The US Postal Service says it will delay plans to cut Saturday mail delivery because Congress isn’t allowing the change. As expected , Congress “has left [USPS] with no choice but to delay implementation” of the five-day-a-week plan, the agency’s Board of Governors said in a statement today.
Source: FULL ARTICLE at Newser – Home
By The Huffington Post News Editors
HuffPost Live’s Alyona Minkovski sat down Friday with actor John Ratzenberger, famous for his role as mail carrier Cliff Clavin on the television series “Cheers.”
Asked about the current state of the United States Postal Service, Ratzenberger said the system, which is struggling financially, is lacking “common sense.”
Ratzenberger has also commented on the problems with the USPS recently, tweeting in February that “If only the USPS had the sense to put Cliff Claven in charge, none of this mess would have happened.”
Read More…
More on Postal Service
By Business Wirevia The Motley Fool
Filed under: Investing
Postal Agencies Diversify to Fight Volume Decline, 24-Country Accenture Study Shows
Research finds USPS, four other postal agencies saddled with large legacy costs
ARLINGTON, Va.–(BUSINESS WIRE)– Faced with a nearly 50-billion piece decline in global mail volume over the past three years, rising employee pension costs and increasing competition from private, commercial postal operators, the world’s postal agencies are fighting back by diversifying services and leveraging technology, according to a new study from Accenture (NYS: ACN) .
Achieving High Performance in the Postal Industry: Accenture Research and Insights 2013 identifies two new trends for the industry: digital mail has not reinvigorated postal agencies as originally expected and private postal operators have become more aggressive, creating greater competition for postal agencies in both the mail and parcel business. Postal agencies in 24 countries and two commercial companies – FedEx and United Parcel Service (UPS) – are included in the study.
“Despite a continued tumultuous business climate, some postal organizations are thriving. They are launching new business lines, combining their products with new technology and radically changing their cost structures to be leaner and more agile. As these posts reinvent their business models, they are emerging as very different organizations that are well positioned for future growth,” said Brody Buhler, managing director for Accenture’s global postal industry practice.
The 2013 research was presented at the European Postal Services Conference here. The 16 largest postal agencies included in the research represent nearly 75 percent of the world’s mail volume.
Since the publication of its first high performing posts report in 2006, Accenture has conducted ongoing, in-depth research of the postal industry. Using the Accenture High Performance Business methodology, Accenture has reviewed and assessed the relative performance of postal organizations. Starting with the postal systems of 16 countries and extending that research to include 24 posts and two commercial companies in 2013, the study gives a comprehensive review of what drives high performance in postal agencies.
The 2013 research shows little movement since 2012 in the top 10 postal agencies, with the exception of Norway, which jumped five positions to seventh place and Finland, which dropped eight slots to 15th place in the 2013 study. The top 10 highest performing posts, according to the Accenture research, are Singapore Post, United Parcel Service (UPS) (USA), Austria Post, Poste Italiane (Italy), Australia Post, FedEx (USA), Posten Norge (Norway), bpost (Belgium), TNT (Netherlands) and Correios Brasileiros …read more
Source: FULL ARTICLE at DailyFinance
By Dan Caplinger, The Motley Fool
Filed under: Investing
Earnings season is winding down, with most companies already having reported their quarterly results. But there are still some companies left to report, and FedEx is about to release its quarterly earnings report. The key to making smart investment decisions with stocks releasing their quarter reports is to anticipate how they’ll do before they announce results, leaving you fully prepared to respond quickly to whatever inevitable surprises arise. That way, you’ll be less likely to make an uninformed knee-jerk reaction to news that turns out to be exactly the wrong move.
One of the most important signs of health for the global economy is whether goods are moving from place to place. FedEx obviously has a lot of insight into the workings of worldwide shipping, and its business not only reflects levels of economic activity but can also influence them. Let’s take an early look at what’s been happening with FedEx over the past quarter and what we’re likely to see in its quarterly report on Wednesday.
