I mailed a package of
clothes overseas today. It cost $120. The same package cost $30-$40 to ship not
long ago. So much for this administration’s highly advertised “non-existent”
inflation. The service has not improved, nor did the sour demeanor and the
speed of the government employees, but the cost went up at least three times. The
pay is good and the benefits are stellar, but then, who wants to sort mail all
day and deal with the stressed public?
We’ve heard every year
that the U.S. Post Office is insolvent and must raise the price of stamps, a
nice way of saying, they are broke and have been broke for a long time. Taxpayer
bailouts and subsidies have been their business model. Rep. Darrell Issa said,
without “the freedom to realign its infrastructure and operations in line with
the changing way Americans use mail, the agency will remain insolvent.”
(Jennifer G. Hickey, Newsmax, October 22, 2013)
Few noticed, in the flurry of crises created by this administration, that the U.S. Post Office defaulted a third time this year on a binding $5.6 billion payment for the future healthcare of retirees. Who funds the future healthcare of retirees not the current healthcare?
The price of stamps will
go up again in 2014 to cover the 2013 loss of $6 billion. A government bailout of
$50 billion would be needed in 2017. How do they know exactly how much would be
needed by 2017?
The USPS discarded
recently millions of already printed stamps in the “Just Move” series because
three of the 15 sports activities shown were found objectionable (children
performing a cannonball dive, skateboarding without kneepads, and doing a
headstand without a helmet) by liberal sports figures who feared that they may
hurt our sissified and fragile children. https://postalnews.com/postalnewsblog/2013/10/07/usps-to-destroy-just-move-stamps-over-safety-concerns/
How did previous
generations survive without all these helmets, seat belts, knee pads, elbow
pads, butt pads while riding in cars, riding bikes, playing dodge ball, tag,
football, basketball, and other activities deemed “dangerous” by the liberal left
who like to control everything?
Many Americans are paying bills
online and traditional mail has dropped by 30 percent. I wished the level of
junk and unsolicited mail would drop to zero. If the post office cannot adjust
its business model, detractors say, closing locales that are losing money and
forging cheaper public-private partnerships are the only options.
If a simple agency of the
U.S. government cannot operate successfully delivering letters and packages, should
the government be running our healthcare system when it is already experiencing
major enrollment and operational “glitches” that are everybody’s fault except the
fault of those who wrote, pushed, and passed Obama Care? What would the delivery
of actual health care be like?
On the other hand,
according to Yves Smith, the USPS’ financial status is a fabrication. What
gives it the appearance of insolvency is a 2006 Congressional measure that
forces the USPS to “prepay retiree benefits 75 years in advance. It has to fund
benefits now for workers who haven’t even been hired.” He believes that a “looting
opportunity” is in place to turn the post office into a public-private
partnership. http://www.truth-out.org/news/item/19042-senator-diane-feinsteins-husband-selling-post-offices-to-cronies-on-the-cheap
Peter Byrne, in his
yearlong investigation has uncovered dealings involving closures and sales of
post offices around the country. He
describes one such closure in downtown Berkley. http://www.eastbayexpress.com/oakland/going-postal/Content?oid=3713528&showFullText=true
Peter Byrne’s e-book, “Going Postal: U.S. Senator Dianne Feinstein's husband
sells post offices to his friends, cheap,” is on
the best seller list at Amazon under journalism. One interesting chapter is
titled, “Turning public assets into private gold.” The research for his 2013 book
was funded by the William James Association in Santa Cruz, California.
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00F3JTO9G?tag=vglnkc8012-20
Byrne describes the July
27, 2013 demonstration outside the historic post office in downtown Berkley. A
city council member angrily protested the sale along with 200 other people. It was
not just about the inconvenience of not being able to buy stamps, mail
packages, send registered letters, or buy a money order, it was the fact that the
Berkley City Council had unanimously voted against the sale. Would the American
taxpayers gain from the postal service’s $85 billion real estate portfolio?
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