WEBVTT - SYSK Selects: How the U.S. Postal Service Works 0:00:01.400 --> 0:00:05.040 Hey, friends and family, it's me Josh, your pal, your buddy, 0:00:05.480 --> 0:00:09.480 avenging angel, all that jazz. For this week's s Y 0:00:09.640 --> 0:00:12.799 s K Selects. I've chosen How the US Postal Service 0:00:12.880 --> 0:00:16.720 Works because, as you may know, the postal services under 0:00:16.760 --> 0:00:20.360 threat of being closed and going under yet again, and 0:00:20.440 --> 0:00:22.800 we don't want that. For some reason, we can't quite 0:00:22.800 --> 0:00:24.960 put our finger on. So I hope you'll enjoy this 0:00:25.000 --> 0:00:28.680 episode and it rouses you to do something like save 0:00:28.760 --> 0:00:34.159 the post Office. Welcome to Stuff. You should know, a 0:00:34.240 --> 0:00:42.560 production of I Heart Radios How Stuff Works. Hey, and 0:00:42.680 --> 0:00:46.360 welcome to the podcast. Uh, there's Charles w Chuck Bryant. 0:00:46.400 --> 0:00:49.520 I'm Amy Goodman. This is Democracy Now, the Warrant Peace Report, 0:00:49.520 --> 0:00:52.280 warr in peace dot Org, etcetera. I'm Stevenski. How you 0:00:52.320 --> 0:00:54.600 doing good. Jerry just said let's do this old school 0:00:54.720 --> 0:00:56.520 right before she recorded, and I have no idea what 0:00:56.560 --> 0:01:01.400 she meant. Speck in like, yeah, you know she's back. 0:01:02.360 --> 0:01:04.080 I thought she meant, let's make it crappy in five 0:01:04.120 --> 0:01:08.199 minutes long, and we need like little empty tin cans 0:01:08.240 --> 0:01:12.160 to speak and dude, make it sound right. How you doing, Jerry? 0:01:12.640 --> 0:01:15.240 That's great. Jerry gave us the thumbs up, I know 0:01:15.360 --> 0:01:19.000 in our new murder room. Um, Jerry is within our 0:01:19.319 --> 0:01:22.039 eyesight again after a long layoff where she was not 0:01:22.400 --> 0:01:26.680 within our range of viewing. It's kind of weird because 0:01:26.680 --> 0:01:28.440 now I'm looking at you, but I can clearly see 0:01:28.480 --> 0:01:31.440 my peripheral vision that she says on Facebook. She's waving, 0:01:32.080 --> 0:01:35.679 she's brusting her teeth, she's reranging the severed human heads 0:01:35.680 --> 0:01:41.479 that are in jars all around the place. That's creepy. Um. 0:01:41.680 --> 0:01:43.959 You want to talk post office man, you want to 0:01:43.959 --> 0:01:46.160 give the disclaimer that we're only talking about the post 0:01:46.160 --> 0:01:49.920 office in the US of A. Think he just did. Okay, Um, 0:01:50.040 --> 0:01:51.600 we don't know how it works in your country. No, 0:01:51.760 --> 0:01:54.200 And actually it's probably not nearly as interesting as what's 0:01:54.200 --> 0:01:57.800 going on with the US Postal Service, the USPS. Yeah, 0:01:57.840 --> 0:01:59.480 because I don't know if you know this or not chucked, 0:01:59.480 --> 0:02:01.280 but the U s PS is in a lot of 0:02:01.280 --> 0:02:06.360 trouble there. Yeah, there's solvency that the amount of money 0:02:06.360 --> 0:02:08.160 that they have to keep the lights on and keep 0:02:08.200 --> 0:02:10.720 everything going is expected to run out in October of 0:02:10.720 --> 0:02:13.200 two thousand thirteen if they don't do something. Yeah, that's 0:02:13.280 --> 0:02:16.880 this year. Yeah, I think they lost sixteen billion dollars 0:02:16.960 --> 0:02:20.399 last year, yes, and five billion the year before. So 0:02:21.200 --> 0:02:23.760 that's a three times as much money in a year. 0:02:23.919 --> 0:02:26.680 That's bad news. Here's the caveat to that sixteen billion 0:02:26.720 --> 0:02:31.560 dollar loss, though, eleven billion of that was in payments 0:02:31.680 --> 0:02:37.600 to uh, the future benefits of postal workers that have 0:02:37.680 --> 0:02:40.720 not yet retired. But well, and the posts serve. The 0:02:40.760 --> 0:02:44.200 Postal Service is the only federal agency of any sort 0:02:44.520 --> 0:02:48.560 that is required to prepay its employees benefits for the future. 0:02:48.600 --> 0:02:51.600 In two thousand and six, a lamed accession of Congress said, 0:02:51.720 --> 0:02:53.680 you know what, you guys need to make sure that 0:02:53.720 --> 0:02:56.240 your workers are taken care of. So you guys have 0:02:56.320 --> 0:02:59.480 to start pre paying um and over the next ten years. 