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
"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