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April 27, 2012 at 8:53 pm #755657
kootchmanMemberI am my company! I work when I want, or when I think it necessary. It’s called self employed. But your point is well taken.. I am sure they are honest in the main, and do work for a living… but they work for a company that is losing billions upon billions of dollars… and just like I don’t invest in a company that loses billions and has no prospect of turning things around… it’s time the taxpayer gets off the hook for this money losing. obsolete company. If it sold shares tomorrow to raise money… would you invest in it?
April 27, 2012 at 8:58 pm #755658
Spring ChickenMemberIf you only work when you want, I guess maybe your job is not so necessary? haha But I do notice when the mail’s not here, his job is not at all like a coal shoveler, in fact having an excellent United States Postal Service is a vital part of our Digital Age economy (just ask Amazon).
54K? They are worth every penny!
now get back to work, Kootch… lol
April 27, 2012 at 9:04 pm #755659
kootchmanMemberThe Amazon? The one that makes tax dodging a high art? You know that shop local thing? No sales taxes? The one that avoids taxes that every small business owner has to pay to support local government? I used to buy books… but .. even that I do by computer … right to the iPad. Would you invest your money in USPS as part of funding your retirement portfolio? Simple question.
April 27, 2012 at 9:06 pm #755660
Spring ChickenMemberSilly Kootchman, was that a trick question? I already own USPS, we all do!
April 27, 2012 at 9:56 pm #755661
kootchmanMemberI know… but I am working like hell to get congress to cut our losses and either dump it… and write it off… or, downsize it, make it profitable and tax some corporate income tax out of it. Remember the too.. that’s the “average” wage…. that means some make a helluva lot more. We technically don’t own it… we just underwrite their statutory debt limit, which at present is 15 billion. We used to not “own” Fannie Mae either… but we do now. It was traded on the equities market … but it had the magic of government debt underwriting…. now that is is hundreds of billions in the hole we own it. What a good deal for the taxpayer eh?
April 27, 2012 at 10:07 pm #755662
Spring ChickenMemberDo you ever think maybe you’re wrong? The Post Office is a wonderful thing, almost a miracle! The envy of the world! For the price of a stamp you can mail a letter to any remote corner of this great country, knowing it will be delivered in a day or two! Because those Postal Employees work around the clock, seven days a week, loading heavy boxes into trucks at distribution centers then transporting to stations for delivery. The Post Office is high tech! Their IT pros write innovative software to improve productivity, EDI connectivity, and barcode shipment tracking through their wonderful website. I love the Post Office, I don’t want to sell my share :) The idea of USPS “losing money” is specious, it’s all just a budget line on one ledger or another and could appear to “break even” if you adjust the accounting, various departments arbitrarily treated like cost centers under the umbrella of a single entity, the federal government. Payments are simply allocated from one pocket to another, and well invested moving all that freight and mail for the good of our national economy. The Postal Service outsources most of their long haul to private sector companies including Alaska Airlines and private trucking companies, also benefiting our local economy.
I don’t think you understand the Postal Service, Kootch! Maybe too much Limbaugh and Fox News? Buggy whips, indeed! Would you also want to privatize our municipal water supply to a corporation, to increase profit margins? Sorry my friend, I don’t want us to sell that out either haha
April 27, 2012 at 10:38 pm #755663
JanSParticipantSpringChicken…oh, perish the thought that Kman think himself wrong about anything…don’t you know better by now? lol…
April 27, 2012 at 10:47 pm #755664
Spring ChickenMemberlol… it’s ok I’m not really that principled either, just that one of the Postal guys working out of West Seattle Station is kinda hot looking haha He can deliver my mail anytime!
April 27, 2012 at 11:11 pm #755665
JanSParticipantlolol…I’ve got a UPS driver like that :D
April 28, 2012 at 3:28 pm #755666
redblackParticipantkootch:
In 2006 — right before the recession, when postal deliveries were at their all-time high — Congress passed a law making it incumbent on the postal service to pay the pension funds of future retirees, projected for the next 75 years.
That fund is now overfunded. Even if one considers the retirees’ pension plans in conjunction with retiree health plans, funding is at 91 percent of their projected need — a cushion that’s almost three times the level for future veterans or any other class of federal government employee.
http://www.lasvegassun.com/news/2012/apr/22/postal-services-money-troubles-spread-las-vegas-st/
the 2006 law was a money-grab, plain and simple. USPS had it, republicans wanted it, so they took it. GAO had found that USPS had overfunded its pension plan to the tune of around $70 billion – some later estimates were as high as $100 billion.
then they hamstrung their gift horse.
