The news just announced 3700 post offices will close

I think just like everything else that has happened in during this bad economy the small business owner will suffer the most. If you are shipping products or whatever through mail because it is cheaper than Fedex or UPS, then you will suffer for sure. Not only will you pay higher shipping prices, you might lose business because you aren't getting what you need in a timely way or you have no money to grow and product more product. It's a sad state of affairs if you ask me. But I do understand having to make budget cuts.

In Australia we have a government agency called AusPost, which is independently run but under the government's control. They saw the writing on the wall, and since they decided the delivery of mail is such an importnat public issue, sought ways to expand branch business to cover the expected loss of revenue and keep as many branches open as possible. They have always done passports, but now they sell a wide variety of stationary, novelty lines, computer accessories, small business machines, and so forth. They also handle a lot of corporate and local government bill paying, do photocopies, faxing, notarising, and banking. It seems to work so far. Lash

Postal services have had constant attacks on their services over the years. The advent of telegraph's, telephones, cell phones and now emails have all made people write less. It is quite common to not have written or received letters all year. Their biggest flux of post was normally at Christmas with Christmas cards and that too has dwindled. I suspect they thought they survived everything else they would survive this. Unlike Western Union, with the telegraph and telegram that suffered heavily with the same pressures and sms to boot who closed their telegram service in 2006, the postal service did not diversify their services which would have allowed them to continue without such drastic counter measures.

I think a lot of people will be upset because they have to travel further to get to a post office. The unemployment rate in the US will go up. Stamp prices will probably go up. I think everyone should just mail a letter. If everyone in the US mailed a package or one letter a week, we might be able to save some of these jobs.

Even if I don´t live in the US, I can see that many things have changed these last years because of computing. I don´t buy newspapers anymore because I read them in my computer. When something is important, I also watch thwe news in TV. No more dirty inky hands! I also do most of my bill payments from my computer and I am angry when the bills come to my house as all of them are paid automatically by my Bank. Why should we spend paper from trees of our planets when we have other means? There should be some post offices: for packages and the like. But I´m sure thay can close many of them and have the people who want to send a package go a little bit farther.

Personally it will not cause too much of a delay for me as I usually get only bills and they can wait to arrive. But on a serious note I do get most of mine electronically, which why I suspect that the mail service is not delivering as much to as many as they use to before. I think that perhaps they explored that avenue when coming up with this plan, or at least I would hope they did as it would not make sense to save to spend. But I am sure it will have a lot of glitches until they once again make another change.

I know that within 10 miles of my community there are 3 Post Offices that could close and the routs absorbed by other Post Offices and not effect mail delivery. In Wisconsin we make children walk up to 1/2 mile to catch the school bus, but I am told that the post office will drive that far down a road for one mail box. I live in town but am within 1/2 mile of the Post Office so I have to rent a mail box to get my mail. Why can't they put up lock mail boxes and deliver mail to set locations rather than to their door? That would save money.

I just do not see how they can cut back your mail delivery and it not affect something. All bills have due dates and how are we going to be sure that those can get there on time. I believe that there should be a better way to solve the issue but I really do not know how.

It is a shame that the PO has done this to themselves and we, the people are suffering. What is making them go bust is....salaries. I saw a report that said that 92% of the PO's total "expense" which means what it costs them to stay open... is salaries. Meaning that only 12% of their expenditures is for postal fixtures, rent, stamps, etc. THey have over paid their carriers and staff to the point that they can't afford them anymore. First, back when times were good, they hired people giving them these humongous retirements and insurance etc.At the time, it wasn't a problem as the people were working for a salary. But now... those people are retiring and the PO has to now pay these high retirements and between that and the current salaries....they can't afford to stay open! So their past mistakes of arrogance is now costing not only them their jobs, but us, the people our postal service. I hear stamps will be come more offered at stores (groceries now sell them by the book) and "atm" style stamp machines like they have ATM's in variety of places, and they will cut back on current employees (and make us stand in even longer lines) and close the smaller stations. But the thing is... it will never end. They have to pay those high retirements and they will never end, so their problem will never end. Alot of the "fault" has been put on online usage and yes... paying bills on line has cut into their product not being used as much but instead of trying to figure out how to get around that, they pay themselves first. There should be something the gov can do about those high retirements. I mean, yeah, they worked a fair days work for a more than fair days wage, but at the same time...they are costing the american people to loose their postal service. Cut those retirements in half or something. Either that or we loose. Granted, go to more online bill pay and such and FedX and UPS will profit but it is a crying shame that the USPS has done this to us... all the while many of us were putting in a fair days wage and a lower than fair days wage. I will be sorry to see it go. I have been a snail mail letter writer for years and years.. I hate getting Email B-day cards and things like that. I like a letter in my hand. I have just introduced my 11 year old grand daughter to snail mail and she loves it!!! Well, she loves getting them, but isn't as crazy (as I am) about writing them.. but she'll get there... if the USPS doesn't shatter our dream!

It is discouraging to see so many post offices closing. It will certainly change how a lot of people will give and receive mail. More and more will be done online I'm sure. for those who do not have internet access, this could cause a problem. What about all of the jobs that will be lost as well?

Good day Chrystaltears, As the evolution of inventions are being impart to people now a days, the effect will be diversification. And this is almost the same when people created computers. Before a manual work can be done in weeks having a manpower of three or more. But since computer has been invented, the manual work can be generated in just a few days having only two manpower needed. It will just be needing two laborers to operate the machine, that is one in the morning and one in the evening. And as the new millenium age approaches, there are times, computer operation really dont need manpower at all. It just requires a timer. Same thing what happened to the Post Office. As the email evolves now a days, sending and receiving of letters are now being done on-line. For this reason, the workers on this job does not have anything to do since transmitting of letters and the like was diverted into computerization. Perhaps, people who are affected by this diversification should think of a way on how to deal on such situation. After all, it is still the people who invented the computer. And so, computer are just only a small machine that follows instructions from the people who operates it. For without the people, computer will be useless at all.

Wow, that would translate to so many people having no work because each office has workers.

This wouldn't have happened if they wouldn't have paid so much to the Post Office employees. They get paid good money and get great benefits just by sitting down all day sorting mail. Getting paid $10 or over for sorting mail would be a nice job to have. Now the USPS is in debt and have to lay off employees, close down post offices, and not going to mail on Saturdays anymore. I don't think it'll save them money since now we have internet and we are using emails and Facebook to communicate with our friends and family, all the post office delivers are bills, junk mail, and maybe the occasionally package that you bought something online. I wouldn't be surprise in the future you won't see the post office delivering your bills since now you can pay your bills online even straight from your online banking account, which will screw over USPS even more.