The hemorrhage at the U.S. Postal Service gets worse. Face it, the time for massive overhaul at this venerable institution is nigh.

Posted on September 8, 2011

September 8, 2011 | Author: Jeffrey Lant | Posted in Dr. Jeffrey Lant’s Article Archive

Benjamin Franklin by Jean-Baptiste Greuze

By Dr. Jeffrey Lant
Author’s program note. If you were around in 1961 and were of a teen-age disposition, your trips to the soda shoppe were frequent and your search for The Sound was never-ending, punctuated as they were by gales of laughter, the hope for a class ring from that special someone bestowed during your special song; the someone you later you married only to discover he (or she) had feet of lead and no rhythm whatsoever.
One of your “finds” was The Marvelettes and you thought their catchy little tune, “Please Mr. Postman”, was to die for. Now Mr. Postman himself is on his last legs. I know he’d appreciate it if you sent him good wishes. Just don’t use email. It’s already killing him. You’ll find the song in any search engine. Please play it now and consider: it is a eulogy for an American institution.
Some postal history and perspective.
As human institutions go the creation and institutionalization of the post office is very recent history. And like so many great events of the time, it was born thanks to that patriot brainiac Benjamin Franklin who in 1775 became first Postmaster General of the United States. Franklin was after all the consummate communicator. A publisher, businessman, as well as polished diplomat and cunning revolutionary; he knew that the nation would never grow to its territorial greatness and full potential without the latest in communications.
And so, he helped organize what became in due course the pride of the democracy and necessary, too, where even the most humble could communicate and for prices which steadily decreased as the service — and the nation — grew. We were proud of our post office and knew how hard they worked to bring us the intelligence from the world beyond our gate and to live up to its charge:
“Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night stays these couriers from the swift completion of their appointed rounds.”
That was then… this is now…
September 6, 2011 Postmaster General Patrick Donahoe laid the stark situation of the postal service before a committee of United States senators. Such officials, of course, gave themselves the franking privilege long ago and thus having secured the right to unlimited free postage while in office, they have turned a blind eye and no intelligence whatsoever to the postal concerns of everyone else. Now these chickens are well and truly coming home to roost.
This passage from his alarming, lugubrious remarks pretty much sums up the state of the USPS: “I’m operating with a week’s worth of cash,” said this exasperated, at-his- wits-end descendant of the luckier Franklin. You could sense his irritation, frustration, incensed to a palpable degree. How had things gone so very wrong? The “culprits” are things we see and use every single day: the Internet, email, skype, text messaging and every other communications convenience we have all come to use daily. The USPS is now, sad to say, the whitest of elephants and Donahoe is the wake-master, presiding if not yet at its death bed, then at least at its prospective demise. The innocent days when “Please Mr. Postman” wowed the adolescent set and the USPS was the only game in town, now seem as far away as Ancient Rome.
But the USPS — and the government behind it– has been loathe to see the problem and do the sensible things to solve it, sooner, not later. And so good money has been thrown after bad and our elected poobahs procrastinate; it is something at which they excel.
USPS facts.
Item: The Postal Service’s weekly costs now exceed $1 billion dollars.
Item: USPS could post a $10 billion loss for its fiscal year.
Item: USPS needs a 90-day extension to pay billions of dollars in mandatory annual retirement payments due at the end of its fiscal year on September 30. Without this crucial extension, USPS will default on its obligations to retired employees.
In fairness to USPS and its string of (coming in hopeful, going out frustrated and embittered) postmasters general, the Postal Service has at least tried to advise Congress and stem the flood of red ink and lamentation. But Congress, ostrich-like here as elsewhere, has ignored the problem, buck passing with alacrity, while pleading reforms will take place “some day.” Thus the hapless saga of a once-great institution, crucial for the growth of the Great Republic, continues.
