Not Me

[Scuba Steve]

The closed threads were not me. There are a lot of people who have experienced the same thing though. I grew up around UPS. It's a shame what the company was and what it has become.

I'll respond though. There is some misinformation from some of you. There is a difference between Express and Priority mail. USPS will even deliver Express on Sunday's in most Metro Markets.

USPS is taking away e-commerce volume from UPS. They are doing it with lower rates and the service levels have been on par with UPS. Remember of UPS is 99% effective everyday at delivering packages, that's roughly 150,000 packages that have a problem daily. USPS is going after large shippers with better rates and winning. They are buying larger vehicles and deliver on Sunday's. Doing this at an operating profit. http://www.newsweek.com/post-office-aint-broken-its-profit-so-why-fix-it-397788

UPS labor, pension and benefit costs are not going to be able to sustain in the next 10 years. A lot of UPS'rs on here are complaining about being over worked and the whip cracking by management. I've been around UPS all my life. It's always been like that but since the IPO it's got worse. Service isn't like it was. Most of the good leadership left when the IPO hit. Customer service is outsourced. Service failures have got worse. Drivers and loaders overworked. Management disconnect.

Do some reading... There is a reason why the post office the past couple years turned an operating profit and is growing. There is also a reason why FDX stock is higher than UPS and has been for a number of years.

 

[cosmo1]

Well, thanks for clearing that up.

 

[Scuba Steve]

My pleasure, g'nite

 

[burrheadd]

What's up Scuba?

 

[cosmo1]

@Turdferguson, your buddy's back.

 

[Scuba Steve]

Just reading. You?

 

[burrheadd]

Just reading. You?

Tryin to keep it real
Ya know what Iam sayin

 

[Scuba Steve]

New Ebonics you'd say "Nah mean"

 

[Re-Raise]

There is also a reason why FDX stock is higher than UPS and has been for a number of years.

The only reason their stock share price is higher than our's is because they have about 1/3 the number of outstanding shares that we have. Keep trying. On a side note..you kind of remind of a guy that used to post here under the name Dannyboy who thought he knew everything about UPS and sold fish out of his garage or something

 

[underworked1]

The closed threads were not me. There are a lot of people who have experienced the same thing though. I grew up around UPS. It's a shame what the company was and what it has become.

I'll respond though. There is some misinformation from some of you. There is a difference between Express and Priority mail. USPS will even deliver Express on Sunday's in most Metro Markets.

USPS is taking away e-commerce volume from UPS. They are doing it with lower rates and the service levels have been on par with UPS. Remember of UPS is 99% effective everyday at delivering packages, that's roughly 150,000 packages that have a problem daily. USPS is going after large shippers with better rates and winning. They are buying larger vehicles and deliver on Sunday's. Doing this at an operating profit. http://www.newsweek.com/post-office-aint-broken-its-profit-so-why-fix-it-397788

UPS labor, pension and benefit costs are not going to be able to sustain in the next 10 years. A lot of UPS'rs on here are complaining about being over worked and the whip cracking by management. I've been around UPS all my life. It's always been like that but since the IPO it's got worse. Service isn't like it was. Most of the good leadership left when the IPO hit. Customer service is outsourced. Service failures have got worse. Drivers and loaders overworked. Management disconnect.

Do some reading... There is a reason why the post office the past couple years turned an operating profit and is growing. There is also a reason why FDX stock is higher than UPS and has been for a number of years.

Ups switched to a 4 year progression. A huge swath of the drivers will be hitting retirement age in the next 5 to 10 years. And those replacements will be working at half the pay. Expect ups profits to increase in the future.

 

[Turdferguson]

Do some reading... There is a reason why the post office the past couple years turned an operating profit and is growing. There is also a reason why FDX stock is higher than UPS and has been for a number of years.

You are right Steve. We are doomed thanks for showing us the error of our ways. In 2014 they only had a operating loss of 5.1 billion dollars as opposed to 5.5 billion dollars the year before. They are on the move.
http://www.wsj.com/articles/usps-posts-annual-loss-though-revenue-rises-1447433323

 

[Wally]

What's up Scuba?

