Politirant Political Forum

You might have heard that the United States Postal Service is in trouble: that it's losing billions, that it will have to end Saturday service and close branches — and most inflammatory, that it might need a government bailout. Perhaps you heard that the Postal Service couldn't pay $5.5 billion bill that came due Sept. 30 and that only an emergency postponement saved it from the government's equivalent of default.

In fact, it's the Postal Service that’s currently bailing out the U.S. government. Politicians have been raiding Postal Service revenues for years, using them to make the federal deficit appear smaller than it really is. The fiscal gyrations are so twisted that the Postal Service is right now forced to pre-pay health care benefits for employees the agency hasn't even hired yet — in fact, for many future employees who haven't even been born yet — all to artificially shrink the federal deficit.

http://redtape.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2011/10/07/8191425-twisted-government-accounting-behind-postal-service-woes

The Post Office's annual revenue is $65 Billion a year, which would be in the top 50 of private companies. Of course no private company would pay healthcare costs for employees they haven't hired yet 75 years into the future. They are forced to do that to keep military pensions off the Treasury's books (and make the deficit seem lower than it really is).

Like Social Security the Pols have raided it time and again to spend, spend, spend. Read the link if you want to know more!

Ugh...

Yeah, it sucks. It's even worse because politicians have perpetuated this myth that the Post Office drains money. If they cut the Post Office, 1) revenue will take a hit and 2) they won't have anywhere to hide the real debt. Fubar 

Quote from: Mister D on November 11, 2011, 10:50:23 AM

Ugh...

Yeah, it sucks. It's even worse because politicians have perpetuated this myth that the Post Office drains money. If they cut the Post Office, 1) revenue will take a hit and 2) they won't have anywhere to hide the real debt. Fubar 

Fubar!!!!!

Yeah, I think that's kinda been common knowledge.

I'm sort of split on the postal service.  They serve a purpose, there are areas in our nation that many private carriers won't deliver to because it's not cost effective.  One of them, maybe UPS admits that they use the postal service to relay their packages to spots they won't go to.

In that sense the postal service serves a purpose, but private carriers could do a much more efficient job in the long run.  Barriers include overhead - the postal service employs a huge amount of people and services the lions share of the market.  It would be nothing for the gubmint to make it impossible for private carriers to break this barrier, they have a virtually unlimited source of funding.

So in a sense you get low quality service for high cost coupled with overpaid workers.

All the shit that's killing us as a nation.

Me too. It's one of the more efficient government operations in my experience. I have to ship things from time to time and those flat rate boxes are better than anything fed ex or ups offers, and faster. I don't mind government jobs if they're actually doing something productive.