April 28, 2012 at 3:34 pm #755667
JoBParticipantit’s the publicly owned part of the USPS that kootch has a problem with
that and paying back whatever was looted out of the USPS…
i am guessing the funding for that pension fund is not in any lock box account…
being backed by the US government an all…
April 28, 2012 at 3:44 pm #755668
redblackParticipantjo: they did and they didn’t. they saddled the post office with unnecessary debt by forbidding them from using certain funds to pay their obligations in lieu of running a deficit to be covered by the treasury and the at-large federal budget.
it was more like a three-card-monte maneuver.
from the simplified wiki version about legislation passed in 1971, 2003, and 2006 which govern the post office:
The PAEA stipulates that the USPS is to take any surplus at the end of a fiscal year, and put that amount into the Postal Service Retiree Health Benefits Fund to prepay for employees retirement costing the USPS a total of 500 billion dollars between 2007 and 2015. This requirement also explicitly stated the USPS it [sic] stop using its savings to reduce postal debt, which was stipulated in Postal Civil Service Retirement System Funding Reform Act of 2003[4]. This is in addition to deductions from pay for federal contribution to social services[5] . This pre-funding method is unique to the USPS In June of 2011, the USPS had to suspend its weekly payment of 115 million into the fund because it had reached 8 billion dollars in debt and the retirement plan had a surplus of 6.9 billion dollars[6]. The schedule rate of payment has been changed and the USPS is currently expected to make a payment of 5.6 billion no later than September 30, 2012[7] .
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Postal_Regulatory_Commission
so the message from republicans to the USPS:
“we want you to operate like a corporation, but we’re going to stop you from doing things that corporations typically do to keep yourselves out of debt. (you could always go non-union, you know…)”
April 28, 2012 at 10:24 pm #755669
kootchmanMemberGo private then. If it is such an efficient, well run, streamlined, money making machine… put together the IPO and list it on stock exchange. Then it won’t be subject to congressional whims will it? See if Bezos will invest.
“The Postal Service outsources most of their long haul to private sector companies including Alaska Airlines and private trucking companies, also benefiting our local economy.”
So there is no shortage of capacity to move the “mail”…. it already exists. Junk mail delivery service… that’s the bulk of their revenue.
April 29, 2012 at 1:30 am #755670
JoBParticipantkootch..
why would taxpayers want to make a business that actually works for us go private?
i say we throw the idiots who hogtied the post office out
and keep the post office.
that makes a whole lot more sense
and will likely solve more than one taxpayer problem at the same time :)
April 29, 2012 at 1:39 am #755671
jamminjMember“Junk mail delivery service… that’s the bulk of their revenue.”
more bull$hit, the only way the right makes a point, by lying about it. your reasons are a joke and your arguments are anything but truthful.
USPS revenue in 2011:
First-Class Mail — $32.2 billion
Advertising — $17.8 billion
April 29, 2012 at 1:46 am #755672
jamminjMemberFor me as a private business to send an invoice to a customer in Tacoma, it would cost me at the cheapest 19.67 via UPS. Via USPS .45. As a small business I cannot stay in business if I had to pay $20 to send every invoice. Believe it or not, not everyone has electronic capability. Everyone has a mailing address.
By dismantling the USPS, it only hurts small businesses everywhere.
But that seems to be the mantra for the GOP, support big businesses, but crap on the small businesses that drive the economy.