0:02:59.800 --> 0:03:02.680 And they have been, and they've been bleeding money. I mean, 0:03:02.680 --> 0:03:06.320 like a sixteen billion dollar loss, but eleven billion of 0:03:06.320 --> 0:03:08.320 it was to these future payments. I guess that would 0:03:08.320 --> 0:03:10.320 make sense. Then then if you took out that eleven 0:03:10.360 --> 0:03:12.200 they would just be about the same loss as before, 0:03:12.639 --> 0:03:15.119 a mere five billion a year, right, But and that's 0:03:15.120 --> 0:03:18.440 a lot of money to lose, it is, but um 0:03:18.720 --> 0:03:22.200 they're figuring out ways to make up for that extra loss, 0:03:22.200 --> 0:03:23.640 and one of the big ones it's on the table 0:03:23.680 --> 0:03:28.919 now is cutting out Saturday delivery. They figured they can 0:03:28.919 --> 0:03:32.280 recoup two billion dollars a year by doing that, so 0:03:32.440 --> 0:03:34.520 then they're down to three. The thing is is the 0:03:34.560 --> 0:03:38.320 post the post office. It's a part of the executive branch. Man, 0:03:38.360 --> 0:03:40.360 it's all over the place. It's a part of the 0:03:40.400 --> 0:03:43.720 executive branch. It's a part of the federal government. But 0:03:43.840 --> 0:03:46.480 it gets zero dollars in tax revenue. And it's also 0:03:46.520 --> 0:03:51.960 a thrill kill cult, right exactly. That's the horrible secret 0:03:51.960 --> 0:03:57.160 of the US. Right. Um. So they get no money 0:03:57.200 --> 0:04:03.360 besides what they can make off of their own revenue corporation. Right. Um, 0:04:03.440 --> 0:04:05.840 So they get no but they get but they're also 0:04:06.200 --> 0:04:09.560 under the purview of the federal the federal government. It's 0:04:09.560 --> 0:04:12.600 a weird, weird thing, and they can't act without asking Congress. 0:04:12.640 --> 0:04:15.880 And Congress hasn't exactly been forthcoming lately. They haven't approved 0:04:15.880 --> 0:04:19.159 the Saturday thinget have they Congress. Here's the thing they've 0:04:19.200 --> 0:04:21.360 been trying to get Congress throughpprove that forever. The Senate 0:04:21.400 --> 0:04:23.600 passed a bill that said, after two years, we'll let 0:04:23.600 --> 0:04:26.560 you cut out Saturday service, will give you eleven billion 0:04:26.600 --> 0:04:29.400 dollars in over payments. That you guys made towards the 0:04:29.440 --> 0:04:31.760 retirement stuff, all this stuff back that went to the House, 0:04:31.800 --> 0:04:34.400 and the House didn't do anything with it. Right, So 0:04:34.880 --> 0:04:38.960 you know the fiscal cliff, Well, the the US Congress 0:04:38.960 --> 0:04:42.200 passed the stop gap measure, basically a federal budget that says, 0:04:42.839 --> 0:04:46.840 within this period, we're still able to operate, right, And 0:04:46.880 --> 0:04:49.960 the USPS says, ha ha, you didn't include our mandate 0:04:50.240 --> 0:04:54.040 from nineteen one that we have to carry out Saturday 0:04:54.160 --> 0:04:58.760 service in that stop gap. So technically, under current federal law, 0:04:59.279 --> 0:05:01.400 we don't have to carry out Saturday service. And they're 0:05:01.480 --> 0:05:03.960 arguing it legally, so they're just saying that's the loophold 0:05:03.960 --> 0:05:08.599 are going to use to shut down Saturday service. Sack medicines, 0:05:09.120 --> 0:05:12.039 just packages. They're going to deliver packages on Saturday. And 0:05:12.120 --> 0:05:15.520 here's a really good reason. Express mail. They're revenues from 0:05:15.520 --> 0:05:20.200 packages of increased over the last ten years, whereas first 0:05:20.279 --> 0:05:25.800 class mail, you know, letters have gone down, I believe. 