Postal Service - Death Imminent

Discussion in 'Current Events' started by coolguybrad, Nov 15, 2012.

  1. Craftsman

    Craftsman Banned

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    How very uninformed of you.
    Still waiting for an example of privatization working.
     
  2. Craftsman

    Craftsman Banned

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    There is a reason for that and it's not what you think.
     
  3. Craftsman

    Craftsman Banned

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    Yeah a lot would love to do that, but it won't work and there is no reason to change what we have now.
    Just repeal the idiotic republican legislation.
     
  4. coolguybrad

    coolguybrad New Member

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    Soap boxes are lame.
     
  5. coolguybrad

    coolguybrad New Member

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    Turnpike projects in Oklahoma are funded through private business contracts.

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turnpikes_of_Oklahoma

    https://www.pikepass.com/pdf/Project Status Report_20111014.pdf

    Partly privatized. Maintenance is ALSO privatized.

    The goal is to save money, and become more efficient. And yes, if that means some people would need to get out to get their mail, like nearly every apartment complex renter in the usa, so be it.

    Subsidized to the door delivery is outdated, and stupid.
     
  6. Jarlaxle

    Jarlaxle Banned

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    The problem being: it also generates billions of dollars in COSTS!

    Your words belie that statement.

    Certainly, it would be. Of course, the USPS has been proving for years now that it is not that organization!


    The infrastructure exists already...buy and streamline it. I suspect UPS or FedEx could cut handling costs by close to half without even trying.

    Who still mails letters? I haven't in decades.

    Ad hominem unworthy of response.

    Sit in a truck all day and stuff mailboxes for $70K a year? Where do I sign up?!

    Couldn't be worse than the current goat-grab. And, of course, more ad hominems, as usual.
     
    Brewskier and (deleted member) like this.
  7. Yosh Shmenge

    Yosh Shmenge New Member

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    The mentality that puts profit ahead of nation. I thought I made that clear.
    You want to take a national institution, about the only government entity that I can think of that's held in high esteem, and
    break it up and sell it off to someone looking to cut corners, cut service and cut the security of your mail so he can make a buck.


    If I'm not a real conservative to you, I can live with that. I hardly need your validation.

    You said it in so many words. "Trim the fat" you say after I tell you the post office has already reduced the workforce, shut down
    mail processing facilities and closed post offices in order to reduce costs.


    I've made no pledge of allegiance to businessmen. They are looking out for number one like everyone else. If you think a hallmark of conservatism is bowing obsequiously to the almighty businessman then you are
    sadly mistaken.

    I have yet to find a coroborative account of what you continuously assert.
     
  8. Jarlaxle

    Jarlaxle Banned

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    Horse manure! My local (I am, for the moment, an unwilling Teamster) includes two UPS facilities, and the last meeting I attended, EVERY UPS driver there was 40+! A couple were in their late 50's. The head of my local retired from UPS, he's in his early 60's.
     
  9. Brewskier

    Brewskier Well-Known Member

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    I'm doing no such thing, but even if I was, it would be better than putting your good buddy's jobs ahead of nation, which is what you're doing.

    "High esteem" is your subjective opinion, nothing more.

    Baseless sensationalism. Don't fear the private market, capitalism, and markets. They're your friend.

    That's true, you don't.

    It's clear you don't know what I said. I didn't say they needed to "trim the fat", I said they needed a severe downsizing.

    Nor do I. I just have less faith in Government and more faith in private enterprise than you do.

    I feel that the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform is a good enough source to rely on. Your attempts at dismissal are weak. You're free to find any source of your own that contradicts mine, though.
     
  10. mikezila

    mikezila New Member

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    FedEx has the parcel post contract.
     
  11. mikezila

    mikezila New Member

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    no one in their right mind would keep delivering to door steps when a cushy road driver slot opens up. 4-5 hours out, drop, hook, 4-5 hours back...home for dinner. guys wait for someone to die for those jobs...i think it pays more an hour too.
     
  12. Jarlaxle

    Jarlaxle Banned

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    The head of my local was a "package car" driver until he retired...he never did line haul. Can't say about the others.
     
  13. Yosh Shmenge

    Yosh Shmenge New Member

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    It costs exactly what it costs.
    Let me tell you again, and for the last time, that the private sector also doesn't have congress forcing them to pay onerous pre paid installments on their pension liabilities that no other government entity is required to
    pay. Do you suppose you would have as much money as your neighbors if you alone, for some reason, had to pay your
    property taxes ten years in advance?



    You sound like a broken record playing the same mistaken tune over and over again.
    http://www.guernicamag.com/daily/da...-ignores-real-causes-of-its-financial-crisis/
    This tells a very different story. Go ask Issa about it.

    If a deadline was set after which new employees entered the service with less "generous" pensions (though that's a loaded term) I would agree but I could guarantee the work force would
    be lesser in every way and it's already happening. "In an attempt to shore up it's already $11.6 billion budget shortfall this year, the Postal Service has closed 500 post offices, cut operating hours another 13,000, and bumped 9,000 employees down to part time with no benefits.


    Sometimes they are right. http://thinkprogress.org/economy/20...non-crisis-post-office-save-itself/?mobile=nc



    I've told you many times why they are wrong. Why do act like I've not given any reasons? Issa is spinning a tale that just isn't so in order to deconstruct the post office and sell it off.



