Someone who apparently thinks it's cool for the USPS to subsidize Amazon shipping, and also can't even get straight what media companies Bezos owns, should not be modded up. I invite everyone to head over to MetaMod [slashdot.org], where you can rate the choices the moderators make and give these moderators a bit of a spanking.
Without subsidy the USPS will need to scale down massively, they can't compete in a free market environment.
Even then, they'll always run losses because the international treaties rapes every western postal service. If Trump wants to do something useful he should unilaterally get the US out of the treaty of Bern.
by Anonymous Coward writes:
on Friday December 29, 2017 @08:57PM (#55831783)
They only can't compete because Congress forces them to pre-fund their employees retirement for some ridiculous number of decades - something no other business in the country does.
Additionally, the USPS's charge is to connect every person in America no matter how remote and unprofitable. The point is to have a service to connect far away Alaska villages that have no profit motive for FedEx etc. to connect. It's the same with public transit - the point isn't to make money, it's to enable and improve our lives in a worthwhile way.
If they don't do it, it simply won't happen. The corps aren't going to expand into areas without high profit. Average Americans have a higher quality of life due to cheap/affordable postal services.
What the postal service was doing, and is supposed to stop doing, is the kind of accounting that sent Enron executives to prison. If anyone but the postal service was hiding a $120 billion liability, it would be called "fraud".
What they were doing is saying to employees "work for us today, and we'll not only pay you today, we'll keep paying you after you retire, until you die." Someone can retire from USPS at the age of 56, so their retirement payments may be almost as much as their salary, or even more. Over the course of 30 years of retirement, the worker might be owed $840,000. So they had workers doing the work in say 1995, promised to pay them hundreds of thousands of dollars "later", but never set aside any money to be able to make good on those promises.
They owe about $120 billion - for work already done, and hadn't set anything aside to pay it. Most "every other business in the country" funds your 401K or other retirement by sending their contribution to a third-party investment bank every time you get a paycheck. You work this month, they pay for it this month, including the retirement part. State retirement plans work the same way, at least where I'm from in Texas - whichever agency you work for, when they pay for this year's work, they also pay whatever retirement they'll owe for this year's work. They don't have you work today and say "we'll worry about how to pay for it 20 years from now".
In 2006 they were given fifteen years to get caught up on the retirement they owed. They haven't come come close, because they are losing money. Any "profit" has to go toward funding the retirement promises they've made, but the "profit" hasn't been nearly enough and the number of letters they carry has fallen 30% over the last ten years, so it's unlikely they'll ever be able to pay for the retirement they are promising today's employees. They'll need the taxpayers to bail them out.
They owe about $120 billion - for work already done, and hadn't set anything aside to pay it. Most "every other business in the country" funds your 401K or other retirement by sending their contribution to a third-party investment bank every time you get a paycheck. You work this month, they pay for it this month, including the retirement part.
So every other private (non-public) retirement/pension plan EXCEPT the USPS plan is fully-funded? I'd like to see proof of that!
The post office has the best-funded pension/retirement plan of ANY federal program:
So every other private (non-public) retirement/pension plan EXCEPT the USPS plan is fully-funded? I'd like to see proof of that!
Then the keywords for you to Google are "ERISA" and "Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation". ERISA is the federal law that says pension and other retirement programs offered by private companies must be properly funded *at the time the employee earns the benefit by doing the work*, not 30 years later, after they've already retired and payments are due. They also must be insured by
Without subsidy the USPS will need to scale down massively, they can't compete in a free market environment.
The USPS is not subsidized by the US government/taxpayers. Their rates are set by the government, but they operate entirely on the funds that they generate directly.
Even then, they'll always run losses because the international treaties rapes every western postal service. If Trump wants to do something useful he should unilaterally get the US out of the treaty of Bern.
The USPS is profitable. The reported shortfall in their budget was due to congress passing a new requirement (which only applied to the USPS) that they pre-fund their retirement account fully within five years. Meaning that the full retirement package for every postal service employee is fully paid. If every employee retired now (even if they were just hired and thus are not eligible for retirement benefits...) the full amount of their retirement pension is covered.
It is not a bad thing, but it was done in such a way as to make the USPS look bad.