0:05:26.640 --> 0:05:29.159 So they're making all almost all of their money because 0:05:29.160 --> 0:05:31.400 it's only forty cents to mail a letter from Florida 0:05:31.400 --> 0:05:37.960 to Hawaii. Um. But they make, however much shipping in 0:05:38.000 --> 0:05:40.039 the shipping game, which is where they make all their money, 0:05:40.200 --> 0:05:42.400 which is ironically the one place they don't have a 0:05:42.480 --> 0:05:44.720 monopoly as far as the mail goes. I'm glad to 0:05:44.760 --> 0:05:48.000 see medicine mail order medicine on that list to express 0:05:48.040 --> 0:05:50.960 mail packages in medicine, because at first I was like, 0:05:51.160 --> 0:05:54.600 who cares, I don't need you don't yet. I don't 0:05:54.600 --> 0:05:57.640 need my mail on a Saturday, right, but you need 0:05:57.640 --> 0:05:59.840 your medicine on a Saturday, or else you go blind. 0:06:00.320 --> 0:06:02.680 That's why they included that as a you know something, 0:06:02.720 --> 0:06:05.600 they would still deliver, right and post offices that are 0:06:05.600 --> 0:06:08.000 already open on Saturdays will still be open on Saturdays. 0:06:08.520 --> 0:06:10.720 So if you want to go to your PO box, 0:06:11.240 --> 0:06:13.720 maybe there'll be some mail, maybe there won't be who knows, 0:06:13.760 --> 0:06:15.560 I bet you've had a PO box. I've been thinking 0:06:15.560 --> 0:06:19.120 about this, haven't you have? You know, you just struck 0:06:19.160 --> 0:06:20.480 me as a kind of person that would have had 0:06:20.520 --> 0:06:23.240 a PO box at one point. You know, that's where 0:06:23.279 --> 0:06:26.240 I get all my guns in the mail. So, UM, 0:06:26.360 --> 0:06:30.240 I'm pretty worked up about this, as you can see. Um, 0:06:30.279 --> 0:06:32.560 it's kind of interesting. And who would have thought that 0:06:32.600 --> 0:06:36.359 the postal service would ever be interesting? Uh? Sure, I 0:06:36.400 --> 0:06:39.320 think parts of this are very interesting. Um, and we 0:06:39.320 --> 0:06:41.240 would just want to go ahead and say hello to 0:06:41.360 --> 0:06:45.000 all of our postal carriers out there that um listen 0:06:45.000 --> 0:06:47.720 to our show who who wont us over during the 0:06:47.760 --> 0:06:50.000 Bush Era? Because we've got an emails from you guys 0:06:50.080 --> 0:06:54.080 and gals. Yeah, including one of our favorite people out 0:06:54.120 --> 0:06:59.840 there is a postal worker, very nostrim. Oh yeah, this 0:07:00.080 --> 0:07:02.360 one should really be a tribute to Van Nostris. I 0:07:02.360 --> 0:07:05.599 didn't he's a carrier. I'm he's always been kind of 0:07:05.600 --> 0:07:07.839 cryptic about what he does. But I'm under the distinct 0:07:07.880 --> 0:07:10.480 impression that he's employed by the Postal Service. A right, 0:07:11.440 --> 0:07:16.760 Bangalore's Van Nostrian. Yeah, this is for you. Um, But okay, 0:07:16.800 --> 0:07:19.200 so let's talk about this. Let's talk about the Postal 0:07:19.320 --> 0:07:23.040 service man. I'm all jazzed about the USPS. Dude, glad 0:07:23.120 --> 0:07:26.800 you are. Um. So, for a little while, even after 0:07:26.840 --> 0:07:32.480 the advent of electronic mail, the postal services, the amount 0:07:32.520 --> 0:07:35.760 of mail they were delivering was still increasing. As of 0:07:35.800 --> 0:07:38.960 two thousand seven, it was on an upward trajectory. Sorry, 0:07:39.000 --> 0:07:43.080 two thousand six, right, two hundred and thirteen billion, one 0:07:43.120 --> 0:07:46.480 hundred and thirty seven million pieces of mail that year. Yeah, 0:07:46.520 --> 0:07:50.160 it's down to one sixty seven now and then Uh, 0:07:50.240 --> 0:07:51.960 their when was this written? Do you know? I think 0:07:51.960 --> 0:07:54.800 two thousand seven eight. Okay, so then they had seven 0:07:54.920 --> 0:07:57.280 hundred thousand employees. Now they have about five hundred and 0:07:57.280 --> 0:08:02.520 eighty thousand. So they've been in and trim the budget 0:08:02.520 --> 0:08:04.840 mode I think for the past few years. Well, and 0:08:05.080 --> 0:08:06.840 the reason why. In two thousand and six they also 0:08:06.880 --> 0:08:09.320 made seventy two point eight billion dollars. I mean those 0:08:09.320 --> 0:08:12.280 stamps they add up, you know. Um, in two thousand 0:08:12.280 --> 0:08:17.320 and eleven they made sixty six billion. Wow. Not bad. Yeah, 0:08:17.400 --> 0:08:19.560 but they're still losing a lot of money. I mean 0:08:19.600 --> 0:08:25.160 that's what seven