    Is that what Issa told you?
    :roll: So the post office was the only governmental entity running up a deficiit so congress enacted this special law forcing them to pre fund their pensions (which again, no one else had to do)? Is that what you want me to believe? I don't.


    Free market solutions. That was your claim. I believe in the free market myself...just not in cases where it's obviously not applicable (like providing a nation wide service).

    Tell yourself that. It's what you are doing.

    If the post office weren't saddled with this artificial solution to a problem it has now caused there would be no problems with liabilities. As you see the "solution" is the problem. "By June 2011, the USPS saw a total net deficit of $19.5 billion, $12.7 billion of which was borrowed money from Treasury (leaving just $2.3 billion left until the USPS hits its statutory borrowing limit of $15 billion). This $19.5 billion deficit almost exactly matches the $20.95 billion the USPS made in prepayments to the fund for future retiree health care benefits by June 2011. If the prepayments required under PAEA were never enacted into law, the USPS would not have a net deficiency of nearly $20 billion, but instead be in the black by at least $1.5 billion."


    Maybe rates should be raised then.

    In order to create a demand to close up the Post Office and gain some of the business.
    Why else?

    I've never claimed deficits don't matter.

    Your entire rationale is based on this assumption? That's nice.

    If this is so, which I don't grant, they have merely exaserbated the problem.
    I'm through with this subject now. I don't have the time to care anymore.
     
  14. The Wyrd of Gawd

    The Wyrd of Gawd Well-Known Member

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    Running the post office is one of the specific things Congress is charged to do.

    Maybe Obama will ask Romney to run it since Romney has so much business experience.
     
  15. Brewskier

    Brewskier Well-Known Member

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    Charging you 45 cents and charging the taxpayer for the remaining amount isn't a 45 cent cost.

    If I owned a business and understated my liabilities the way the Post Office has, I'd probably get audited and punished by the IRS.

    Here's a good analysis of what's been going on

    http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-08-02/understanding-the-post-office-s-benefits-mess.html

    You're acting like Congress did this to the Post Office just to be mean. Now, the article does go on to say that the required amount a year is excessive, and that the real amount should be lower. If that's true, on that I can agree.

    So David Morris' opinion is worth more than Issa's? And I have been quoting from the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, by the way.

    Definitely sad, but it's what happens when demand evaporates for a product or service.

    Yikes.

    I've seen no evidence to support that theory.

    No, it's what the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform told me, and you have yet to give a convincing reason why they cannot be relied on.

    The Post Office isn't like other branches of Government. It was designed to be a self-sustaining entity, and it won't be if it becomes dependent on taxpayer bailouts.

    So, to reiterate, I never said "the free market can do everything better" like you claimed I did.

    I disagree with your opinion.

    If they didn't prefund their liabilities they could have showed a "profit" for that year but at the same time, their unfunded liability problem with retiree pensions would have continued to grow. Businesses can't afford to ignore things like that if they want to stay in business.

    Rates have been increasing, and they are considering another increase in the near future.

    They wouldn't, considering the Post Office has monopolies on non-urgent letters and access to customer's mailboxes.

    I never said you did.

    So are you saying the Postal Service had no problem with unfunded liabilities? Congress just passed the law out of the blue to screw over the Post Office?

    As am I. We don't agree.
     
  16. LasMa

    LasMa Active Member

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    No. The private sector will handle mail delivery where it is PROFITABLE. If mail delivery is ever privatized, rural America can kiss its low-cost daily mail goodbye.
     
  17. The Wyrd of Gawd

    The Wyrd of Gawd Well-Known Member

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    Postal services are an integral part of every national government in the world. The problem with the American postal service is that Congress has been screwing with it since the Civil War. Even Third World countries take their postal service seriously. The clowns in Congress have been trying to kill ours for 147 years.
     
  18. Meta777

    Meta777 Moderator Staff Member

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    You do know that the post office is funded by postage and not tax dollars, right? Don't you? Well don't you?.... :/
     
  19. Ctrl

    Ctrl Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    How relevant is low cost daily mail in today's world?

    I pay most of my bills online... I certainly communicate with friends and family in a digital medium... most of what comes through my mail is junk. It would interfere with my netflix thing... but that is really the ONLY place I see an impact in my life if the post office simply didn't exist tomorrow.
     
  20. Brewskier

    Brewskier Well-Known Member

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    You need to read everything I wrote in this thread so you can see how silly that question you just asked me was.
     
  21. mdrobster

    mdrobster Well-Known Member

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    Dude, you really need to understand how it is done now, before you can make these over simplistic changes. To build new locations, costs money, you are still changing the paradigm of the USPS operations, that will have a profound effect.
     
  22. mdrobster

    mdrobster Well-Known Member

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    It is clear you don't know and are simply being argumentive.
     
  23. coolguybrad

    coolguybrad New Member

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    Yes, thats the point.
     
  24. Craftsman

    Craftsman Banned

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    Privatization doesn't work.
    Giving a company a contract isn't 'privatization'.
    Still waiting for an example.
     
  25. Craftsman

    Craftsman Banned

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    I doubt it very much if they are required to prefund their retirement packages like the republicans have forced the USPS to do.
    All that needs to be done is to remove that idiotic conservative legislation....period.
     

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