Well the post office runs a deficit...sometimes. Right now we are making a huge profit. We cleared a debt measured in billions in only a few years. Eventually we'll start wasting it and go back into debt again. It's a cycle in the post office.
The main problem with inefficiency is the unions and outdated equipment. The biggest cost for the post office is labor. It's over 80% of their total costs I believe. When I was basically a typist for the post office I was making 11.60 an hour....far more than I would have in the private sector. Now as a clerk I'm making over $20 an hour after doing the job less than 5 years. Clerk is another job that isn't really all that hard. If at the window I'm effectively a cashier. In the back I just sort mail.
Equipmentwise we are literally in some cases using 50+ year old equipment. When I started at my current office we had a letter stamping machine that was older than anyone who worked there. They finally got rid of it after it broke for about the 50th time. The technology is out there to run mail far more quickly and accurately than we do now but the post office either will not or can not upgrade.
There is a bill in congress now to restructure the post office but we have something like 800,000 employees and as a result powerful union lobbyists so I don't expect it will ever pass, or if it does all of the teeth will be removed.
But all that said the post office isn't as bad as everyone thinks. You hear all the bad stories, but for every letter we screw up and send to Madagascar for a little vacation thousands make it there intact. Often it is the customer's mistake too though we of course always get the blame.
[quote name='MSI Magus']Wow soon as I stopped paying attention to this it got a ton of posts. Anyways, its an outrage how horrible the PO is. If it is running at a deficit its all the more reason someone finally steps in and looks at how innefficiant things are.[/QUOTE]