Stats on FedEx
|
Analyst EPS Estimate |
$1.39 |
|
Change From Year-Ago EPS |
(10.3%) |
|
Revenue Estimate |
$10.85 billion |
|
Change From Year-Ago Revenue |
2.8% |
|
Earnings Beats in Past 4 Quarters |
3 |
Source: Yahoo! Finance.
Will FedEx deliver better results this quarter?
Analysts have gotten less secure about FedEx’s earnings prospects lately, cutting $0.06 per share off their calls for the most recent quarter and $0.04 from their full fiscal year 2013 estimates. Yet the stock has had no such worries, rising 21% since mid-December.
FedEx has benefited greatly from the economic recovery generally and from the rise in online retail in particular. Rival UPS still shipped considerably more packages over the holidays than FedEx, but both companies have gotten their fair share of business. Woes at the U.S. Postal Service could eventually leave UPS and FedEx to fight over bigger slices of the overall industry pie, although for now, package volumes at the USPS have actually been fairly strong, thanks to partnerships like its SmartPost deal with FedEx.
FedEx got some good news in January, as regulators rejected UPS’s bid to acquire European giant TNT Express on antitrust grounds. Although the European economy has struggled lately, a UPS/TNT combination could have left FedEx on the outside of what’s likely to remain an important market once the current economic crisis in Europe subsides.
In its quarterly report, watch for FedEx to discuss the impact of its rate increases and those of UPS on its bottom line. As energy costs have remained high, FedEx’s fuel-efficiency initiatives have the potential to produce more profits, and so watch overall costs to see if the company’s efforts are paying off.
The best investing approach is to choose great companies and stick with them for the long term. The Motley Fool’s free report “3 Stocks That Will Help You Retire Rich” names stocks that …read more
Source: FULL ARTICLE at DailyFinance
By The Week
Filed under: How to Save Money, Saving
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The Week
What’s wrong with the post office?
It’s hemorrhaging money at the rate of about $25 million a day. The U.S. Postal Service, the nation’s second-biggest employer after Walmart, lost almost $16 billion in the last fiscal year. By next fall, it is projected to have less than three days’ worth of operating expenses on hand. (As an independent agency operating with federal oversight, the USPS can borrow money from the government to cover its losses but doesn’t get any direct funding.) To ward off reckoning day, Postmaster General Patrick Donahoe last month announced that Saturday delivery of regular mail would end in August, in order to save $2 billion a year. That plan is meeting stiff resistance in Congress, which has notified Donahoe that he lacks “the constitutional and statutory authority” to eliminate Saturday delivery. Dozens of House and Senate members are vowing to go to court, if necessary, to block any change in delivery frequency. Donahoe isn’t budging. “We plan to do what we said we were going to do,” he said.
Why is the USPS losing so much money?
First-class mail volume has dropped by more than 25 percent since 2006, as Americans embraced email and started paying bills and communicating with each other online. But more than two thirds of last year’s colossal losses were caused by pension obligations. In 2006, Congress and the Bush administration passed a law requiring the then-profitable Postal Service to prepay, over the course of just 10 years, 75 years’ worth of anticipated retiree health benefits. Fearing a future financial collapse and a taxpayer bailout, Republicans insisted on the provision to guarantee that the post office would meet its future obligations. No other government agency or private company, however, is required to fund future costs in this backbreaking way. The Postal Service has since made $49 billion in such payments, and Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) has claimed that if the Postal Service were allowed to manage its own obligations, it “would be back in the black and posting profits.”
Would that solve the problem?
No. A more conventional pension-funding system might eliminate current losses, but with mail volume dropping dramatically every year in a digital world, the Postal Service would still be on the road to insolvency. That’s why, Donahoe says, the post office needs to cut costs across the board and alter its business model. Besides ending Saturday delivery, he wants to set up a new health-insurance system for employees, shut down 252 of the country’s 487 mail-processing centers, slow delivery times, reduce business hours at 13,000 post offices, and eliminate 220,000 of 522,000 postal jobs.
Is cost-cutting the best option?
Not according to members of Congress from rural districts, union representatives, …read more
Source: FULL ARTICLE at DailyFinance
By Brian Stoffel, The Motley Fool
Filed under: Investing
The beginning of my investing experience is somewhat of a blur. Being an English major in college and a writing teacher by profession, I didn’t have much experience with finance, let alone stocks, at all. When I finally got interested — after finding the Fool to help me invest my retirement funds — my method was pretty haphazard.
