"This planet has — or rather had — a problem, which was this: most of the people living on it were unhappy for pretty much of the time. Many solutions were suggested for this problem, but most of these were largely concerned with the movements of small green pieces of paper, which is odd because on the whole it was not the small pieces of paper that were unhappy." --Douglas Noel Adams

Man I have been reading up on some of the shenagians ACORN has been up to. Voter fraud is the least of our problems from them.

As far as the meltdown is comming along, its almost amazing what has happened to the prices of things like oil. Its down to less than $80 a barrel now. It's almost as if the high prices were all a lie, as if it is all a twist from an M. Night novel.

I think the market shouldn't just be "allowed" to crash, more like a controled nose dive. After it bottoms out we will have lost a few dozen banks and investment firms. But I don't think that would be such a bad thing. Using oil as an example, back when it was trading at over $120 a barrel investment banks were going overseas and bidding on oil. As a result prices were inflated due to the extra "demand". They could make $20-$40 a barrel profit when trading millions of barrels, even with the fact they are not extra consumers. It be like me (a non diabetic) buying insulin when I didn't need it.

I know alot of people lost a fuckton of money in less than a week, but it's almost af if the money was never even there. Every one was just "promised" everything.

Capitalist, Commie, Liberal, Conservative, or whatever you want to be. As a species we are fundamently limited in our scope of dealing with things.( try reading the monkey sphere http://www.cracked.com/article_14990_what-monkeysphere.html) Everyone is basicly serving thier own agenda and at a stretch those directly involved with them. Nobody involved with the stock market is doing it for the greater good.

Psychoak - I have no idea what you're talking about here - The USPS lists express mail as guaranteed or your money back here (Which I linked in my original post), that link itself includes a link to calculate your guaranteed delivery time. I've run five of these deals through in the last few days comparing your prices as per your challenges, and it hasn't been even slightly difficult.

Don't accuse me of being a liar while claiming you can't find a page linked to in that very post.

You not only don't know what you're talking about, you've offered five different ways of proving your case and been debunked each time. Your premise is demonstrably incorrect, the universe has no intention of reshaping itself to match your delusions, so reconsider your assumptions.

Or stay in wonderful conservative candyland, where the skies are painted with candy sprinkles and stocks prices are set by the invisible hand of the self-regulating market which causes no bubbles, no crashes, and all is good with the world. Whatever.

Jonnan

Ok, potentially fair statement there.  I guess I didn't spell out the process.

Go back to your USPS link, click on find the guaranteed delivery time, and try putting in some zip codes.  I tried quite a few, and that's all I got.

"No results can be found based on your search criteria"

I tried same city shipments to see if I could get a one day guarantee.  I even hit up a couple zip codes in LA to see if maybe they just hated Oklahoma and Alaska.  I got the same response for everything.

So, yeah, either you're a liar, or a bloody moron, take your pick.  Any idiot can put in a cross country order and see the three day estimated delivery date for USPS express mail, but you're still insisting they guarantee it in one with no such thing said anywhere.

You're going to have to give examples - I found a Zip Code Map and have run about 20 random zip codes, both from and to - midwest, southeast, two in Alaska and one in hawaii through without getting any problems whatsoever. Even an invalid zip code returns a simple "The Destination ZIP Code you have entered is invalid." error

Given the complete inability to reproduce the issue, I tend to suspect the problem is on your end.

Jonnan

P.S. - I found what I think you are using, the Express Mail Commitments page (And this would have been easier had you linked what you were using instead of describing it  - I was in another section). Apologies, but you didn't actually read the page did you?

I guess it's not 100% clear at first glance, but this is designed to look up an express mail that has already been set up with the USPS - Either already in route, or that has been paid for and just needs dropped off at by 'x' time at 'y' location. So, no - when you were searching, it was looking for any existing commitments for express mail from zip code A to zip code B, and not finding any, any more than if I searched a random tracking number on UPS I would be likely to get a result.

Not that it's *that* difficult an error to make - I thought there was a bug too till I actually read the description on the page, but if you're going to throw around "Moron" and "Liar", it would serve you well to actually have read the page first - .

Jonnan

Someone call the circus, this protozoa has evolved fingers!

You're a really dumb shit if you can't find a delivery estimate on a cross country shipment that isn't from one hub to another.  Here, try 99517 and 74743, since you're incompetent and can't repeat it..  Go make a shipment, two days fucktard.  Yeah, USPS Express mail is next day delivery from one hub to another.  Forget it if you're outside those hubs.  The entire state of Alaska can't get a next day delivery from USPS if their lives depend on it.  I can't get a next day delivery if my life depends on it either, I can from UPS and FedEx, I can even get an early morning delivery of salmon.

Can't read financials that say the USPS is bleeding money on periodicals to keep the ragmag industry alive, barely pays the transport costs of packages, and makes 300% returns on the monopolized junk mail to keep them from being eaten alive by the competition where it's allowed.

Can't do simple arithmatic of single digit numbers to grasp the difference between a two day express mail delivery and a one day UPS overnight delivery.

You're destroying any reputation you've garnered as a sentient being, by nature of the medium, anyone visiting can already fucking read, so hoping they can't while you post your nonsense is stupid.

