As the good ship Postal Service continues its merry chug toward that iceberg we call fiscal armageddon, the USPS’s governing body continues to put off the inevitable. The Sept. 5th meeting of the USPS’s Board of Governors postponed its vote on increasing postage rates….until its Sept. 24-25 meeting.
Though magazine, direct-mail and greeting card associations made the usual sounds of “we are gladdened by the board’s continued review of the problem,” optimism is a bit out of place here. The USPS works on an anemic budget considering the size of its coverage area. It’s expected to move letters and parcels across pretty much the largest populated landmass in the world starting at just 46 cents.
The postal service cries poverty because of the enormous costs involved in doing this and because it’s required to guarantee pensions for its workers. Those who depend on it for their livelihoods cry poverty because most are still trying to figure out how to transform their centuries-old business models into ones that can cope with the Internet age.
And everything will be fixed by Sept. 24th? Well thank heaven for that.
