Just how bad is the mail right now?

What does this mean in the grand scheme of things? Are there any benefits to privatizing the postal service???

Yes- It benefits rich stock and share holders of whatever private companies that swoop in to take over the most profitable remains. The USPS is profitable and is self funded; however, it always appears to be losing money because they forced to pre-fund fund retirement and benefit plans 25 years in advance. This was a poison pill introduced years ago by another Republican congress/ administration to make it appear that they are inefficient, delay capital investments, and to try to advance privatization. Untold millions of Americans in rural communities rely solely on the USPS for critical services. These are places that private companies wont go to or charge ridiculous fees for service. The USPS, when led by non-partisan, competent professionals is the gold standard of postal services with over 600,000 dedicated employees.
Make no mistake, what is happening now is an out-in the attempt to slow down mail service during a pandemic and during an election under the direction of the President through a Postmaster General who has massive conflicts of interests and a vested interest in seeing the USPS fail.

Oh and good luck with the sports card hobby in general if you are forced to use UPS or FedEx to ship everything.
 
I'm having brutal luck with my local PO right now. I have one package sitting there for 7 days, and one that arrived there from NY in 2 days, was then shipped to Texas, back to the local PO, off to Florida, and is now once again sitting in Havertown.

Pennsylvania is one of the states has already begun to experience massive delays due to "cost cutting" measures.
 
Yes- It benefits rich stock and share holders of whatever private companies that swoop in to take over the most profitable remains. The USPS is profitable and is self funded; however, it always appears to be losing money because they forced to pre-fund fund retirement and benefit plans 25 years in advance. This was a poison pill introduced years ago by another Republican congress/ administration to make it appear that they are inefficient, delay capital investments, and to try to advance privatization. Untold millions of Americans in rural communities rely solely on the USPS for critical services. These are places that private companies wont go to or charge ridiculous fees for service. The USPS, when led by non-partisan, competent professionals is the gold standard of postal services with over 600,000 dedicated employees.
Make no mistake, what is happening now is an out-in the attempt to slow down mail service during a pandemic and during an election under the direction of the President through a Postmaster General who has massive conflicts of interests and a vested interest in seeing the USPS fail.

Oh and good luck with the sports card hobby in general if you are forced to use UPS or FedEx to ship everything.

Dead on accurate assessment. In my opinion, the USPS is a national service and is under no obligation to earn money. I don't ask the fire department to turn a profit.
 
Yes- It benefits rich stock and share holders of whatever private companies that swoop in to take over the most profitable remains. The USPS is profitable and is self funded; however, it always appears to be losing money because they forced to pre-fund fund retirement and benefit plans 25 years in advance. This was a poison pill introduced years ago by another Republican congress/ administration to make it appear that they are inefficient, delay capital investments, and to try to advance privatization. Untold millions of Americans in rural communities rely solely on the USPS for critical services. These are places that private companies wont go to or charge ridiculous fees for service. The USPS, when led by non-partisan, competent professionals is the gold standard of postal services with over 600,000 dedicated employees.
Make no mistake, what is happening now is an out-in the attempt to slow down mail service during a pandemic and during an election under the direction of the President through a Postmaster General who has massive conflicts of interests and a vested interest in seeing the USPS fail.

Oh and good luck with the sports card hobby in general if you are forced to use UPS or FedEx to ship everything.

75 years in advance
 
Next time you mail that single card to you buddy in the next province over take it to one of the courier services. Then compare the price.Then you should be able to answer that question. You can mail it for under $2.00 The privately owned courier service will be at least 5X as much. I am not sure about the USPS. But it sort of looks like they can mail within the country for a couple bucks with tracking.I can almost guarantee you that if it is privatized ,those days will be hind them as well. I know that we all have issues from time to time with our respective postal services.But put it into perspective of just how many items get mailed ever day.Yet we complain because it took 24 hours more than maybe it should have. Or heaven forbid a card gets lost in the mail.One in 50 million packages mailed on Monday.And that only deals with mailing within our countries.Imagine the cost of sending that single from Ontario to Texas by courier.
For me I have absolutely no complains about our mail system.And in these times we are dealing with right now. We have to expect delay.Maybe lower our expectation just a bit. I made a deal with a person in New Brunswick. He mailed the package on Wed. I received it today. I am not sure if a courier could have done it quicker or not. But I can promise they would not do it as cheap. Just my thoughts on this whole mail talking stuff.

Wise words!! I am not really upset at everything, just confused. Obviously the health and well being is first and foremost, but when I see packages just being stuck somewhere and not really having any logical explanation.. Well that's just odd. I do not really buy anything out of Toronto, and everything I have bought in Toronto/Canada has come to be very quickly.

I think the best way to sum things up is that the mailing service is a big business and they are looking to take advantage and profit from this situation. Stinks, but it makes sense.
 
75 years in advance

I stand corrected and I will meet you in the middle lol. I should have used the exact language of the Postal Accountability and Enhancement Act of 2006. Initially, they were talking about 75 years of advance funding for unfunded liabilities, but that number was never placed in the actual text of the law. Instead they only were required to pre-fund pensions through 2056 with aggressive frontloading in the first 10 years. Either way my math was off- actually 50 years of pre-funding and any of those numbers make it very difficult to be "profitable."

