US Postal Service to default on second $5B payment

[depotoo]

What are you taking about?

Seriously?

Most private and public firms give some sort of retirement benefit. That's in lieu of direct compensation to employees for their labor..which would cost much more.

Seriously..do you need a history lesson on each and every issue?

deal with it, it's another case of union workers making and retiring on benefits much higher than the taxpayers who make less can afford and remember this too, 47% of AMericans pay ZERO federal income tax.

Deal with what?

It really seems to be that you don't know what you are talking about.

Public employees receive lifetime compensation that's generally less then their private sector counterparts. What attracts skilled labor to the public sector? Benefits. It's a necessary component in getting the right people in the right places.

But of course petty conservatives have no idea how that works.

what was that you were saying?

Federal pay ahead of private industry
Overall, federal workers earned an average salary of $67,691 in 2008 for occupations that exist both in government and the private sector, according to Bureau of Labor Statistics data. The average pay for the same mix of jobs in the private sector was $60,046 in 2008, the most recent data available.


CHART: Federal salaries compared to private-sector

These salary figures do not include the value of health, pension and other benefits, which averaged $40,785 per federal employee in 2008 vs. $9,882 per private worker, according to the Bureau of Economic Analysis.

Federal pay ahead of private industry - USATODAY.com

 

[Katzndogz]

The post office has become the primary delivery option of junk mail. I even get my bills in e-mail now. I cannot remember the last time I got a letter or a card in the mail. Packages go by UPS or Fed Ex. Yet the postal workers union still gets their benefits. Get rid of the union, reduce the postal rates and perhaps the post office might have a chance. As it is now, the purpose it serves is more like an appendix.

 

[depotoo]

Reality is the private sector is paying for the public sector, yet the private sector isn't making enough to pay the public sector anymore as their counterparts are making more than them now. When will they realize that money doesn't grow on trees?

 

[depotoo]

When are they gonna be willing to spread their money around?

 

[Truthmatters]

The post office has become the primary delivery option of junk mail. I even get my bills in e-mail now. I cannot remember the last time I got a letter or a card in the mail. Packages go by UPS or Fed Ex. Yet the postal workers union still gets their benefits. Get rid of the union, reduce the postal rates and perhaps the post office might have a chance. As it is now, the purpose it serves is more like an appendix.

dear fucking idiot,


Junk mail is mail paid for by corporations.


do you hate the free market?

 

[Truthmatters]

More Details Emerge in Republican Assault on Post Office and Postal Unions | Crooks and Liars

why did the republican do this?



It was only a few years ago that the USPS was considered not only stable, but thriving. The biggest volume in pieces of mail handled by the Postal Service in its 236-year history was in 2006. The second and third busiest years were in 2005 and 2007, respectively. But it was two events: one crafted during the Bush years and another supervised by House Oversight Committee Chairman Darrell Issa, that would cripple this once great institution.

Perhaps it was its booming history that first drew Congress' attention to the Postal Service in 2006 when it passed the Postal Accountability Enhancement Act (PAEA), which mandated that the Postal Service would have to fully fund retiree health benefits for future retirees. That's right. Congress was demanding universal health care coverage.

But it even went beyond that. Congress was mandating coverage for future human beings.

"It's almost hard to comprehend what they're talking about, but basically they said that the Postal Service would have to fully fund future retirees' health benefits for the next 75 years and they would have to do it within a ten-year window," says Chuck Zlatkin, political director of the New York Metro Area Postal Union.

It was an impossible order, and strangely, a task unshared by any other government service, agency, corporation or organization within the United States. The act meant that every September 30th, the USPS had to cough up $5.5 billion to the Treasury for the pre-funding of future retirees' health benefits, meaning the Postal Service pays for employees 75 years into the future. The USPS is funding the retirement packages of people who haven't even been born yet

why was this done?

 

[Katzndogz]

The post office has become the primary delivery option of junk mail. I even get my bills in e-mail now. I cannot remember the last time I got a letter or a card in the mail. Packages go by UPS or Fed Ex. Yet the postal workers union still gets their benefits. Get rid of the union, reduce the postal rates and perhaps the post office might have a chance. As it is now, the purpose it serves is more like an appendix.

dear fucking idiot,


Junk mail is mail paid for by corporations.


do you hate the free market?

The free market should control. The companies can pay the post office and the post office is limited to the cost of delivering junk mail as their operating expenditure. As it stands, the corporations pay the post office to deliver junk mail, but the post office cannot survive on that support so taxpayers subsidize the corporations junk mail delivery.

Why do you love the corporations so much that you want everyone to pay for their junk mail?

 

[Jackson]

Hey, I have an idea! The government handled the funds so well for the Postal Dept., let's let them handle Health care for all of us!

 

[depotoo]

(3) REQUIREMENTS.—The plan shall be formulated in consultation
with the Postal Service and shall include the opportunity
for the Postal Service to request reconsideration of computations
under this subsection, and for the Board of Actuaries
of the Civil Service Retirement System to review and make
adjustments to such computations, to the same extent and
in the same manner as provided under section 8423(c) of title
5, United States Code.

so, who screwed the pooch here? Seems, possibly the Postal Service was a little over zealous in the computations as to what they could do?