Item: The USPS missed the chance to profit from overnight mail and the fast package deliver services like UPS, Federal Express, and all the others. Here the USPS, arrogant in its mail delivery monopoly, muffed the chance to be a serious player in the very lucrative game of speedy delivery. Lord Acton famously wrote, “Power corrupts. Absolute power corrupts absolutely,” as the USPS demonstrated in spades.
Item: USPS missed the growing import of the Internet, email etc. They looked at these innovative message carriers and dismissed them as pesky and irritating to be sure, but not dangerous to their centuries of hegemony.
Item: USPS, as both Internet and its chief application email grow apace, failed to read the handwriting so clearly on the (electronic) wall and so failed to produce a sensible strategic plan that would redefine its role in an electronic world and determine what specific changes would be necessary with a clear plan for all necessary changes.
Get the picture?
Here were people minding the USPS store whom Ben Franklin would have fired in a heartbeat, as obviously not up to either their jobs or exalted titles and plush perquisites.
What should this gang who couldn’t shoot straight, USPS and Congress, have done?
1) Saturday mail deliveries should have been abolished years ago. Canadians have lived quite well without them. This efficiency would not have meant the end of America and would have saved millions. P.S. If the postal carriers union had complained grievously at this sensible recommendation (and they most assuredly would had, being the insufferably coddled government employees they are), they could be honestly told that with the acute diminution of mail, it would be no strain to Monday’s carriers when they would be expected to carry Saturday’s mail, too.
2) The nation has had too many post offices for years. In part this is a hang-over from 19th century political realities. Newly elected presidents enjoyed the “spoils system” which allowed them to select members of their party for patronage as postmasters. This perquisite of the presidency was abolished in due course, but its memory lingered on, stinking to high heaven and padding the rolls of post offices without mail, or purpose. It goes unsaid that this would necessitate a comparable shrinking in the number of employees, with all its attendant savings. Of course senators and representatives will scream bloody murder, so let’s give the Postmaster General the right to keep some of these smaller post offices for whatever he deems a good reason… even if that becomes a modern manifestation of the venerable Spoils System.
3) Let the USPS get access to the hundreds of millions of dollars overpaid into federal retirement funds for decades. This abuse no doubt benefited the congressional proponents of “voodoo economics.” They could use these funds elsewhere while congratulating themselves on just how difficult it would be for USPS to reclaim them. Nice.
We need these and other sensible reforms… and we need them yesterday.
What we don’t need are the silly statements by the likes of Senator Joseph Lieberman (I-Connecticut) who issued this suggestion to improve the fortunes of USPS: “We should be writing more passionate letters to those we love,” or the bonehead suggestion of Senator Clare McCaskiill (D-Missouri).
She said, “I really think that there is a longing out there right now, especially in these uncertain times, for some of the things that have provided stability over the years.” She urges a national advertising campaign to get people to use letters! Senator, as Ben Franklin could have told you, the USPS at its finest was about cutting edge communications technology, never merely the letter, envelope, and stamp.
That’s why whenever Mr. Postman looks in his bag nowadays there’s no letter for The Marvelettes, never, ever. The message was delivered days ago… by email.
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About The Author
About the Author Harvard-educated Dr. Jeffrey Lant is CEO of Worldprofit, Inc. at
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The stamp of approval. U.S. Postal Service recognizes the USS Constitution, the world’s oldest floating commissioned naval vessel.

