Way-yay-yay-yait Mr. Postman

Everything is crumbling into dust. "Neither rain, nor sleet, nor white of snow nor black of night and pain of fire will keep us from our appointed rounds." That's what it says on the main Post Office in New York. Now the Post Office is just another lame business on its way to the dustbin of history.

All those great Wild West stories of the Pony Express fighting off the Indians to deliver phone bills, all to be forgotten or misremembered. Mailmen trudging through piles of bodies after earthquakes to put Readers Digest in the remaining apartment mailboxes, and even shoving a few under doors when everything else was just rubble.

You get used to certain things. Catalogues, contest invitations, not so many letters anymore, nobody cares about that, you can always text people, that seems to be the way of the world now. All garbage. Maybe I can start a private mail service, to go along with my service for accepting nude photos from politicians. Out of all these great business ideas something has to work out. Doesn't it?

The U.S. Postal Service posted a net loss of $3.1 billion in its third quarter and warned again it would default on payments to the federal government if Congress did not step in.

Total mail volume for the quarter that ended June 30 fell to 39.8 billion pieces, a 2.6 percent drop from the same period a year earlier, as consumers turn to email and pay bills online.

The mail carrier, which does not get taxpayer funds, has struggled to overhaul its business as mail volumes fall. It has said personnel costs weigh heavily and is facing a massive retiree health benefit prepayment next month.

"We are experiencing a severe cash crisis and are unable to continue to maintain the aggressive prepayment schedule," Joseph Corbett, the agency's chief financial officer, said in a statement.

"Without changes in the law, the Postal Service will be unable to make the $5.5 billion mandated prepayment due in September."

Congress, which last week ended a vitriolic debate about the U.S. government's debt levels and budget deficit, is now in recess until early September.

USPS cut work hours during the quarter by 3.1 percent compared to the previous year, when quarterly net losses were $3.5 billion.

[Reuters]