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Trump Orders Audit of Postal Service After Suggesting Amazon Is To Blame For Their Troubles (politico.com)
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Politico: President Donald Trump ordered the U.S. Postal Service to undergo an audit Thursday evening, a move that comes after president's repeated claims that Amazon is fleecing the USPS through alleged unfair business practices. "The USPS is on an unsustainable financial path and must be restructured to prevent a taxpayer-funded bailout," reads the executive order Trump issued shortly before 9 p.m. While not explicitly mentioned in the order, the president has hammered e-commerce giant Amazon in recent weeks and alleged that the company and its CEO Jeff Bezos are driving the USPS into the ground. "I am right about Amazon costing the United States Post Office massive amounts of money for being their Delivery Boy," Trump wrote on Twitter on April 3. "Amazon should pay these costs (plus) and not have them bourne by the American Taxpayer." According to the executive order, a task force comprise of top officials, including Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, who would chair the group, will lead the investigation into the USPS' finances and will be required to issue recommendations and a final report no later than early August.
But for tall the wrong reasons. I think Amazon is the only thing keeping the USPS from insolvency. It's probably a good idea to look into why they're both broke and bad at their job.
For some reason, Congress will not allow the USPS to use GAAP for their pension and healthcare obligations which make the USPS look like it is in the red. It is actually a well-run amortization that by normal metrics is revenue neutral.
Yes, it has been established the USPS's biggest problem is their need to pre-fund all their pensions for the next 75 years. There's also an established Republican desire to privatize USPS, probably so some private equity firm can suck that pension fund dry and discard the useless husk. If you want to preserve the USPS, get ready to fight to defend it.
There's no point in questioning authority if you aren't going to listen to the answers.
Probably, but it is more that Bezos owns a news paper that doesn't suck up to him. He will let the country fail, just as long as people are telling him how good he is.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
This has very little to do with the USPS anyway. Trump bloody hates Bezos because he owns the Washington Post, which regularly publishes stuff unflattering to Trump and his circle of friends
"When life gives you lemons, don't make lemonade. Make life take the lemons back!" -- Cave Johnson
Is the USPS a private for-profit company? No.
The real reason Republicans want to kill this quasi-public, self-funding agency is
because they can't make money (off the little guy) by buying stock in it and sucking
profits out through a golden straw. How dare the common man have a reliable
way to deliver mail that doesn't pay for their yachts?
Someone had to do it.
I'm sure he has access to more information about USPS than the rest of us. I'm also sure he's not looking at that information because it would require reading, which he is apparently unwilling to do. He is most likely basing his complaints about USPS on his personal grudge against Jeff Bezos and some misinformation he heard on Fox News, since personal grudges and TV propaganda are the same tools he uses to make all his other decisions.
There's no point in questioning authority if you aren't going to listen to the answers.
It's a cheap public service that doesn't add to the deficit.
Bullshit. I'm a democrat and I've never met a democrat that is "for abortion". It is a ridiculous statement. Abortion is a terrible choice for a women to have to make, but we believe that it is her choice. I find it absurd that republicans want to force people to have babies and don't want to provide health care, food, education or an living wage for the parents. Republicans would much rather give tax breaks to the super rich than to provide a meal to a child they forced to be born. Complete hypocrisy.
Is the USPS a private for-profit company? No.
The real reason Republicans want to kill this quasi-public, self-funding agency is
because they can't make money (off the little guy) by buying stock in it and sucking
profits out through a golden straw. How dare the common man have a reliable
way to deliver mail that doesn't pay for their yachts?
I suspect it is more that they "BELIEVE" that all government linked stuff must be able to be done better by private parties. That may even be true much of the time, but the post office delivers everywhere, and that is the kind of service you can get when profit isn't your first motive.
Many republican beliefs are flaming piles of shit, but they still somehow believe it, and generally will contort their interpretation of reality to fit those facts.
It is a bit like, "Oh my gosh, the crops are failing, it looks like Edward will have to sacrifice his first born after all!"
"What the crops still failed? That must be because he is angry about Heather's wanton ways. Now we gotta sacrifice another kid."
"Oh look the crops are better... Aren't we glad we made those sacrifices?"
