It really frustrates me that they won't charge a dollar for a goddam stamp.

Meanwhile, the recent package increases mean that sending a 7" single to a foreign country now costs more than twice as much ($13) as the single itself. The indie music business just died. So did a lot of other small businesses, like jewelers, that rely on postal mail.

And for what? So GODDAMN REPUBLICANS can deliberately destroy the ONLY program or agency specifically called for in the Constitution, the document that they constantly wave and bleat about but have never read except for that one amendment.

I'm curious as to why this article didn't discuss the countless rude, disrespectful and disgruntled USPS clerks I've encountered. Or when my post man doesn't ring my apartment bell, instead leaving me a "you weren't at home" slip for a package I can't pick up until the next day, from 9am-2pm. Or that they lose my mail constantly ("It's somewhere in the building, we just can't find it"), and tell me to leave my license at the office because my boyfriend who lives in the same apartment cannot pick up the package for me even with my approval. Or when they don't deliver a 10 pound package because it's "too heavy."
I say purge the company of it's current employees and make them all re-apply based off of how the customers on their routes feel about their service. What I wouldn't give to have a stable job with a decent wage and full benefits.

@3,

Sorry you've had bad experiences. I've only ever had to put up with horrendously bad service when I briefly lived in Jersey City. They refused to take any package that had any kind of markings on it other than the address (something no other post office in my experience has a problem with). They frequently sent my mail back to the sender. And, when I moved, they never forwarded my mail as requested.

The USPS does have a complaint system. Have you ever tried it?

Actually, I've had fine service from USPS. And it's great to talk to the SAME clerk at the PO, instead of an anonymous ups,fed ex worker you may not see again. what the GOP did to USPS is criminal. Too bad there's not an afterlife. Some folks deserve to fry. PS. I've talked to several USPS workers. Cushy? No, their work is stressful, as they are always pushed for more.

Want to send a letter to Talkeetna, Alaska, from New York? It will cost you fifty dollars by UPS. Grabenhorst or Lipscomb can do it for less than two quarters: the same as the cost of getting a letter from Gold Hill to Shady Cove, Oregon, twenty miles up the road.

Therein lies the problem, and the solution! I think it should cost 50 dollars. I think all the post office is doing is suppressing real market prices and wages. I mean think of how much time and effort it takes to send even a single piece of mail!

And the pervasive availability of email, text messaging and cell phones relieves the Government of its mandate for "post roads" so why not let UPS buy USPS and make people pay fair labor pricing.

I think it's a bit ironic that rural, anti government right-wingers are the group likely to be most affected by a reduction in USPS service.

I won't have sex with anyone who dismisses the importance of the USPS. I vote with my dick.