USPS Office of Inspector General

As we start a new year, those of us helping on the Office of Inspector General blog thought it would be fun to reflect on the past year and pick our top 10 list of postal stories from 2008. We would like to hear your views. Take a look at the list and tell us what you like or don’t like. Tell us about any stories we missed and add whatever comments you think appropriate. In particular, we would like to know your pick of the top postal story for 2008, so take a minute and vote for the most important story by participating in the poll below.

After blogging for several months, the Office of Inspector General wants you to know how it’s going.  So far, we’ve posted seven blogs (including this one) and received more than 100 comments. There have been a number of thoughtful observations about the Postal Service, and the Mail Transport Equipment blog actually led to a tip that resulted in the recovery of some pallets.

In 1970, the Postal Service delivered fewer than 85 billion pieces of mail. Thirty years later, mail volume had more than doubled to nearly 208 billion pieces of mail — average growth of about 3 percent per year. The Postal Service relied upon this dependable growth in mail volume to finance the expansion of its network. The traditional business model worked.