Seriously, they deny science in favor of these totally bullshit arguments, that often don't require 5 minutes research to debunk. I find it completely in keeping with their philosophy to want to destroy any evidence that one of their core beliefs may be invalid, since, "It is doomed to fail, so we might as well kill it now." is their thought process.
The fact that it would prevent many people from getting packages and mail is totally not a consideration, because it was either doomed to fail so doesn't matter or free market fairy dust will fix that...
Seems strange that a guy who has claimed previously that he's "The Best" at making good deals, and has suggested that those who fail to make good deals are stupid, would beat up Amazon for making a ... good deal !
So while the postal service needs an overhaul in this modern world I have to doubt the motivation. UPS and FedEx are doing terrific due to online orders. So hasn't the postal service benefited as well? Could it be they were last to offer Tracking of packages? Had mandates that conflicted with growth? Didn't invest and see the future?
It is a gov't service. So it runs rain or shine. Where as business can change and decide what markets they want to service.
While it's logically true that he should have access:
1. He's on record as refusing to read anything complex, stating publicly he avoids anything that's more than a page long and doesn't have a small number of bullet points.
2. If he had information that Amazon was fleecing the Post Office, he wouldn't be calling for a friggin' audit, would he? He'd just order that information released.
So no, I don't think it's remotely possible he has any evidence at all that Amazon are fleecing the USPS. Quite the reverse, I suspect he's being told by everyone concerned that he's wrong, and he's insisting on an audit because he still thinks he's right and he thinks somehow getting another voice in will help him.
You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
I rather suspect that he has access to really good base information on the subject,
He has access to great information and even expert advice on many topics. Based on his behaviour, this doesn't actually seem to affect many of his decisions.
Also, he has at least some familiarity and ability with finance, unlike many other politicians.
Which is completely irrelevant since the only politician involved is Trump, who has a personal grudge against Amazon.
In any event, lets assume he's bumbling into a subject which we've identified as a problem for many years.
Traditional postal revenue has declined for years. Package delivery is probably one of the major things propping it up. If prices need to be adjusted, then adjust prices. People who work at USPS would probably be the best qualified to have an opinion about that. Meanwhile anyone with common sense can see Trump's voiced opinion is far more about his grudge against Amazon's CEO than a concern to fix the USPS. He's singling out Amazon because he wants to hurt their stock.
The Post is pretty good with facts. They also have a strong anti-Trump bias. Most reasonable people do, but papers are supposed to attempt unbiased reporting. If they are trying, they suck at it.
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
Oh the horror, being fiscally responsible.
How cute. No one, and I mean no one, pre-funds their pension fund 75 years out, it's not rational.
Let's try this - why don't you go down to your local school board and get them to pre-fund their pension 75 years out, just like the USPS? Why not, according to you it is merely being 'fiscally responsible'?
Ken
I don't expect them to be unbiased - that's a human impossibility. What I do expect is that they try to be as unbiased as they can. The recent change (and by no means is this historically unprecedented) is that they have recognized that being biased drives revenue and so they don't even try anymore. It makes it very hard for a person who desires dry information to get it. Reuters and the AP seem to still try, and I try to randomize my sources a bit via Google News. But for the most part the reputable news sources have lined up against Trump (and Republicans in general), and I refuse to stoop to sources like Breitbart in a vain attempt to "balance" my news.
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
WAAAH! Jeff Bezos is richer and a more successful businessman than I am, WAAAH!
This is what Trump looks like when he's talking about Jeff Bezos
Donald Trump acts like a spoiled-rotten narcissistic 5-year-old most of the time already, but you confront him with someone who is clearly and objectively richer, more successful, and a better overall businessman? He loses his shit and lashes out in a childlike temper-tantrum like this, which is going to cost you, the U.S. taxpayer, as a totally unnecessary 'audit' of the USPS is conducted. Meanwhile there are matters vitally important to the Nation as a whole that are being ignored in favor of Trumps' ego and vanity. Isn't enough enough already? Trump voters: what were you thinking!?
Really? Let's see you pre-fund your household expenses for the next 75 years with a 10 year deadline for the prefunding to be done. It's the fiscally responsible thing for you to do, after all.
The reason Trump doesn't want his income tax statements public is that he lives off borrowed money and doesn't pay taxes because he technically doesn't earn any money.