A big yellow thing in parts of this country, takes the kiddies to their places of learning.

"You getz on the Scuba' Bubba"!

 

[Orion inc.]

You are right Steve. We are doomed thanks for showing us the error of our ways. In 2014 they only had a operating loss of 5.1 billion dollars as opposed to 5.5 billion dollars the year before. They are on the move.
http://www.wsj.com/articles/usps-posts-annual-loss-though-revenue-rises-1447433323

Don't forget the huge amounts of tax payer funded government back interest free loans they have to take out each quarter just to pay their operations budget.
There's a reason the postmaster general was asking congress to eliminate Saturday delivery and change processes to deem rural addresses to only be delivered twice a week in some areas.

They are a government agency that wants all the benefits and protections of that but want to compete like a private business.

That will not be able to be maintained for the long term.

Also the post office has worse and more expensive pension and labor obligations than ups.

 

[MendozaJ]

I don't know what you're talking about. USPS has had one profitable quarter in five years. The number of postal workers has decreased by 37% since 1999. New hires are paid lower wages. Congress loom large with more "reforms."

 

[Orion inc.]

I don't know what you're talking about. USPS has had one profitable quarter in five years. The number of postal workers has decreased by 37% since 1999. New hires are paid lower wages. Congress loom large with more "reforms."

If you add in the loans they had to take out in that quarter, they wouldn't have had even that.

 

[IVE GOTTA PACKAGE 4U]

If you add in the loans they had to take out in that quarter, they wouldn't have had even that.

Wonder how much they are going to lose with the recent stamp price decrease?

 

[upschuck]

Wonder how much they are going to lose with the recent stamp price decrease?

2 cents a letter.

 

[Overpaid Union Thug]

The closed threads were not me. There are a lot of people who have experienced the same thing though. I grew up around UPS. It's a shame what the company was and what it has become.

I'll respond though. There is some misinformation from some of you. There is a difference between Express and Priority mail. USPS will even deliver Express on Sunday's in most Metro Markets.

USPS is taking away e-commerce volume from UPS. They are doing it with lower rates and the service levels have been on par with UPS. Remember of UPS is 99% effective everyday at delivering packages, that's roughly 150,000 packages that have a problem daily. USPS is going after large shippers with better rates and winning. They are buying larger vehicles and deliver on Sunday's. Doing this at an operating profit. http://www.newsweek.com/post-office-aint-broken-its-profit-so-why-fix-it-397788

UPS labor, pension and benefit costs are not going to be able to sustain in the next 10 years. A lot of UPS'rs on here are complaining about being over worked and the whip cracking by management. I've been around UPS all my life. It's always been like that but since the IPO it's got worse. Service isn't like it was. Most of the good leadership left when the IPO hit. Customer service is outsourced. Service failures have got worse. Drivers and loaders overworked. Management disconnect.

Do some reading... There is a reason why the post office the past couple years turned an operating profit and is growing. There is also a reason why FDX stock is higher than UPS and has been for a number of years.

There are so many things wrong with your post and the link that I can't even muster up the energy required to pick it apart. All that really needs to be said is that the USPS should be closed unless they are going to operate on a level playing field with their competitors.

 

[worldwide]

The closed threads were not me. There are a lot of people who have experienced the same thing though. I grew up around UPS. It's a shame what the company was and what it has become.

I'll respond though. There is some misinformation from some of you. There is a difference between Express and Priority mail. USPS will even deliver Express on Sunday's in most Metro Markets.

