the postal service has come up with another plan that will not include closing post offices. Instead, they plan on cutting down the hours which will not actually interfere with mail delivery and if it is a little inconvenient, so what. At least the local post office will still be there and driving a long way to get our mail will not happen with this new option.

This plan will be implemented over a 2 year period and is expected to be finished by September 2014.

The new hours will be cut from 8 hours per day to 2, 4, or 6 hours per day.

The postal service says that this new way of operating will save them about $22.5 billion in operating costs by 2016.