It is one of the reasons that our first class international packages jumped so much within the past 5 years or so. They realized that in order to offset declining letter mail, they would have to raise the package rate cost over 200%!
 
Here’s one from a trade made on HI.

June 14, 2020, 1:09 pm
Processed Through Regional Facility
MIAMI FL INTERNATIONAL DISTRIBUTION CENTER
Your item was processed through our MIAMI FL INTERNATIONAL DISTRIBUTION CENTER facility on June 14, 2020 at 1:09 pm. The item is currently in transit to the destination.
June 14, 2020
In Transit to Next Facility
June 11, 2020, 9:47 am
Arrived at USPS Regional Facility
MIAMI FL INTERNATIONAL DISTRIBUTION CENTER
June 11, 2020, 9:47 am
Arrived at Regional Facility
MIAMI FL INTERNATIONAL DISTRIBUTION CENTER
June 10, 2020, 5:17 pm
Departed Post Office
BOCA RATON, FL 33481
June 10, 2020, 9:13 am
USPS in possession of item
BOCA RATON, FL 33481
June 9, 2020, 10:30 am
Shipping Label Created, USPS Awaiting Item
BOCA RATON, FL 33433

The sender has inquired about the item but no luck there. Going into month 3 and not expecting to get this one.
 
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I really hadn't noticed much of anything as far as slow downs go. Anything coming to me in Canada moved fine (same with anything I was sending in Canada). I've had zero issues sending to the USA, and even things coming to me from the USA seemed to move fine.

The last little while, that's changed. Regular mail coming from the USA doesn't seem to have any issues, but anything that's tracked is becoming slower. Maybe it's just in my head, but it seems that the wait time is much longer.
 
Cause for hope:
There is discussion of a bipartisan US bill to fund the PO to continue business as usual - i.e. existing business practices as of Jan 2020 - through to at least Jan 2021. They want to make it impervious as possible to monkeyshines - basically, it's money that has to go to service, cannot be withheld, cannot be redirected, and pauses any attempted restructurings.
 
the newly appointed Post Master General(LeJoy) just announced today that the USPS will cease the removal of sorting machines and reinstate overtime pay(on an "as needed" basis and will not mess with the system through January 2021.this is the direct result of multiple lawsuits from 20+ States levied over the past week.Now,here's where it's a grand illusion.the USPS will not comply with inquiries of how many sorting machines have already been removed or if they will be replaced.sort of a "we've done what we intended to do,now we can just sit back and do nothing else".btw,the newly appointed Postmaser is a major donor(millions) to Trumps campaign and just so happens to own.....you guessed it,a shipping company that directly competes with the USPS. you just can't make this Sh*t up!
 
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For those waiting on something from Russia, here's an update on my recent mail day:

I just received something today that was shipped on June 29th.

So it's going to take awhile.

I'm still waiting for my package from Russia from May.

Good news it arrived in Mississauga last week before being sent to Montreal. So I'm still waiting. Hoping it gets here by Labour Day. :groove:

Canadian Post
Handed over to Canada for further delivery
17 August 2020, 02:15 CAYMQA, Canada
Processing in Canada
17 August 2020, 02:13 CAYMQA, Canada
Transport leg completed
12 August 2020, 20:29 YYZ, Canada

This is after bouncing around Russia for two months and then spending two weeks in Poland.
 
Yes, which shipping company he owns nowadays?

He sold his shipping company 2014, worked there until 2018. He was elected Postmaster General in 2020.

Please let me know.

DeJoy's appointment was controversial because of his strong Republican connections,[17][18] as well as because of his financial position. While he divested some investments before taking on his role (shares in UPS and Amazon), he did not divest his $30–$75 million equity stake in XPO, a subcontractor for USPS. Additionally, when he sold his Amazon shares, he purchased stock options in the company that represent between 20–100% of his prior holdings

he is currently not employed by XPO but has not divested.
 
DeJoy's appointment was controversial because of his strong Republican connections,[17][18] as well as because of his financial position. While he divested some investments before taking on his role (shares in UPS and Amazon), he did not divest his $30–$75 million equity stake in XPO, a subcontractor for USPS. Additionally, when he sold his Amazon shares, he purchased stock options in the company that represent between 20–100% of his prior holdings

he is currently not employed by XPO but has not divested.

Yes, he owns between 0,5-0,9% of XPO. Democratic owned newspaper says it's a big problem. Let's see how it all turns out. :banana:
 
Back to the mail issue!

WON auction Monday, August 17th (Kitchener, ON)
PAID same day and mailed CP Registered MAIL Tuesday, August 18th
ARRIVED today, Thursday, August 20th (Cornwall, ON)

Of note, while checking the tracking path, the bubbler did bypass Mississauga, ON with a stopover in Ottawa, ON

Hurray for Canada Post!
 
My item still has no update since July 10th despite the sender opening a ticket with Canada Post, and myself opening a Missing Mail claim with the USPS. Pretty solid overall.
 

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