April 29, 2012 at 1:51 am #755673
kootchmanMemberIt would be free of the supposed onerous 75 year penion funding which is a complete misinterpretation of the statute. It could invest as it sees fit in new equipment. It would stop running to the federal government to underwrite their debt obligations. We saw how that worked with Fannie Mae and how it is unfolding with federal student loans… as the default rates are climbing and costs are skyrocketing. If it WAS working…they wouldn’t be in front of congress seeking billions in loan gauruntees. See we have to pay what the government underwrites.. and we can’t meet basic entitlement programs now. We are doing nothing more than propping up a declining business model. JoB in the last decade their business volume dropped 20%….. in my business that means… cuts. In any other business it means cuts. There are many many examples of postal systems that work fine with minimal government involvement. Sure it gores a sacred ox of the Democratic Party…. but … when we will all have to come ot the inevitable… Republicans are going to have to accept tax increases too. But not until every piece of fat or inefficiency is cut from the federal budget. The USPS is not able to meet operating costs. Their charter by congress REQUIRES that they do. If that pension fund IS overfunded… where is the money? Hmmm? Think it is secured as private pension funds are required to do? Let me guess… there are treasury IOU’s in the fund. I say sell it off…. it’s a business model that doesn’t work. Selling junk mail services is the best they got? Charge a rate then that FedEx or UPS does…. that makes them profitable. Stop picking winners and losers based on their union membership. I am dead on with conservatives, libertarians, and republicans on this…. the US Government is a lousy business partner. Damn right I don’t want the pension benefit guaranty corporation to have to step in. Go ahead … take your weekly mail… weigh it, Tell me the bulk of their business is first class. Ya crack me up… ya wanna ban paper bags and the biggest junk hauler is the USPS…. a landfills best friend. It’s obsolete, undone by the internet and better parcel service offerings by FedEx and UPS….
April 29, 2012 at 2:08 am #755674
kootchmanMemberread it yourself… this is the post office quoted verbatim
“Ensuring a Viable Postal Service for America”
The U.S. Postal Service is experiencing unprecedented losses that are forecast to continue during the next 10 years.
Without dramatic changes to the way the Postal Service does business, that cumulative loss will reach $238 billion
in 2020.
EVEN IF they did stop pre funding their pension ( an threw their pension obligations on the taxpayer) even then,… with a 50 billion savings… they still are in the hole 195 billion or so.
http://about.usps.com/news/electronic-press-kits/delivering-future/dtf-FSbynumbers.pdf
April 29, 2012 at 2:11 am #755675
kootchmanMembermore ? again USPS projections… not republican web sites
213 billion Number of pieces mailed in 2006
177 billion Number of pieces mailed in 2009
150 billion Number of pieces projected to be mailed in 2020
see the trend? Losing market share, losing total revenues, even while population is growing at 3% per year.
35 In percentage, revenue generated by First-Class Mail in 2020
See… further drop in first class mail….. again the USPS projections…. that’s less than 8 years away.
Their projections in neccesary work force reductions…. and they have to be fully funded, They are not.
65,000 Reduction in workforce in FY2009 through attrition, retirement
50 In percentage, workforce retiring in the next 10 years
Sometimes as it happens, the pieces are worth more than the whole. Sell off the assets, lands buildings, equipment and turn it into the Treasury… or the shortfunded Medicaire systems or Social Security. This is nothing new…. businesses become obsolete and their market position declines… even the pony express gave way to the railroad, Notice in your mortgage or car payments, the banks give pecentage reductions, small concessions if you DON”T use mail and use electronic transfer?
April 29, 2012 at 2:44 am #755676
jamminjMemberwhen you state lies after lies, it is easy to pass by your whole comment, even if ‘some’ truths are in there, but your continued use of untruths make all your arguments mute at this point.
April 29, 2012 at 2:48 am #755677
jamminjMember“better parcel service offerings by FedEx and UPS….”
at astronomical prices, which would kill small businesses. But its all about BIG businesses with the right, $hit on the rest of America.
April 29, 2012 at 2:52 am #755678
kootchmanMemberI am a small business. Never use USPS. Yea, those lies are published by the USPS. It’s a moribund failing model. It happens.
April 29, 2012 at 3:01 am #755679
jamminjMemberso you are basically telling small businesses that they should pay $20 to send a correspondence, instead of .45.
Again, shitting on small businesses while backing big businesses… the GOP way.
“never use USPS” – and that is what is wrong with your ‘it’s all about me mentality’. You think your experience and methods are the ONLY way. Never realizing that there is a world outside your perfect little bubble.
Grow up, its not just about you. That’s how my 5 year old thinks.
April 29, 2012 at 3:16 am #755680
jamminjMember“Junk mail delivery service… that’s the bulk of their revenue.”
that is the lie THIS time, whats the next lie?
April 29, 2012 at 3:24 am #755681
Spring ChickenMemberOMG! haha #147 Kootchman the Small Business claims he “Never” uses USPS? what an absurdly outrageous and ridiculously unbelievable untruth (not to mention, bad business practice!)
Probably it’s the wife’s Real Job that pays your family’s bills…
by check, through the mail lol
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