USPS is taking away e-commerce volume from UPS. They are doing it with lower rates and the service levels have been on par with UPS. Remember of UPS is 99% effective everyday at delivering packages, that's roughly 150,000 packages that have a problem daily. USPS is going after large shippers with better rates and winning. They are buying larger vehicles and deliver on Sunday's. Doing this at an operating profit. http://www.newsweek.com/post-office-aint-broken-its-profit-so-why-fix-it-397788

UPS labor, pension and benefit costs are not going to be able to sustain in the next 10 years. A lot of UPS'rs on here are complaining about being over worked and the whip cracking by management. I've been around UPS all my life. It's always been like that but since the IPO it's got worse. Service isn't like it was. Most of the good leadership left when the IPO hit. Customer service is outsourced. Service failures have got worse. Drivers and loaders overworked. Management disconnect.

Do some reading... There is a reason why the post office the past couple years turned an operating profit and is growing. There is also a reason why FDX stock is higher than UPS and has been for a number of years.

Full disclosure - the Newsweek article you posted the link to is an opinion piece from Fredric Roland, president of the National Association of Letter Carriers, so it may not be the most unbiased piece of writing...

One of the comments someone posted spells out very nicely all the benefits the USPS receives (see below). Fredric complains that it's a "unique and unfair burden" that the USPS must pre-fund its retiree health benefits. Guess what, UPS and FedEx equally complain that its unique and unfair that their primary competition is a quasi-government entity that gets all kinds of "perks" that no private company like UPS and FedEx can get. What other private sector firms have a quasi-government entity as their main competitor with all the perks they enjoy?

"But as Robert Shapiro—former Treasury undersecretary and chairman of the economic consultancy Sonecon—points out in a new analysis, American taxpayers subsidize the USPS at a rate that surpasses the costs associated with any Congressional mandate. He estimates that, all told, the subsidies and legal monopolies that Congress bestows upon the post office is worth $18 billion annually. These include:

1. Laws that bar any other shipping service from delivering mail and packages directly to residential and business mailboxes. Shapiro estimates that this gives the Post Office a $14 billion annual boost, more than three times what the Postal Regulatory Commission estimates it to be. Shapiro argues that the PRC’s analysis doesn’t take into account the productivity gains that the Post Office would be forced to make if it really had to compete for mailbox delivery. He points out that productivity at USPS has only grown by 0.7% per year versus 2.5% for its competition.

2. Tax breaks. The Post Office is exempt from state and local property and real estate taxes, along with other burdens like tolls, vehicle registration fees, and parking tickets. These exemptions save the USPS $2.18 billion per year.

3. Cheap borrowing. The Postal Service, writes Shapiro, “can borrow from the U.S. Treasury through the Federal Financing Bank, at highly-subsidized interest rates.” It currently borrows the legal limit of $15.2 billion at a rate of 1.2%. Without this access, it would be paying somewhere between $415 million and $490 million per year more in interest.

4. Finally, Shapiro points out that the USPS pays its workers salaries and benefits far above the rates paid to similar workers in the private sector. Labor accounted for 78% of the organization’s costs in 2014, “with about 89% of those costs involving employees represented by collective bargaining.” These higher labor costs, plus the absence of a need to innovate due to government-granted monopolies, has freed the USPS from $20 billion in labor and productivity costs per year, Shapiro estimates. “While we do not technically count this as a subsidy,” he writes, it represents an economic burden on others arising directly from USPS’s monopoly position.” Postage, for instance, would likely be cheaper for everyone if the organization were subject to the same competitive pressures as private firms.

It’s remarkable that the United States, which has a reputation for being more free market-oriented than other rich nations, maintains this government-mandated monopoly. Over the past several decades, the process of European integration led to the deregulation and privatization of European postal monopolies, with generally good results.

The Post Office employs 618,000 people—more than any civilian employer besides Wal Mart. Given the pay disparities between the Post Office and private employers, these people would be highly motivated to block any significant change to the current system."

And don't forget that the USPS does not have to pay any parking tickets while UPS and FedEx pay tens of millions of dollars each year. Perhaps the biggest perk they have is a 1st class mail monopoly. No one else is allowed to deliver 1st class mail and the USPS uses that monopoly to cross fund their parcel operations to keep prices much lower than FedEx and UPS could offer.