It wasn’t until the Spring of 2010 that I finally started to realize the importance of developing an investment philosophy. After spending a lot of time reading about it, I decided that it would be best to have a concentrated portfolio with stocks that 1. displayed innovation, and 2. had huge sustainable advantages over the competition.
After diving through all the possibilities, I was able to make some bets I was confident in. As it stands now, my two top holdings in absolute dollars are prime examples of businesses with wide moats and innovative employees. Those two companies are Amazon and Google .
Netflix was actually a guide
While studying about sustainable competitive advantages, I remembered reading about how Netflix was able to fend off Wal-Mart when the latter wanted a piece of the DVD-to-consumer business.
In a story that’s not told too often, Netflix had a huge tactical advantage over Wal-Mart: the company had strategically placed its fulfillment centers within a stone’s throw of local U.S. Postal Service offices. Though that might seem like a small thing, the Wal-Mart’s DVD distribution centers were far fewer, and the turnaround time — as well as some special treatment for Netflix by the USPS — made a big difference in user experience.
Obviously, when streaming became the new paradigm, that changed things a bit for Netflix. But it got me thinking about the huge infrastructure that Amazon has. Currently, only about 10% of all purchases are made online in America. Though that number will never reach 100%, it shows how much room there is for growth.
As e-commerce becomes more commonplace, customer service will be a key differentiator in deciding who wins the most customers. Currently, Amazon and its subsidiaries currently have over 69 fulfillment centers in the world, and the company has started locating them near urban centers. This insures that when Amazon customers hit “Buy,” they’ll be getting their products delivered to their doors faster than with anyone else.
When you consider the astronomical price the company is paying to build, staff, and automate these centers, you get an idea for how it would be nearly impossible for a competitor to come in and offer better customer service. Throw in the innovation factor — remember, the company invented the e-reader — you’ve got a recipe for success.
Currently, Amazon comprises 12.2% of all my real-life stock holdings, and is beating the market by a healthy 30%. Though I think every investor should own a piece of Amazon, I would suggest buying in stages, as today’s prices are quite high by most standard metrics.
Where’s the competition?<br …read more
Source: FULL ARTICLE at DailyFinance
By James Royal, The Motley Fool
Filed under: Investing
The United States Postal Service just announced that it is cutting Saturday delivery in August, moving to a five-day schedule as part of a multiyear effort to reduce costs and remain viable.
That’s not the only change coming down in 2013. The USPS will close half of its processing centers, shutter more than 3,000 local branches, and eliminate about one-third of its workforce — nearly 220,000 employees. It won’t surprise you to learn that these moves will slow the delivery of first-class mail (i.e., letters) by one to three days, making citizens less reliant on the postal service and hastening its demise.
Why would the USPS take such radical measures? The simple truth is that the postal service is a fundamentally sound business, though not without its challenges. If you look closely, you’ll see a concerted campaign to drive USPS out of business, despite the fact that it operates without government subsidies and, potentially, at a profit. It’s being subjected to a politically manufactured crisis in order to ram through drastic change. But without the USPS, citizens will face much higher costs without better service. Below, I outline three common misconceptions about the USPS and explain why they’re misleading.
Myth 1: The USPS’ losses show that it’s not a viable business
In the last decade or so, the USPS has been dogged by two significant changes. The most obvious is the advent of email, which has hurt postal volumes, especially first-class mail. That’s a secular change that’s not going away, and all the better for the many benefits it provides (spam notwithstanding).
The other change is political and imposes un-needed stress. In 2006, Congress passed the Postal Accountability and Enhancement Act, forcing USPS to pre-fund the present value of 75 years of its pension and health-benefit fund in 10 years — about $5.5 billion annually for a business mandated to break even.
Listen only to the recent headlines and you might think the USPS is about to drop off the face of the earth. After all, officially it spurted red to the tune of $15.9 billion in 2012. Look closer.