August 26, 2011 | Author: Jeffrey Lant | Posted in Dr. Jeffrey Lant’s Article Archive

By Dr. Jeffrey Lant
Author’s program note. For this article no other song would do besides the jaunty, rousing fight song of the United States Naval Academy, “Anchors Aweigh.” Strongly associated, too, with the United States Navy, it was composed in 1906 by Charles A. Zimmerman with lyrics by Alfred Hart Miles. Zimmerman was at the time a Lieutenant, and had been bandmaster of the United States Naval Academy Band since 1887. Miles was Midshipman First Class at the Academy, in the class of 1907. The song was originally written for the class of ’07 to be used as a football march. It takes great fortitude and control not to jump and march when you hear its unmistakable sound. I own up to having neither when the band in full swing goes by playing this. Go now to any search engine and find the rendition you like best. Then play it loud and clear to get yourself into the mood for this tale of “Old Ironsides.”
“Ay, tear her tattered ensign down!”
Perhaps the most perilous battle she faced, literally a matter of life and death occurred in September, 1830 when the pettifogging bureaucrats in the naval department, eager to pinch pennies, ordered the greatest ship of the young Republic, now past her prime, to be broken up, just so much salvage.
A young Boston Brahmin named Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. learned of this intended act of short-sighted barbarism while at breakfast reading the “Boston Daily Advertiser.” At one he decided to take action to save the ship which could no longer fight to save herself. He titled his fast-penned poem “Old Ironsides” and it ran September 16, 1830.
“Ay, tear her tattered ensign down! Long has it waved on high, And many an eye has danced to see That banner in the sky; Beneath it rung the battle shout, And burst the cannon’s roar; The meteor of the ocean air Shall sweep the clouds no more.
Her deck, once red with heroes’ blood, Where knelt the vanquished foe, When winds were hurrying o’er the flood, And waves were white below, No more shall feel the victor’s tread, Or know the conquered knee; The harpies of the shore shall pluck The eagle of the sea.
Oh, better that her shattered bulk Should sink beneath the wave; Her thunders shook the mighty deep, And there should be her grave; Nail to her mast her holy flag, Set every threadbare sail, And give her to the god of storms, The lighting and the gale!”
By the evening of the 16th, author Holmes was famous… and his fervent verses, overwrought, overdone, overfraught, were making even the most committed pennypinchers abashed and ashamed. “Old Ironsides” was saved… but it was a very close run thing. One shudders to think what would have happened had young Mr. Holmes not been of a poetical disposition.
The great warship is born, 1797.
Now that the former American colonies had become the new American nation, the powerful British fleet, which had always protected them and cost them nothing, became the new nation’s prime antagonist. Thus, this nation found itself in the unenviable position of having virtually no ships to protect them and their crucial maritime commerce. Constructing a navy became a priority, at least for the mercantile East and New England. It was their ships and cargoes, after all, their British antagonists aimed to capture and disrupt.
And so, the USS Constitution, named by President George Washington, was authorized as one of 6 original frigates by the Naval Act of 1794. These ships were larger and more heavily armed and built than standard frigates of the period, a fact which was very important for all six ships, but particularly Constitution, which used this advantage to earn the most glorious battle record of them all.
Right from the first, she was needed and served in the Quasi-War with France (1798) and in the war against the Barbary pirates, practiced thieves of North Africa who had hitherto preyed with impunity on American vessels and crews. Constitution helped win the First Barbary War (1801). But these useful services were just a preface to her greatest service in the otherwise lackluster and regrettable War of 1812, a conflict both Americans and British wanted, but brought neither laurels, treasure, territory or satisfaction.
In this conflict, only the Constitution and its string of oceanic victories stood out, so much so that the British Admiralty ruled that warships combating Constitution and her sisters should never fight alone, only in packs. It was testament to just how good these vessels were, especially Constitution. She defeated one of His Majesty’s ships after another… each victory thrilled a nation irritated, frustrated, exasperated by what the American army couldn’t seem to do… and by a similar lack of results by other ships of the brand new navy.
But Constitution caused Americans to rush to the harbor and shout “Huzzah” as news arrived about victory… first, over the Guerriere. This was the engagement which gave Constitution its celebrated sobriquet. For cannon balls shot from the doomed British warship seemed to bounce off Constitution without effect. An unknown sailor shouted, “Her sides are made of iron!”… and the nickname stuck, to thrill the proud nation which looked for any hopeful news to cheer at in this entirely unhappy war.
HMS Java was next… then HMS Cyane… and HMS Levant… and HMS Lord Nelson, bearing the most famous name in British naval history… captured as a prize along with everything needed to celebrate Christmas, a meal they so enjoyed… with one toast after another heartily drunk from the defeated captain’s fine liquors. How sweet that was… and sweeter still the cheers, plaudits, and resounding thanks of the nation when on 15 May, 1815 she came home, full of honors and renown.
Now what?
As navy men will tell you, each new ship embodies the best of current technology; as these ships are launched they push previous vessels to obsolescence and the scrap heap, for there is nothing so useless as a vessel, costing money everyday, without the ability to fulfill its bellicose purpose. No ship, not even ones covered with glory like Constitution, can avoid this sad fate. Thus as she aged, the vultures and scrap metal merchants circled… and for all her victories, she also would have been broken up, no more to sail, protect the nation, and make every citizen proud. Sic transit gloria mundi. But providence intervened in the person of Mr. Holmes and his facile pen.
The subsequent history of Constitution and how she continued to serve is mundane compared to her maritime glories. No matter. She survived, though there were always those ready to sacrifice the legendary vessel to save a few pence. Her luck held… not least because of the many who worked mightily to save her and give her the honorable place in the Navy as the world’s oldest floating commissioned warship along with a museum which opened in 1976, the same year H.M. Queen Elizabeth and Prince Philip trod her decks when they visited Boston as part of the nation’s Bicentennial observations. Her ancestor George III, owner of the ships humbled by Constitution, no doubt spun in his imperial grave.
Now, just in time for the Bicentennial of the War of 1812, the U.S. Postal Service has released the design for an “Old Ironsides” stamp. The beleaguered postal service, in the process of closing 3,700 post offices throughout the United States, hopes to use Constitution to sell commemoratives for needed funds. And because closing post offices means losing such sales… they have launched this new stamp on Facebook, thereby hoping to reach millions of folks of philatelic bent. And so her good uses continue… her future now, we hope, secured. Next time you visit Boston, do visit, for she has always been one of the glories of the nation and so she remains.
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About The Author
Republished with author’s permission by Howard Martell <a http://HomeProfitCoach.com  Check out 7 Figure Success Formula ->  http://www.HomeProfitCoach.com/?rd=ij6goAXm