billion dollars in difference in just five years. Yeah, 0:08:25.360 --> 0:08:27.840 it's not good. It's not good. Um So, where the 0:08:27.960 --> 0:08:31.320 where'd all this come from? Chuck? It came from back 0:08:31.400 --> 0:08:34.360 yonder day. You know. People have always need to communicate, 0:08:34.559 --> 0:08:40.600 obviously from long distances. And uh in sixteen thirty nine, Um, 0:08:40.760 --> 0:08:43.400 they you know, colonists here in the in the New 0:08:43.480 --> 0:08:45.320 I guess they weren't United States yet, but in the 0:08:45.360 --> 0:08:48.800 New World needed to get word back to England occasionally 0:08:49.200 --> 0:08:51.120 and say things like hey, quit bugging us, or hey, 0:08:51.320 --> 0:08:55.560 sind it's more t and crumpets and um. So the 0:08:55.640 --> 0:09:00.680 first official postal service was established in sixteen thirty nine. UM. 0:09:00.800 --> 0:09:04.880 Richard Fairbank's tavern in Boston was the official mail drop 0:09:04.920 --> 0:09:07.839 for overseas there in Massachusetts, and that was the place 0:09:07.880 --> 0:09:09.560 to go if you wanted to mail something. Yeah, and 0:09:09.600 --> 0:09:12.400 I couldn't find what happened or where it went on 0:09:12.440 --> 0:09:16.400 the other side of the Atlantic. Probably I would imagine 0:09:16.400 --> 0:09:18.160 then you just went to that pub and said, hey, 0:09:18.200 --> 0:09:20.000 is there any mail? And they said no, and you 0:09:20.080 --> 0:09:22.400 turn around and traveled the five miles back to your village. 0:09:22.640 --> 0:09:26.480 So that was step one. Step two was about uh forty. 0:09:26.600 --> 0:09:31.480 So nine years later three William penn established very famous 0:09:31.520 --> 0:09:36.720 person obviously um, the first official post office in penn Sylvania. 0:09:37.640 --> 0:09:40.760 He give his name after him. That's right, and uh, 0:09:41.080 --> 0:09:43.160 I love this side note. Here in the South, private 0:09:43.160 --> 0:09:46.800 messages were just sent between plantations, so they would probably 0:09:46.840 --> 0:09:48.680 just give it to a slave and say carry this 0:09:48.760 --> 0:09:51.640 over to that guy. Uh. And then flash forward a 0:09:51.679 --> 0:09:55.880 little bit more. Um, the British Crown gave to a 0:09:55.880 --> 0:09:59.080 man named Thomas Neil a twenty one year grant for 0:09:59.200 --> 0:10:02.600 the postal service in the United States, and he paid 0:10:02.840 --> 0:10:08.719 UM like seven seven shillings a year. So that's nothing, right, 0:10:09.040 --> 0:10:12.600 he still died in debt with the monopoly. So the 0:10:12.640 --> 0:10:14.640 postal service has always been kind of tricky to call 0:10:14.720 --> 0:10:19.400 money from. Interesting. So that continued until seventeen seventy four, 0:10:20.000 --> 0:10:23.640 and a lot of big stuff was happening around that time, like, Hey, 0:10:23.760 --> 0:10:27.560 we don't like you anymore in England controlling us over 0:10:27.640 --> 0:10:31.280 here and taxing us. So we're gonna start and establish 0:10:31.360 --> 0:10:35.120 our own constitutional post office for for any kind of 0:10:35.520 --> 0:10:40.600 mail going from anywhere, basically intercolonial mail. Yeah. Yeah, it 0:10:40.720 --> 0:10:43.600 was just was very cutting edge at that time, I'm sure. 0:10:43.800 --> 0:10:46.200 And actually, um, you know that when the British were 0:10:46.280 --> 0:10:48.880 carrying out the postal service on behalf of the colonies. 0:10:48.880 --> 0:10:51.880 In the colonies, um, there was a guy named Benjamin 0:10:51.920 --> 0:10:55.080 Franklin who was appointed the postmaster of Philadelphia and he 0:10:55.200 --> 0:10:58.440 actually killed it as postmaster, of course he did. He 0:10:58.559 --> 0:11:01.120 like totally improved the road. He said, like, we're gonna 0:11:01.160 --> 0:11:03.560 start working like twenty four hours a day. We're gonna 0:11:03.559 --> 0:11:05.680 have like lots of shifts, we're going to put up 0:11:05.800 --> 0:11:12.120 milestones like the The postal service helped improve the connectedness 0:11:12.200 --> 0:11:14.760 of the colonies thanks to him. So when the Continental 