Exactly $11.1 billion of that loss was due to the pre-funding mandate and half of that ($5.5 billion) was deferred from 2011 when the USPS defaulted on its payment in order to fund operations. Below are the official numbers and my adjusted figures accounting for Congress’s mandate.
|
2012 |
2011 |
2010 |
|
|---|---|---|---|
|
Revenue |
$65,223 |
$65,711 |
$67,052 |
|
Operating expenses |
$80,964 |
$70,634 |
$75,426 |
|
Interest expense |
$165 |
$144 |
$131 |
|
Net loss |
($15,906) |
($5,067) |
($8,505) |
|
|
|||
|
Adj. operating expenses* |
$69,864 |
$70,634 |
$69,926 |
|
Adj. net loss |
($4,641) |
($4,923) |
($2,874) |
Source: USPS. *Subtracts $11.1 billion for 2012 due to delayed funding of 2011’s mandate, …read more
Source: FULL ARTICLE at DailyFinance
If you keep up with the news at all, you know that the United States Postal Service is having problems. Between the rise of email and social media, not to mention competition from carriers like UPS and FedEx, the USPS is hemorrhaging money. Last year alone, its losses totaled nearly $16 billion. And so, the USPS is making changes. It’s eliminating… …read more
Source: FULL ARTICLE at The Car Connection
Filed under:
As much as our digital lives have cut down on our trips to the post office, there are still times that sending “snail mail” is necessary. With us car lovers in mind and philately in their hearts, the good folks at the United States Postal Service will introduce a new stamp design called “Muscle Cars” starting on February 22.
Designed by artist Tom Fritz, the new collection of stamps consist of five classic muscle cars: 1969 Dodge Charger Daytona, 1970 Chevrolet Chevelle SS, 1967 Shelby GT-500, 1966 Pontiac GTO and 1970 Plymouth Hemi ‘Cuda. In addition to just the stamps, the USPS is also commemorating the new series with plenty of collectable memorabilia. Previous car-related stamps include 50s Sporty Cars from 2005 and 50s Fins and Chrome from 2008.
Official USPS Muscle Cars stamps coming to a mailbox near you originally appeared on Autoblog on Thu, 21 Feb 2013 13:59:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Source: FULL ARTICLE at Autoblog
By Evann Gastaldo 
Source: FULL ARTICLE at Newser – Great Finds
The news the USPS will stop delivering mail on saturdays has prompted some post office naval gazing, and with it has come a claim I have seen made before: that the U.S. Postal Service is the most efficient in the world. The proof given is a study by economists Chong, La Porta, Lopez-de-Silanes, and Shleifer from 2012. What they did was mail letters to 10 fake addresses in 159 countries and see how long it took them to be returned, and what percentage of them are returned. …read more
Source: FULL ARTICLE at Forbes Latest
By Rich Smith, The Motley Fool
Filed under: U.S. Government, Government Spending, Junk Mail and Telemarketing
According to U.S. Postmaster General Patrick Donahoe, 7 out of every 10 Americans polled say they like the idea of the U.S. Postal Service eliminating Saturday mail delivery in order to cut $2 billion a year off of the Post Office‘s budget.
And so … that’s just what he’s going to do.
Donahoe announced on Wednesday that rather than wait for Congress to propose a solution to the USPS‘s fiscal problems, he’s going to order the service to halt Saturday letter deliveries beginning this August….
Most of Us Want the Post Office to Kill Saturday Delivery? Really? originally appeared on DailyFinance.com on 2013-02-08T06:00:00Z.
By Neal Colgrass 
Source: FULL ARTICLE at Newser – Great Finds
The U.S. Postal service is now charging Americans a penny more for stamps and postcard mailings.
The price of a first-class stamp for domestic mail rose Sunday from 45 cents to 46 cents, while postcards cost 33 cents to send.
The USPS rolled out the pricing changes alongside a new stamp – the Global Forever – which lets people mail one-ounce letters to anywhere in the world for $1.10.
Other new services include free tracking for packages and the option of receiving a signature upon delivery for critical mail items, WALA reports.
Source: FULL ARTICLE at Fox US News