> that they pre-fund their retirement account fully within five years.
False. The five-year requirement is that every five years they have to calculate how far in the hole they are. (How much they owe to workers who have already worked, or are working on today, and whom they've promised decades of retirement pay to, without funding that promise.)
> If every employee retired now (even if they were just hired and thus are not eligible for retirement benefits...) the full amount of their retirement pension
Actually as a Brit, I'm speaking about the experience of much of Europe, where we have massive unfunded pension liabilities in the public sector. Do your civil service employees' pension costs form a fund or are they also a black hole?
In the1980s the US realized this was a big problem with the Civil Service Retirement Fund, so they switched to the "fully funded" Federal Employees Retirement System for people hired since 1984.
CSRF has a trust fund too, but it's not enough. One might think "1984 was a long time ago, it's okay now". But that was for people HIRED then. Some people were hired in 1980 and worked under CSRF until 2010. They'll be getting retirement payments in 2040.
Under both CSRF and FERS, each government *agency* pays in t
Do they really require the USPS to take over military pensions like I read in the past for prior military that get jobs at USPS?
Tim S.
Without subsidy the USPS will need to scale down massively, they can't compete in a free market environment.
The USPS is not subsidized by the US government/taxpayers. Their rates are set by the government, but they operate entirely on the funds that they generate directly.
Even then, they'll always run losses because the international treaties rapes every western postal service. If Trump wants to do something useful he should unilaterally get the US out of the treaty of Bern.
The USPS is profitable. The reported shortfall in their budget was due to congress passing a new requirement (which only applied to the USPS) that they pre-fund their retirement account fully within five years. Meaning that the full retirement package for every postal service employee is fully paid. If every employee retired now (even if they were just hired and thus are not eligible for retirement benefits...) the full amount of their retirement pension is covered.
It is not a bad thing, but it was done in such a way as to make the USPS look bad.
Even then, they'll always run losses because the international treaties rapes every western postal service.
Argentina took a different route: every package you get from abroad (especially China) is held by customs. Then they send you a letter demanding you pay them about USD 8 + import taxes. There's no "free shipping" here.
I'm baffled as to how many people could have forgotten what the US Post looked like 10 years ago (pre-Amazon-boom).
It was failing and they were talking about reducing their delivery days even more than they already had. They were hemorrhaging money and could not find a way to bring themselves back from the brink. Why? Because they don't receive Government Funding and people had stopped sending letters.
Amazon made them relevant again, although I'm not terribly surprised that our current Drumpfster Fire is gl
The US post was never supposed to be a private corporation. It doesn't matter if it turns a profit or not. It's one of the few things that the federal government is actually empowered to do.
The fact that a government service can't "compete" is no excuse to give Amazon corporate welfare.
The postal service doesn't need to be "relevant".
HELL, I wish there was a "no USPS" option on my own Amazon packages.
I don't mind the postal service at all, as you've said they have improved.
But I do think Amazon could pay them more and the government prop up the post office less. Why does that have to hurt the post office? They could still deliver Amazon packages, just pay what it actually costs to ship them.
I don't mind the postal service at all, as you've said they have improved.
But I do think Amazon could pay them more and the government prop up the post office less. Why does that have to hurt the post office? They could still deliver Amazon packages, just pay what it actually costs to ship them.
Because FedEX and UPS don't deliver to most of the rural US. Typical city dweller...most rural areas are only served by USPS which is why it runs at a loss. Also because leaders 100 years ago knew it was a good thing to promote a global mail/package delivery system.
They are subsidizing Amazon, also every rural address is subsidized as well as every other business that involves package delivery. This isn't political but somehow you (and Trump) are turning a very successful government service (over 100 years, can move a letter from one end of the country to the other in 3 days for less than 50 cents) into a political stunt. If you support reducing the USPS, then you are the type of person who politicizes everything to the detriment of everyone...and even worse without even trying to understand the situation which in this case is actually quite easy to understand.
In Europe it's usual for any company offering a private postal service to have to accept the universal mandate, i.e. deliver everywhere for the same price.
I guess it raises prices slightly but it's like universal telephone/broadband/water/electric service.
