Why General Motors Is Like the Postal Service

No one should have been surprised that members of Congress are stymieing General Motors' cost-cutting efforts to close thousands of dealerships. All they had to do was watch how Congress has micro-managed the supposedly independent U.S. Postal Service.

The Government Accountability Office, an arm of Congress, has been saying for years that USPS has too many post offices and too many processing and distribution centers. (See, for example, "Why USPS Must Consolidate Its Mail Processing Network".)

But any time the money-losing Postal Service actually tries to consolidate facilities, the local Congressman stirs up a hornet's nest, demanding an investigation and trying various tactics to slow the process. When USPS revealed recently that it is studying possible closure of more than 3,000 post offices nationwide, Rep. Albio Sires of New Jersey launched a preemptive strike, introducing the Access to Postal Services Act to "give communities the ability to fight back against these closings."

Now General Motors, AKA Government Motors, is getting the Postal Service Treatment: A bill to "restore the economic rights" of GM dealers got 111 co-sponsors within a week of being introduced. Like Chrysler before it, GM leaders have been grilled at Congressional hearings regarding their plans to consolidate their dealership network.

President Obama has said the federal government will not manage GM despite its majority ownership stake. But he also vetoed the possibility of it moving its headquarters out of Detroit to save money. Influential Congressman Barney Frank got into the We're Not Managing GM Spirit when he called the company's CEO and persuaded him to delay the closing of a parts depot in Frank's district.

Postal officials learned long ago that you move jobs into, not out of, the districts or states of committee chairmen.It's a lesson they haven't completely un-learned now that Congress has allegedly made the Postal Service more independent. (See "USPS: Clean Up the Byrd Droppings!")

The typical member of Congress doesn't oppose the idea of postal consolidation or car-dealer consolidation in general -- as long as it's not in his district. Unfortunately, believe it or not, every USPS facility and every GM dealership in the U.S. is in some Congress member's district.

Don't be surprised to see a Congressional investigation, rally, or public hearing for every dealership GM tries to close. And don't be surprised to see those former watchdogs known as local newspaper reporters become lapdogs for the Chamber of Commerce, quoting all the people who oppose the closings but never bothering to explore why GM needs to get rid of underperforming dealerships.

Just one question: Now that Congress is treating GM like the Postal Service, does that mean the Postal Service can cancel its debt by filing for Chapter 11?

Phone-Sex Service Gets Boost from Lands' End, International Paper

Here's one for the No Good Deed Goes Unpunished Department: Lands' End and International Paper are among the companies whose names have recently been connected to a telephone-sex outfit offering hundreds of "hot, horny girls . . . who love nasty talk."

The accompanying scan shows an example of the inadvertent promotion of the "Intimate Encounters" operation: It's from a panel of a box that was manufactured by International Paper and used to deliver Lithonia Lighting products to a construction site several months ago. The box includes the message "Corrugated Recycles", with a toll-free phone number to call for more information.

The American corrugated industry, however, phased out (800) 879-9777 at the end of 2007. Callers now are greeted with a recorded come-on that begins, "Hey there, sexy guy", as explained in "Hey, big boy, can I recycled your cardboard?"

It's taken awhile for the word to get out about the phase-out; some recycling information Web sites still list the number. And even companies that stopped ordering boxes with the phone number didn't throw away their existing boxes or pull the boxes off of dealers' shelves.

One Dead Tree Edition correspondent got a box displaying the 800 number from Lands' End last Christmas. He says the Sears subsidiary responded quickly to his email about the situation. Lands End apologized, said it was "shocked" to learn that the phone number had been changed, and offered a coupon, he reports.

One advantage of corrugated boxes is their durability. No doubt there are thousands of "porno cardboard" boxes in homes across the U.S. containing everything from Christmas ornaments to tax records to children's toys.

And one of the strengths of print is its durability. It doesn't disappear when a server goes down or a hard drive crashes.