0:11:14.760 --> 0:11:17.520 Congress said, hey, we want our own Postal Service. Ben 0:11:17.559 --> 0:11:20.679 Franklin became the first Postmaster General, and of course he 0:11:20.760 --> 0:11:22.959 ran it like a tight ship. And he's one of 0:11:23.000 --> 0:11:25.120 those dudes. I get a feeling if we could like 0:11:25.360 --> 0:11:27.840 resurrect him and bring him out today, he could fix 0:11:27.840 --> 0:11:29.800 what's going on in this country. Yeah, and he'd say 0:11:29.800 --> 0:11:33.840 something pithy and ask for a glass of sherry exactly. Um. 0:11:33.920 --> 0:11:36.760 So this is to me when it gets super interesting. Uh, 0:11:36.960 --> 0:11:41.319 was in the nineteenth century when westward expansion happened California 0:11:41.320 --> 0:11:43.319 gold Rush. All of a sudden, we needed to get 0:11:43.360 --> 0:11:47.359 stuff from the East coast to San Francisco, let's say, 0:11:47.720 --> 0:11:50.880 so as quick as possible, right, what's crazy? As quick 0:11:50.880 --> 0:11:55.760 as possible was to go down New York around Florida, yes, 0:11:56.200 --> 0:12:00.080 like a steamship, uh, through the Caribbean and then across 0:12:00.120 --> 0:12:05.720 like Panama and then up on the Pacific side to California. 0:12:05.800 --> 0:12:08.000 That was the fastest way to get mail for a while. Yeah. 0:12:08.000 --> 0:12:11.080 And how long three to four weeks to send a 0:12:11.160 --> 0:12:13.800 letter from the East coast to the West coast. And 0:12:13.840 --> 0:12:17.200 that's you know, the best case scenario, right, And that's 0:12:17.200 --> 0:12:20.640 how that's what that's how the US the East coast 0:12:21.120 --> 0:12:23.680 um communicated with the West Coast for a while. Yeah, 0:12:23.880 --> 0:12:27.840 until some stagecoach routes. Routes were um, we're established. There 0:12:27.880 --> 0:12:29.680 was a southern route and there was a central route, 0:12:30.080 --> 0:12:32.199 and the Southern route you could supposedly use a year 0:12:32.280 --> 0:12:34.640 round because it's lovely down here. But then the Central 0:12:34.679 --> 0:12:37.520 route it was faster, but they said you can't use 0:12:37.559 --> 0:12:41.160 that year round their storms. Yeah, and it also killed me. Man. 0:12:41.240 --> 0:12:42.960 The way they used to name companies back then was 0:12:43.000 --> 0:12:46.520 so like it made perfect sense. You basically just said 0:12:46.559 --> 0:12:50.760 what you did. Like one the Pacific Mail Steamship Company 0:12:51.000 --> 0:12:53.000 said we're going to carry your mail to the Pacific 0:12:53.040 --> 0:12:57.839 by steamship, and then the Overland Mail Company like, well, 0:12:57.920 --> 0:13:01.080 we're gonna do it over land, so that's what we're 0:13:01.120 --> 0:13:03.440 gonna call our company. So they got the contract the 0:13:03.440 --> 0:13:07.040 Overland Mail Company. Um, along the Southern route. Took about 0:13:07.040 --> 0:13:10.559 twenty five days, and then my favorite, one of my 0:13:10.600 --> 0:13:14.280 favorite parts of American history was born, the Pony Express. Yeah, 0:13:14.360 --> 0:13:17.000 and it's just so amazing, like the the idea that 0:13:17.040 --> 0:13:19.079 they had to do this. It was a different company 0:13:19.120 --> 0:13:21.800 that was competing. They wanted to get that contract away 0:13:21.800 --> 0:13:24.199 from the Overlink Company, right the CEOC and p P. 0:13:24.520 --> 0:13:26.320 And they said, you know what, we know the central 0:13:26.360 --> 0:13:28.319 route shorter. We're gonna prove that we can use a 0:13:28.400 --> 0:13:30.560 year round and we're gonna set up something that it's 0:13:30.600 --> 0:13:32.800 just gonna blow this twenty five day thing out of 0:13:32.840 --> 0:13:36.040 the water. And they set up the Pony Express and 0:13:36.080 --> 0:13:39.680 they had stations what every ten twenty miles, and a 0:13:39.800 --> 0:13:43.760 rider would ride from St. Joseph, Missouri to Sacramento or 0:13:43.840 --> 0:13:46.000 be part of a line of rides. Well, yeah, that's 0:13:46.000 --> 0:13:47.960 the key. They go about a hundred miles and then 0:13:48.000 --> 0:13:50.800 they change horses every like