Author Archives: Charles Guy, Ph.D.

Universal Postal Service: Without Competition, the Tail Wags the Dog Issue Brief Why does a credit card company or a mail-order vender receive a government guarantee that its billings or solicitations will be delivered at a uniform price, even to every mailbox in the country? Because 90 percent of the [Read More...]
Renewed Mail Volume Growth No Panacea For Postal Service’s Financial Woes Issue Brief The Postal Service claims that its legislated business model is outdated and must be transformed. It blames its current financial crisis on what it sees as the decaying state of first-class letter mail. This mail, it argues, is [Read More...]
To Fix the Listing Postal Service, Don’t Forget to Plug the Holes Issue Brief When the ship’s taking on water, that’s not the time to scrub the deck. But with the Postal Service facing chronic billion-dollar losses, some prominent “solutions” would ignore its most serious problems. Postal management suggests that the Service’s [Read More...]
5 Ways to Fix the U.S. Postal Service Issue Brief With the release of their Transformation Plan, the Postal Service is effectively trying to distract attention away from the true nature of its problems: Namely, its management’s unwillingness to accept that the main mission of the Postal Service [Read More...]
Postal Reform Should Reduce Cost of Postal Labor Force Issue Brief Labor costs have remained near 80 percent of total costs over the history of the Postal Service. Increases in the price of labor are, consequently, a crucial determinate of the Service’s financial health. The Postal Service in its [Read More...]
Standards Needed For Postal Service Performance Reporting Issue Brief The Postal Board of Governors’ 2001 announcement that the Postal Service was on the brink of financial disaster, expecting to lose multiple billions of dollars, was a major surprise to most postal observers. The expectation of impending financial [Read More...]
GAO Reports Urgent Need for Postal Reform as USPS Celebrates Achievements Issue Brief A February 2002 General Accounting Office report concludes “The U.S. Postal Service’s ability to fulfill its mission by providing the current level of universal postal service at reasonable rates on a self-supporting basis is at increasing risk.” Among [Read More...]
Postal Management Seeks Greater Flexibility As its Reward For Mismanagement Issue Brief Since attempting to change its business profile to one of a more innovative and competitive entity in the mid-90s, the Postal Service has garnered a string of negative assessments of its performance. The Service’s Inspector General deemed the [Read More...]
Despite a Deteriorating Financial Condition, Business as Usual for the Postal Service Issue Brief The U.S. Postal Service had a traumatic beginning to its FY 2002, according to first quarter financial statements released at the Board of Governors’ January meeting. The year began with an expected loss of upwards of $2 billion, [Read More...]
Postal Reform Should Start Now By Capturing Forgone Productivity Gains Issue Brief With a reported loss of $1.7 billion for fiscal year 2001, and an expected loss of $2 billion or more during FY2002 announced before the events following September 11, postal management is now seeking a taxpayer bailout of [Read More...]
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