Moral of the story: Printing a message on a corrugated box is great if you want the message to be around for a decade -- and not so great if you want to change the message after a year.

Disclosures: Although I've written several articles about "cardboard porn", I don't really get it. I'm not a pedophile, so the idea of talking nasty with "girls" seems creepy; I prefer women. Come to think of it, "telephone sex" sounds like an unnatural act. Then again, I don't know much about pornography. I don't even own a pornograph.

An Amazon Approach to Selling Magazine Subscriptions

What if the magazine industry followed Amazon’s example of marketing products to people based on their purchase history?

A correspondent forwarded this recent email from Amazon: “As someone who has purchased or rated A Child's Celebration of Folk Music, you might like to know that Save 26% at Amazon.com on Music from the Original Soundtrack and More: Woodstock is now available.” He says he purchased the folk music CD about six years ago.

I get it. Idealistic kids who were singing “We Shall Overcome” along with Pete Seeger in the early Sixties took about six years to graduate to snarling “Up against the wall, m**therf**ker” with the Jefferson Airplane. So I guess Amazon figures that 21st Century kids who enjoyed Woody Guthrie doing a silly song about cars six years ago (“Take you for a ride in my car, car”) are now ready to hear son Arlo recount his drug-smuggling exploits. (“Comin’ in to Los Angeleez, bringin’ in a couple o’ keys, Don’t touch my bags if you please, Mr. Customs Ma-a-an.”)

If the audience-development types (formerly known as magazine circulators before they allegedly became Web savvy) get hold of this idea, just think of the possible emails:

• "We see that you have allowed your subscription to Christianity Today to lapse. Perhaps you would like to make your backsliding complete with this special introductory offer to Playboy magazine.”

• “As someone who has allowed his Playboy subscription to expire after 20 years, we thought you might like to know that we’re offering a discounted subscription to Modern Maturity magazine, which comes with a $10 coupon good on your next purchase of Viagra.”

• “As a schlemiel who subscribed to all three incarnations of Radar, you might be interested in these special offers for magazines that are destined to shut down before your subscription runs out.”

• “We have found that people like you who bought the Stephen Colbert issue of Newsweek are also enjoying the special edition of Mad magazine that was written by the staff of The Atlantic Monthly.”

• “As a stockholder of a newspaper or newsprint company, we’d like to introduce you to the hot new magazine, Bankruptcy Today.”

• “As someone who’s been reading Nickelodeon magazine for the past four years, we thought you’d want to know that you are about to enter a stage of life that has, like, been abandoned by the U.S. magazine industry. Don't like it? Go txt yr frenz.”

Donnelley Takes Its Ball and Goes Home

R.R. Donnelley announced late today that it is giving up, for now anyway, on its efforts to buy rival printer Quebecor World.

RRD's third offer in less than a month to buy QW expired, RRD announced today, even though the proposal was "undoubtedly" better for creditors than QW's plan to emerge from bankruptcy next month, a company-issued statement said. RRD made the third offer on Monday; QW's board rejected it the same day.

"This would have been an excellent fit for RR Donnelley and the best opportunity for the Quebecor World creditors. However, given our view of the Quebecor World operations, a transaction ascribing a higher value to Quebecor World than we offered in our last proposal is simply not in the interests of RR Donnelley,” RRD's president and CEO, Thomas J. Quinlan III, said in the statement.

And here is Quinlan's kicker: “We look forward to continuing to pursue other strategic initiatives."

What other "strategic initiatives" does he have in mind? Since part of Donnelley's stated interest in QW was entry into the Canadian market, will it go after the other big Canada-based printer, Transcontinental Inc.? Or how about a sizable U.S. rival, such as Cenveo or Vertis? Or what about a post-bankruptcy Quebecor World?

Or maybe "strategic initiatives" just means "ways to remain profitable while round-heeled competitors keep dropping prices to get their idle presses running again."