ten or fifteen miles. Yes, 0:13:50.920 --> 0:13:53.760 so the same rider would change horses because they rode. 0:13:53.840 --> 0:13:56.079 They average ten miles an hour, which doesn't sound fast, 0:13:56.400 --> 0:13:59.360 but you got a factor in like the Sierra Nevadas 0:13:59.400 --> 0:14:02.559 where they're just crawling up these mountains. So these dudes 0:14:02.559 --> 0:14:06.760 were riding hard and on flat ground. If they're averaging 0:14:06.920 --> 0:14:10.360 ten miles an hour, right, and they're going twenty four 0:14:10.360 --> 0:14:13.680 hours a day, uh, they're going two thousand miles ten 0:14:13.720 --> 0:14:17.880 miles an hour, that's what twenty hours? Yeah, that's no, 0:14:18.040 --> 0:14:20.800 that's two hundred hours. So what is that That's less 0:14:20.800 --> 0:14:23.800 than ten days. So that's that cuts that over link 0:14:23.840 --> 0:14:30.760 company's rate by Yeah, there was always one set of 0:14:30.800 --> 0:14:33.160 writers going east, one set going west. Yeah. I think 0:14:33.200 --> 0:14:37.080 when you when you were relieved by another rider, you'd 0:14:37.080 --> 0:14:39.560 hang out at that station and wait for the other 0:14:39.760 --> 0:14:42.320 for somebody to come the other way and then relieve them. Yeah. 0:14:42.360 --> 0:14:45.760 They were paid really well at the time five bucks 0:14:45.800 --> 0:14:48.600 a week, which at the time unskilled labors made about 0:14:48.600 --> 0:14:52.400 a dollar a week. So um, and did you read 0:14:52.400 --> 0:14:56.400 the first ad they ever put in? Wanted young, skinny, 0:14:56.400 --> 0:14:59.960 wiry fellows not over eighteen, must be expert writers willing 0:15:00.080 --> 0:15:05.600 to risk death daily. Orphans preferred, And that's maybe legend, 0:15:05.600 --> 0:15:09.920 but supposedly that's what it says. But apparently they were young, little, 0:15:10.040 --> 0:15:13.680 light lithe, skinny kids because you know, you didn't want 0:15:13.720 --> 0:15:16.240 some big dude like me up on a horse. The 0:15:16.240 --> 0:15:18.920 horse would be like, I don't want to ride anymore. 0:15:19.440 --> 0:15:21.240 So they were like these young boys, like I think 0:15:21.240 --> 0:15:25.760 the youngest one is like fourteen. And supposedly Buffalo Bill 0:15:25.800 --> 0:15:29.160 Cody was a rider, although people have disputed that. Now. 0:15:30.760 --> 0:15:34.000 Oh yeah, yeah, well he's he's the stuff of a legend. Well, 0:15:34.040 --> 0:15:36.280 he's by far and away the most famous famous Pony 0:15:36.320 --> 0:15:39.720 Express rider, if in fact he did. But anyway, so 0:15:39.720 --> 0:15:43.320 so think about the amount of infrastructure built up along 0:15:43.400 --> 0:15:46.520 this central route to have a station every ten or 0:15:46.520 --> 0:15:49.600 twenty miles. You've got all these employees going. And they 0:15:49.680 --> 0:15:52.400 proved it. They proved that the central route could be 0:15:52.480 --> 0:15:55.720 used year round, and so they got the contract. Then 0:15:55.840 --> 0:15:58.640 right now, the Overland Company got the contract to use it, 0:15:59.080 --> 0:16:01.280 to use that same route that was already established. And 0:16:01.280 --> 0:16:03.360 the Pony Express was like, you have to be kidding me. 0:16:04.080 --> 0:16:06.200 And so the the U. S. Government said no, no, 0:16:06.280 --> 0:16:08.400 you guys do half and then let the let the 0:16:08.400 --> 0:16:10.840 Overland Company do the other half. Yeah, And they were 0:16:10.880 --> 0:16:14.120 mad for about a year and a half and really angry. 0:16:14.280 --> 0:16:19.280 And then the telegraph line was completed. Now everyone's like, oh, well, 0:16:19.400 --> 0:16:21.880 I guess I guess we're all out of business now. Yeah. 0:16:21.960 --> 0:16:24.320 That was it. Pony Express the soul the Wells Fargo 0:16:24.400 --> 0:16:27.520 and basically shut down. Yeah. I think American Express ended 0:16:27.600 --> 0:16:30.880 up branching out of Wells Fargo to like these are 0:16:30.920 --> 0:16:33.760 old old companies, like these modern banks and credit card companies. 