 

[Harry Dresden]

and your too fucking mindless to understand why they wrote that into the constitution

we don't need a 5 billion dollar a year albatross hanging around our necks, get rid of it. we have email now.

Typical left wing drivel...keep subsidizing a failing operation.

no one is subsidizing it......not yet anyway....

 

[Harry Dresden]

Typical left wing drivel...keep subsidizing a failing operation.

You'd think they'd applaud taking all those little carbon drinking postal trucks off the highway and how MUCH good that would do the ENVIRONMENT..

I agree. Wouldn't matter ot me and if I did need to ship anything.. FedEx and UPS are there to pick up the slack.

we deliver a lot of their packages for them.....funny aint it.....

 

[Harry Dresden]

the republicans want it to crash.

We don't need to "want it to crash" when it crashes perfectly fine all on it's own.

well i cant argue with that.....we do have some shitty managers....

 

[Harry Dresden]

USPS needs to be downsized and privatized. It no longer has much of a practical function.

Apt name you got there meathead.

You ever been in a small town? You know, where Fed Ex and UPS don't have enough business to serve the area. You know, rural areas. Where the post office serves without fail.

No, with what you said, I guess you haven't been in rural America.

Zeke does have a point.....one reason we deliver some of their parcels for them now....

 

[Harry Dresden]

with carbon buring vehicles huh?

those gas guzzling pieces of shit you see running around the neighborhoods...

 

[Harry Dresden]

The unions bled the post office dry. The leeches have taken all they can and the host is dying. Unions do this to every enterprise they latch onto.

no they havent.....geezuz christ give me a break....if you people could see how much money the middle and upper management waste monthly on their stupid little ideas that dont work....and just make things worse.....oh Christ dont get me started.....lets just say....they dont have to answer to anyone but themselves....and if an idea wont work?.....well lets just say.....its going to work .....whether you like it or not....

 

[Harry Dresden]

USPS needs to be downsized and privatized. It no longer has much of a practical function.

Apt name you got there meathead.

You ever been in a small town? You know, where Fed Ex and UPS don't have enough business to serve the area. You know, rural areas. Where the post office serves without fail.

No, with what you said, I guess you haven't been in rural America.

How about if we just downsized the PO to serve only rural America and let Rural America foot the bill.

you may not believe this Willow....but there are a lot more people than you know in the Cities that dont care for Fed-X or UPS.....i was kinda shocked myself.....

 

[Harry Dresden]

The unions bled the post office dry. The leeches have taken all they can and the host is dying. Unions do this to every enterprise they latch onto.

No they didn't.

sure they did, that's why they're in the hole, they cannot afford to fund the retirement and benefits packages they've promised their employees.

thats not true Willow.....small part of the problem......we are in the hole because the PO has some piss poor managers who dont know shit about running a business and blow millions on things that dont work and who dont have to answer to no one but themselves...basically a very BLOATED bureaucracy....

 

[Harry Dresden]

No they didn't.

sure they did, that's why they're in the hole, they cannot afford to fund the retirement and benefits packages they've promised their employees.

No it's not.

They are in a "hole" because Conservatives forced them to finance retirement funds at a rate no other public or private industry is subject to.

And they did it full well knowing it would break the post office.

The idea being..to get rid of it. So well connected private carriers could take over what they do.

and that "fund" has paid for employees not even born yet......thats how much money has been put into the Retirement funds....thats why its not needed....

 

[jasonnfree]

For one thing tthe post office has thousands of union members. This is enough for the republicans to want to destroy it. They don't care about working people, especially union workers. What's sad is to see average americans cheerleading them, like republicans are the friends of ordinary workers. Notice the repubs answering your thread didn't pay any attention to the outrageous pension payoff bush administration saddled the post office with?

why did the republicans set the post office up for failure?

 

[Harry Dresden]

deal with it, it's another case of union workers making and retiring on benefits much higher than the taxpayers who make less can afford and remember this too, 47% of AMericans pay ZERO federal income tax.

Deal with what?

It really seems to be that you don't know what you are talking about.

Public employees receive lifetime compensation that's generally less then their private sector counterparts. What attracts skilled labor to the public sector? Benefits. It's a necessary component in getting the right people in the right places.

But of course petty conservatives have no idea how that works.

The fact is they're growing broke because they can't cover their promises. They want the taxpayers to do it, but somebody smart way back then saw that coming and forced them to put money aside which is what they're now bitching about. Maybe they need to go back to the drawing table and trim some of the fat off those retirements and bonus they so freely give.

Willow your wrong but hey what can i say......thats the way it is with those on the outside looking in.....im on the inside......no one wants the tax payers to do nothing.....they want Congress to leave them alone.....let the guys they have running it, run it......if it fails it fails.....but even with the jerks they have running it the front line workers have always made it go as good as possible in spite of the obstacles they throw in our paths....how many businesses would be surviving making a 5.5 billion dollar cash payment once a year as well as paying other expenses?.....