U.S. Postal Service and General Mail Topics

I figured you were, but I'm not sure on the others. Even if there is a contract in place, USPS could probably negotiate a much better contract if it had the ability to say "no deal, carry that shit yourselves". You don't need to stop them carrying for competitors, just let the USPS set the terms on which it carries for them.

True, but the USPS is non-profit, and the only reason any of this is happening is because some unsavory characters convinced the rest of the Bush admin that the USPS needed to fund retirements that weren't going to happen until almost a century later. None of the rest of the government has to do that.

The big problem is that the USPS is run partially privately anyway. They cover their own expenses through stamps and sales of their own products. They don't see a dime of tax money. This opened them up to serious abuse by some corporate entities that want to take over the Mail Processing side, which could be profitable to someone with the will to take it over.

They fire off the dedicated $20 an hour workers, hire wage slaves who've been competing for store jobs, and suddenly your sensitive mail is being handled by people who have no real reason not to open your private info, copy down sensitive numbers, and steal your identity.

Well that's your problem. You guys are the land of capitalism and you won't let a state controlled institution make a profit, even if it can do so without breaking its mandate? O I forgot, half your politicians get in government expressly for the purpose of proving that government can't work.

Oh, no, it's actually worse than that.

They get into government to make it work for THEM, so they can drag off pieces and drain them for cash.

The senator in charge of this movement to take down the USPS? He loaned money to a friend, leveraged the loan, and took the guy's electronics business out from under him. Next thing you know, he's got the place insured, it burns, and no one's been able to prove Arson.

That's not what "Non-profit" means. A "non-profit" (some-times called a "not-for-profit") organization or company can make a profit. What it can't do is disburse that profit to the people who own it (whether individuals, investors or direct or shareholders) in the form of dividends or interest on their investment. The profit has to be plowed back into the company or organization in the form of capital improvements, inventory, wages, or benefits to the employees.

That's fine then. Though, can it reinvest the profit back into its parent company? AKA the goverment?

Exactly. Even so, what non-profit is going to be able to prefund retirements 70 years out? The Feds drained every last penny that should have been put toward capital investments.

There hasn't been a parent company for a long time. The government organized them and shuttles in some employees (Postal clerks, the ones running your local post offices, are supposed to be war wounded vets. It's a reward for their service, getting paid a bit more than what the work really warrants) but their only source of funding at all is from their own work. They don't get paid at all by the Feds. It's all on them. Ergo, all their funds should go back into building up the company.

That pre-funding? That actually did go into the Feds' pockets, without any return on investment to the actual company. That's part of what the APWU and Congress want to fix, getting some of that pre-funding returned to the USPS to get them solvent again.

edited 4th Apr '13 10:22:31 AM by Journeyman