0:16:33.840 --> 0:16:37.080 Is interesting how far they go back. But think about 0:16:37.120 --> 0:16:40.240 that man. Even as far back as the mid nineteenth century, 0:16:40.520 --> 0:16:45.920 new technology was putting mail delivery out to pasture, and 0:16:45.920 --> 0:16:48.040 then mail delivery would evolve and like figure out how 0:16:48.040 --> 0:16:53.840 to come back. Yeah, that's pretty cool. Foreshadowing. So this 0:16:53.920 --> 0:16:57.440 is a big jump forward to the mid nineteen sixties. Yeah, 0:16:57.480 --> 0:16:59.880 a lot happened in between. Then it didn't. Actually, we 0:17:00.080 --> 0:17:03.880 started to go move further and further out into the suburbs. 0:17:03.920 --> 0:17:06.040 There was a huge population boom in the in the 0:17:06.080 --> 0:17:10.080 post war era, and businesses started to realize the value 0:17:10.560 --> 0:17:14.359 of direct mailing. And all these factors put together meant 0:17:14.600 --> 0:17:19.600 that the postal Service was totally overwhelmed. Yeah, completely, because 0:17:19.600 --> 0:17:22.639 it became such a big deal. Everyone was writing letters 0:17:22.760 --> 0:17:28.080 and they were using the same old hand um, I 0:17:28.119 --> 0:17:34.000 guess hand delivery methods, sorting methods, that's what it was. 0:17:34.080 --> 0:17:36.080 They weren't automated at all, and they needed to be. 0:17:36.520 --> 0:17:40.280 And so there was a postal reform that that was undertaken. Yeah, 0:17:40.320 --> 0:17:44.040 and this was in nineteen seventy one the Post Office Department. 0:17:45.040 --> 0:17:46.640 And I didn't even know this. It was shortly after 0:17:46.680 --> 0:17:49.760 I was born. We weren't the United States Postal Service 0:17:49.840 --> 0:17:54.520 until nine that was when we officially became the USPS. UH, 0:17:54.600 --> 0:17:58.679 it became an independent establishment. Um was no longer a 0:17:58.680 --> 0:18:01.240 part of the cabinet of the federal government, but was 0:18:01.280 --> 0:18:04.440 part of the executive branch and got the monopoly basically 0:18:04.440 --> 0:18:08.080 to deliver mail, even though it was supposedly just a company, 0:18:08.240 --> 0:18:10.720 and they and they re up the mandate from I 0:18:10.760 --> 0:18:15.119 think Sevo that said you the postal Service is one 0:18:15.160 --> 0:18:17.960 of the most essential services of the federal government. No 0:18:18.160 --> 0:18:20.800 person has cut off in this country. None shall not 0:18:20.840 --> 0:18:24.240 get delivered exactly. Everyone's going to have a mailbox, and 0:18:24.280 --> 0:18:27.080 everyone's going to get mail to that mailbox every day 0:18:27.160 --> 0:18:31.679 because we need to help keep intellectual freedom um going 0:18:32.240 --> 0:18:35.720 and and and ideas in business and commerce going all 0:18:35.720 --> 0:18:38.280 the time. And the Postal Services, this federal agency that 0:18:38.320 --> 0:18:40.040 carries that out, and that I'm sure that put a 0:18:40.080 --> 0:18:42.440 financial burden on them when people started building in these 0:18:43.119 --> 0:18:46.360 especially rich people, when they started building in these remote areas, 0:18:46.840 --> 0:18:48.720 because then all of a sudden, you had to add 0:18:48.760 --> 0:18:51.440 that to your route. Well, there's if it's sixty miles 0:18:51.480 --> 0:18:53.680 up a mountain and it's the only house there's there's 0:18:53.680 --> 0:18:56.560 a guy who services the Grand Canyon. There's a group 0:18:56.640 --> 0:18:58.800 of Indians that live at the bottom of the Grand Canyon, 0:18:58.800 --> 0:19:00.800 and he has a donkey train that goes down there 0:19:00.800 --> 0:19:03.400 every day with the mail. Really yeah, I mean it's 0:19:03.440 --> 0:19:05.399 part of it's a federal mandate. You have to be 0:19:05.480 --> 0:19:08.040 able to get mail. Everyone has a mailbox. He's like, 0:19:08.040 --> 0:19:11.640 don't you guys you smoke signals? Come on, they do. 0:19:13.160 --> 0:19:16.480 In fact, that actually wrote an article on spoke singles. Yeah. Yeah, 0:19:16.520 --> 0:19:18.240 I was gonna say we should podcasts on it, but 0:19:18.280 --> 0:19:20.440 it's it's like super basic, is it really? It would 0:19:20.440 --> 0:19:22.480 be