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If you remember this Seinfeld episode from the "go-go" 90's there was widespread recognition about the impending business challenges to the postal service, going back at least 12-15 years. Given the huge popularity of the fictional US Postal Worker character Newman and his associates from US Post it is also evident that there is enormous goodwill of the postal delivery person, the postal counter person at every ZIP code in America.
The US Postal service has posted a quarter loss of $3.5 Billion and it is now really urgent to figure out what the US Postal Service should diversify into. The great strengths of the postal service is its local reach and location in every community. Also generally a lot of goodwill with the public. Perhaps it is time for the US Postal Service to look at local town successes like town Newspapers that are doing great covering local news compared to larger newspapers that are dying because of the Internet.
If the local postmaster was allowed to figure out local revenue streams interesting possibilities could be delivering small packages locally (from say the pharmacy ) and also delivering a whole bunch of federal and state services at the local community level.
Obviously, this requires a great deal of thought but quick action. Simply closing the Saturday postal service is not going to help.