Psychoak - what the devil do you think you're talking about? If you haven't actually setup and paid for a shipment from Anchorage AK to Hugo OK, this system isn't going to retrieve a delivery time. That's what this is for - it's not some mystery system, it just uses the zip-codes and shipping date to track shopping the same way UPS/Fedex/DHL uses tracking numbers. Read it  - it's fairly obvious.

The rest is your making some kind of vague assertions from links that you never actually said what you were trying to prove. Whoopee - there's a fiscal year report showing something.

Basic Science logic - you had a theory which made specific predictions regarding prices for shipping. Those predictions were objectively verifiable, and turned out not to reflect the actual prices charged for shipping packages as shown by UPS and the USPS.

Theory disproved. End of story.

Jonnan

Ok, I just have to know if I'm brilliant.

Show of hands, how many people here are too stupid to calculate shipping and see the delivery estimate using this link?

Remember kids, if you don't set a morning drop off time you'll end up with another day added on.

I haven't had any problems with that link - the description you provides matches another page entirely.

If you claim you're having problems getting a postage/date guarantee from *that* link Pschoak, then you're either lying, or just kinda mildly retarded in a new, and possibly medically interesting way.

Jonnan

P.S. - yep. 2nd page of the link gives a link to the exact same link I was talking about Psychoak - which, by odd coincidence works today with those two zip codes, because two packages have been posted from Indianapolis to West Hollywood. It's not designed to give you a hypothetical time, it's designed to confirm a delivery time guarantee on packages in transit or set to be shipped already

I would like to think you're lying, but sadly, I don't think you are. You're just not understanding the form you're submitting, despite the exact quote highlighting the relevant sentence. You fail at reading comprehension.

Is anyone else confused by this - it's a fairly straightforward page, but maybe there is some other way of reading the description through that would render it more confusing than is obvious?

Alternatively - I support various companies and use this page or it's equivalent for UPS, DHL and Fedex all the time - Have you just never actually tracked anything on one of these services Psychoak - maybe I'm underestimating the confusion factor just because I use them on a regular basis and recognize what to expect?

Jonnan

The trackers are good except they do not reflect delay because of air travel. 

Okay FEDEX (I beleive its them) carries USPS on their planes.

I know that UPS is starting to take over DHL (how far I don't know).

For air mail normally feeders (the single and duel prop planes) will all go to a larger airport.  Such as say Bostan.  Then the larger planes get loaded and are sent to their respective hib. Thats Mephis for FEDEX and Louisville International Airport for UPS.  Then they are loaded unto another large plane (say  A300, 757, 767, DC-10......) and send to the next main airport.  From there its either trucked out or flown by feeders to the closest place (then trucked from the feeders airport).

So if even one of those gets held up (and trust me freight traffic gets screwed up all the time) it will come late and not be reflected on the trackers.  You can see the location the package is at but why its still there is never really known. 

As far as prices go......I only use FEDEX since I have freinds that work there and get 75% discount.

edit:

Since USPS does not use their own planes they don't have to pay for the fuel and I beleive thats why its cheaper USP. Also you don't have to factor means you don't have to pay for the up keep on the planes.  And trust me they break all the time.

Now on the difference between fedex and ups prices, fedex likes to fill up on more fuel then ups for going about the same distance.   

With apologies - I'm not quite sure if you are making a critique of my model I am expected to respond to, or just stating additional information?

Jonnan

Since I have buddies that at the fedex air cargo place at the local airport, I thought I would add some additional information. 

One of them also works as a fueler.  So he also puts fuel on both carriers. The company that does the fueling also owns the feeder planes that fly cargo for UPS.  So I guess in a way he kind of works for all of them.....

It was not direct towards you if it had come off that way. 

Ok Jonnan, since your brain is obviously dribbling out your ass, this is my last try.

Since you claim to be capable of using the page to create a shipment, how are you incapable of seeing the 1-2 day shipping time, and the estimated arrival that is more than next day for anyone not on a hub?  I've even given you examples of locations, like the entire state of Alaska, where you cannot get a next day delivery out of USPS.

Compare Express Mail to Second Day Air, not Next Day Air.

Christ you're stupid when you want to be.

Josef, USPS is cheaper because USPS bleeds money on package shipping and doesn't actually offer a next day delivery service to start with.  It's a next day delivery service depending on location.  This is what fucktard can't figure out, he's comparing Express to Next Day Air.

Since I haven't been able to find a single set of data (Including Alaska) that reproduces your results, and you have such a knack for claiming 'X' and then when I check it turns out '!X', I'm going to have to require you actually, y'know, prove your case with a set of input and output information I can use to reproduce your results.

Since, by and large, your track record is of being, y'know, factually incorrect. In fact, given the absoluteness of your original thesis, even being factually correct here would only mean that there are in fact cases where the USPS is *not* the best service under it's standard pricing model.

Since I only posited that sometimes the government run system is better, under some circumstances, and we have verified that it is in fact often cheaper and more efficicient, at this point we're not arguing whether you're right, we're arguing about whether you are 180 degrees wrong, or only 135 degrees wrong - {G}.

So anyway, post how you got the information to kick out something else, and I'll looks at it. Frankly, at this point, my assumption is that you did something wrong, but it's worth verifying.

Jonnan