Seeing one group - recipients of federal subsidies - against another - taxpayers - is what politics is all about. Farm subsidies are another way that rural residents are benefiting against ordinary tax payers...
The UPS trucks rolls down the two lane rural road then up the 1/4 mile dirt road to my parent's farmhouse and drops off packages all the time. They do have surcharges for many zip codes to reflect the higher cost of delivery but it is false to state that they "don't deliver to most of the rural US"
Because FedEX and UPS don't deliver to most of the rural US. Typical city dweller...
I lived for a long time in a very rural area (foothills of mountains, not even a suburb) and we got delivery from UPS, possibly also FedEx.
I think *YOU* are probably more than a bit out of touch without how widespread those services are.
But again, I'm not even saying Amazon should not use the USPS, just that they should at least pay for cost of services. Not sure how that ends up being controversial.
Then they have to charge everyone else higher rates, even those on low incomes. It's the equivalent of net neutrality. The post office can charge different rates for parcels by their size, their weight, or the distance being shipped, but they can't charge by who is sending the parcel or who is receiving the item.
That part aside, how is it cool for the president to publicly target companies he doesnâ(TM)t like. If amazon is doing something illegal then give them due process and a trial. Remember trump himself took advantage of tax loopholes and immigration loopholes to enrich himself and then declared himself âoesmartâ.. why isnâ(TM)t he exalting amazon instead of defaming them?
"May the forces of evil become confused on the way to your house."
-- George Carlin
Fake News (Score:4, Interesting)
While they probably should, Trump feels this way because Jeff Bozo, who owns Amazon, also owns the NYT - or as Trump says "Fake News"...
Off to MetaMod (Score:3, Insightful)
Someone who apparently thinks it's cool for the USPS to subsidize Amazon shipping, and also can't even get straight what media companies Bezos owns, should not be modded up. I invite everyone to head over to MetaMod [slashdot.org], where you can rate the choices the moderators make and give these moderators a bit of a spanking.
Re: (Score:2, Interesting)
Without subsidy the USPS will need to scale down massively, they can't compete in a free market environment.
Even then, they'll always run losses because the international treaties rapes every western postal service. If Trump wants to do something useful he should unilaterally get the US out of the treaty of Bern.
Re:Off to MetaMod (Score:5, Informative)
They only can't compete because Congress forces them to pre-fund their employees retirement for some ridiculous number of decades - something no other business in the country does.
Additionally, the USPS's charge is to connect every person in America no matter how remote and unprofitable. The point is to have a service to connect far away Alaska villages that have no profit motive for FedEx etc. to connect. It's the same with public transit - the point isn't to make money, it's to enable and improve our lives in a worthwhile way.
Re: (Score:1)
False. Any private CEO would get jail (Enron) (Score:4, Informative)
What the postal service was doing, and is supposed to stop doing, is the kind of accounting that sent Enron executives to prison. If anyone but the postal service was hiding a $120 billion liability, it would be called "fraud".
What they were doing is saying to employees "work for us today, and we'll not only pay you today, we'll keep paying you after you retire, until you die." Someone can retire from USPS at the age of 56, so their retirement payments may be almost as much as their salary, or even more. Over the course of 30 years of retirement, the worker might be owed $840,000. So they had workers doing the work in say 1995, promised to pay them hundreds of thousands of dollars "later", but never set aside any money to be able to make good on those promises.
They owe about $120 billion - for work already done, and hadn't set anything aside to pay it. Most "every other business in the country" funds your 401K or other retirement by sending their contribution to a third-party investment bank every time you get a paycheck. You work this month, they pay for it this month, including the retirement part. State retirement plans work the same way, at least where I'm from in Texas - whichever agency you work for, when they pay for this year's work, they also pay whatever retirement they'll owe for this year's work. They don't have you work today and say "we'll worry about how to pay for it 20 years from now".