like a five minute podcast. Well, we'll have to 0:19:22.480 --> 0:19:24.240 figure out some other way to use it. Agreed, because 0:19:24.280 --> 0:19:28.800 that's interesting. Um, so do we cover going postal now? 0:19:28.840 --> 0:19:30.119 It was sort of just thrown in the middle of 0:19:30.160 --> 0:19:32.639 this army. Yeah, it really was. It was talking about 0:19:32.920 --> 0:19:36.040 how packages are delivered, and all of a sudden, it says, 0:19:36.119 --> 0:19:40.240 and then people started killing each other in nine six yeah, 0:19:40.280 --> 0:19:44.399 which is actually, Um, the post Office has the dubious 0:19:44.440 --> 0:19:48.040 distinction of kicking off the workplace shooting trend in the 0:19:48.080 --> 0:19:50.119 United States. Was that the first one as far as 0:19:50.160 --> 0:19:55.440 I could tell, Alright, So Edmund Oklahoma, Patrick Henry A. 0:19:55.560 --> 0:20:01.160 Cheryl killed fourteen co workers. Um. And another one happened, 0:20:01.960 --> 0:20:07.440 including a uh supervisor getting killed with a samurai sword. UM. 0:20:07.560 --> 0:20:13.560 November nineteen Thomas H. McIlvaine shot and killed four co workers, 0:20:14.040 --> 0:20:18.000 wounded five others, then shot himself and then nine and 0:20:18.040 --> 0:20:21.640 then in two thousand three two more incidences of postal 0:20:21.680 --> 0:20:25.440 workers killing fellow postal workers. It was like just between 0:20:25.480 --> 0:20:28.920 eighties six and nineties seven, forty people died at postal 0:20:29.480 --> 0:20:34.000 post offices from postal rampage and gave birth to the 0:20:34.080 --> 0:20:37.199 term going postal, which is used as a vernacular for 0:20:37.320 --> 0:20:40.520 like just losing it basically, um. And if you're interested 0:20:40.560 --> 0:20:42.760 in that at all, there's a really good documentary I 0:20:42.760 --> 0:20:45.679 think it's on Netflix streaming right now called um Murdered 0:20:45.680 --> 0:20:49.399 by Proxy, and it's all about the postal shootings, like 0:20:49.400 --> 0:20:52.840 where they came from. There's a lot of scrutiny at 0:20:52.960 --> 0:20:56.480 like the of the management techniques of people at post offices, 0:20:56.520 --> 0:20:58.040 and there's got to be something to it. I mean, 0:20:58.320 --> 0:21:00.040 oh yeah, if you watch that's like it was like 0:21:00.400 --> 0:21:05.760 how many other industries had that many office shootings? You know, retail, actually, 0:21:05.880 --> 0:21:08.439 you're the homicide rate is three times higher in retail 0:21:08.440 --> 0:21:10.040 than it is at the post office. You don't say 0:21:10.040 --> 0:21:13.159 go in retail, that just means you're going shopping. Well, 0:21:13.200 --> 0:21:15.439 it's like drinking the kool aid. They really drank flavor 0:21:15.480 --> 0:21:18.080 aid and it's right kool aids some one with that distinction. 0:21:18.840 --> 0:21:22.120 Oh yeah, alright, so that was going. Yeah, I mean 0:21:22.160 --> 0:21:23.399 we had to mention it, but I don't want to 0:21:23.440 --> 0:21:25.520 dwell on it. But it was weird in this article 0:21:25.600 --> 0:21:27.600 the way it went right in the middle of this 0:21:27.960 --> 0:21:30.200 came up out of nowhere. Um zip codes, this is 0:21:30.280 --> 0:21:34.800 kind of cool. Um zip codes were introduced in nineteen 0:21:34.880 --> 0:21:38.159 sixty three and then officially put in place in mandatory 0:21:38.640 --> 0:21:42.679 in seven because just so much mail going on you 0:21:42.680 --> 0:21:45.960 had to categorize it more specifically, right, that was part 0:21:46.000 --> 0:21:48.399 of that, the post office being swamped. This was the 0:21:48.800 --> 0:21:54.080 first step toward automation. Was like a standardized code. Well 0:21:54.119 --> 0:21:56.560 they did have other ones, but it was like one 0:21:57.600 --> 0:21:59.639 was New York City or something like that. You know. 0:22:00.240 --> 0:22:02.720 So ZIP this is just a nice little cocktail party 0:22:02.840 --> 0:22:06.480 factoid stands for zone improvement plan. I never knew that 0:22:06.560 --> 0:22:09.200 until I read this. Did you know that I had before? 0:22:09.240 --> 0:22:11.920