In 2006 they were given fifteen years to get caught up on the retirement they owed. They haven't come come close, because they are losing money. Any "profit" has to go toward funding the retirement promises they've made, but the "profit" hasn't been nearly enough and the number of letters they carry has fallen 30% over the last ten years, so it's unlikely they'll ever be able to pay for the retirement they are promising today's employees. They'll need the taxpayers to bail them out.
https://www.cnbc.com/id/450184... [cnbc.com]
https://www.govtrack.us/congre... [govtrack.us]
Re: (Score:1)
Re: False. Any private CEO would get jail (Enron) (Score:2)
They owe about $120 billion - for work already done, and hadn't set anything aside to pay it. Most "every other business in the country" funds your 401K or other retirement by sending their contribution to a third-party investment bank every time you get a paycheck. You work this month, they pay for it this month, including the retirement part.
So every other private (non-public) retirement/pension plan EXCEPT the USPS plan is fully-funded? I'd like to see proof of that!
The post office has the best-funded pension/retirement plan of ANY federal program:
The Postal Service has set-aside cash totals of more than $335 billion for its pensions and retiree healthcare, exceeding 83 percent of estimated future payouts. Its pension plans are nearly completely funded and its retiree healthcare liability is 50 percent funded â" much better than the rest [uspsoig.gov]
Read your own quote carefully (Score:2)
So every other private (non-public) retirement/pension plan EXCEPT the USPS plan is fully-funded? I'd like to see proof of that!
Then the keywords for you to Google are "ERISA" and "Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation". ERISA is the federal law that says pension and other retirement programs offered by private companies must be properly funded *at the time the employee earns the benefit by doing the work*, not 30 years later, after they've already retired and payments are due. They also must be insured by
Re:Off to MetaMod (Score:5, Informative)
Without subsidy the USPS will need to scale down massively, they can't compete in a free market environment.
The USPS is not subsidized by the US government/taxpayers. Their rates are set by the government, but they operate entirely on the funds that they generate directly.
Even then, they'll always run losses because the international treaties rapes every western postal service. If Trump wants to do something useful he should unilaterally get the US out of the treaty of Bern.
The USPS is profitable. The reported shortfall in their budget was due to congress passing a new requirement (which only applied to the USPS) that they pre-fund their retirement account fully within five years. Meaning that the full retirement package for every postal service employee is fully paid. If every employee retired now (even if they were just hired and thus are not eligible for retirement benefits...) the full amount of their retirement pension is covered.
It is not a bad thing, but it was done in such a way as to make the USPS look bad.
False and extra false (Score:3, Informative)
> that they pre-fund their retirement account fully within five years.
False. The five-year requirement is that every five years they have to calculate how far in the hole they are. (How much they owe to workers who have already worked, or are working on today, and whom they've promised decades of retirement pay to, without funding that promise.)
> If every employee retired now (even if they were just hired and thus are not eligible for retirement benefits...) the full amount of their retirement pension
However the rest of government works like that (Score:2)
Actually as a Brit, I'm speaking about the experience of much of Europe, where we have massive unfunded pension liabilities in the public sector. Do your civil service employees' pension costs form a fund or are they also a black hole?
US switched to fully funded in 1984. Sort of (Score:2)
In the1980s the US realized this was a big problem with the Civil Service Retirement Fund, so they switched to the "fully funded" Federal Employees Retirement System for people hired since 1984.
CSRF has a trust fund too, but it's not enough. One might think "1984 was a long time ago, it's okay now". But that was for people HIRED then. Some people were hired in 1980 and worked under CSRF until 2010. They'll be getting retirement payments in 2040.
Under both CSRF and FERS, each government *agency* pays in t
Thanks - very helpful (Score:2)
n/t
Re: (Score:1)
Tim S.
Without subsidy the USPS will need to scale down massively, they can't compete in a free market environment.
The USPS is not subsidized by the US government/taxpayers. Their rates are set by the government, but they operate entirely on the funds that they generate directly.
Even then, they'll always run losses because the international treaties rapes every western postal service. If Trump wants to do something useful he should unilaterally get the US out of the treaty of Bern.
The USPS is profitable. The reported shortfall in their budget was due to congress passing a new requirement (which only applied to the USPS) that they pre-fund their retirement account fully within five years. Meaning that the full retirement package for every postal service employee is fully paid. If every employee retired now (even if they were just hired and thus are not eligible for retirement benefits...) the full amount of their retirement pension is covered.
It is not a bad thing, but it was done in such a way as to make the USPS look bad.
Re: (Score:2)
Argentina took a different route: every package you get from abroad (especially China) is held by customs. Then they send you a letter demanding you pay them about USD 8 + import taxes. There's no "free shipping" here.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
I'm baffled as to how many people could have forgotten what the US Post looked like 10 years ago (pre-Amazon-boom).
It was failing and they were talking about reducing their delivery days even more than they already had. They were hemorrhaging money and could not find a way to bring themselves back from the brink. Why? Because they don't receive Government Funding and people had stopped sending letters.
Amazon made them relevant again, although I'm not terribly surprised that our current Drumpfster Fire is gl
Re: (Score:3)
The US post was never supposed to be a private corporation. It doesn't matter if it turns a profit or not. It's one of the few things that the federal government is actually empowered to do.
The fact that a government service can't "compete" is no excuse to give Amazon corporate welfare.
The postal service doesn't need to be "relevant".
HELL, I wish there was a "no USPS" option on my own Amazon packages.
Re: (Score:1)
I don't mind the postal service at all, as you've said they have improved.
But I do think Amazon could pay them more and the government prop up the post office less. Why does that have to hurt the post office? They could still deliver Amazon packages, just pay what it actually costs to ship them.
Re:Off to MetaMod (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't mind the postal service at all, as you've said they have improved.
But I do think Amazon could pay them more and the government prop up the post office less. Why does that have to hurt the post office? They could still deliver Amazon packages, just pay what it actually costs to ship them.
Because FedEX and UPS don't deliver to most of the rural US. Typical city dweller...most rural areas are only served by USPS which is why it runs at a loss. Also because leaders 100 years ago knew it was a good thing to promote a global mail/package delivery system.
They are subsidizing Amazon, also every rural address is subsidized as well as every other business that involves package delivery. This isn't political but somehow you (and Trump) are turning a very successful government service (over 100 years, can move a letter from one end of the country to the other in 3 days for less than 50 cents) into a political stunt. If you support reducing the USPS, then you are the type of person who politicizes everything to the detriment of everyone...and even worse without even trying to understand the situation which in this case is actually quite easy to understand.
Re: (Score:2)
In Europe it's usual for any company offering a private postal service to have to accept the universal mandate, i.e. deliver everywhere for the same price.
I guess it raises prices slightly but it's like universal telephone/broadband/water/electric service.
Re: (Score:2)
That would work, but it's not on offer here.
It's LEGITIMATE politics (Score:2)
Seeing one group - recipients of federal subsidies - against another - taxpayers - is what politics is all about. Farm subsidies are another way that rural residents are benefiting against ordinary tax payers...
Re: (Score:2)
The UPS trucks rolls down the two lane rural road then up the 1/4 mile dirt road to my parent's farmhouse and drops off packages all the time. They do have surcharges for many zip codes to reflect the higher cost of delivery but it is false to state that they "don't deliver to most of the rural US"
Re: (Score:1)
Because FedEX and UPS don't deliver to most of the rural US. Typical city dweller...
I lived for a long time in a very rural area (foothills of mountains, not even a suburb) and we got delivery from UPS, possibly also FedEx.
I think *YOU* are probably more than a bit out of touch without how widespread those services are.
But again, I'm not even saying Amazon should not use the USPS, just that they should at least pay for cost of services. Not sure how that ends up being controversial.
This isn't political but
Re: (Score:2)
Then they have to charge everyone else higher rates, even those on low incomes. It's the equivalent of net neutrality. The post office can charge different rates for parcels by their size, their weight, or the distance being shipped, but they can't charge by who is sending the parcel or who is receiving the item.
Re: Off to MetaMod (Score:2)
So the argument is, we'll subsidize every package shipped by charging less than the shipping actually costs, but we'll make it up n volume?
Brilliant. /sarcasm
Re: Off to MetaMod (Score:2)
That part aside, how is it cool for the president to publicly target companies he doesnâ(TM)t like. If amazon is doing something illegal then give them due process and a trial. Remember trump himself took advantage of tax loopholes and immigration loopholes to enrich himself and then declared himself âoesmartâ .. why isnâ(TM)t he exalting amazon instead of defaming them?