Nobody that would be considered rich "earns" any money in the sense of "exchanges labor" for it anyway. Earning is the sort of thing people do when they just need to survive. Being rich implies that your money makes money and you have so much of it that you could live your entire life without either running out or needing to do any of that filthy labor stuff.
Rich people, throughout history, have often operated under the framework that non-rich people exist only to do their bidding, don't have any intrinsic value, and life would be rather better if they didn't exist at all. History books have some exciting stories when this ends badly.
"Hasn't it already been pretty well established that the USPS is doing just fine, but the accounting practices congress forces them to use for their pension funding make it look bad on paper?"
Nonetheless, the idiot will make the post office asking for a higher price, which then will prompt Amazon to create their own 'delivery boy' service, thereby ruining the post office and thousands of people may lose their pensions and jobs.
Because sometimes a baby can develop without a brain and still have a beating heart. This baby is, for all acounts, dead. As dead as you would be if I removed the majority of your brain. Here's a better idea, if you are trying to pass a late term abortion ban, then start adding medical exemptions to the bills. Let a Dr with actual training decide what is and is not a living child.
And a fetus doesn't become a fetus until after 8 weeks, btw. But like I say, you either science, or you don't.
Republicans claim that government is inefficient, corrupt and wasteful... then get elected and prove their point. Looking for examples in the US is pointless since all government departments are generally run by people hamstrung by the whims of a system which despises their existence and a public who regularly spit on them in service of worshipping the corporation gods. Other countries manage to run such services fine when both government and the people believe in them.
Prefunding 75 years out is prefunding for employees that haven't been born yet.
Let that sink in.
name a SINGLE government agency that is efficient at what it does.
The Department of Energy loan program which had Solyndra. Yes, that one is efficient and successful. Of all the loans it has given out, only four have failed. The loss rate for the program (as of 2014) was 2.28%. Right now that program is making money even though it was never intended to do so.
Further, Republicans were so sure the taxpayers would lose money on this program (which was started during the Bush administration), they set aside $10 billion to cover losses. Those four failures cost less than $1 billion.
Compare that to private industry which lost over $1 billion on Solyndra alone. Even Tesla paid back its loans nine years early, with interest.
You wanted one example, there ya go. Now go ahead and move the goalposts.
We will bankrupt ourselves in the vain search for absolute security. -- Dwight D. Eisenhower
Name one company that is as efficient as government services. I worked in the public sector for a while. I had a few horror stories to tell, but my friends that worked in the corporate sector could one-up me every time with truly appalling tales of graft and waste. Now I'm in the private not-for-profit sector and I have to say, waste-wise, we've still got the government beat with all the money we waste.
Someone had to do it.
Because I'm an American. Therefore, I hate education and anyone connected to it. You're supposed to go threaten teachers with violence (especially science teachers), not offer them money, you silly!
Financally responsible is a vice, anyway. Most Americans habitually vote against that, and it's one of the things that all Democrat and Republican voters agree on, in bipartisan brotherhood. "I'm financially responsible" == "Please vote for one of my opponents."
"Believe me!" -- Donald Trump
No, they do more than that. They have figured out that Trump gets them clicks, so the front page is Trump every single day. They run headlines which use adjectives that imply a judgement. They intermix editorial headlines - almost universally critical of Trump - with news headlines - though they aren't as bad as CNN. Basically, they wear their bias against him on their sleeve because it gets them clicks. They still stick to the facts, but the style in which they present those facts is important.
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
The USPS. It's profitable and provides a service that is both far cheaper and can service far more customers than any private competition.
The problem here, as always, is creating a sort of artificial divide between a corporate bureaucracy and governmental bureaucracy. I've done a lot of work with government employees, and while there are issues, it never seems that much different than working with corporate bureaucracy. It's more about the general behavior of large organizations, than anything specific to public versus private organizations.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
One thing that always amazes me about public sector organizations is how fundamentally screwed up their billing is. Every Single One. They have no clue of their own costs, their supplier's costs or what they're charging their customers for.
I would submit that this is basically Trump being the thin-skinned moron he is. However, you must acknowledge that there is a LARGE portion of the "Conservative" base who hate all "Gummint" agencies and would love to see them eliminated or privatized (the same thing, the latter is just a slower process. The Post Office is a favorite whipping-boy of RWTR and has been for decades. Wake up, please.
No, dumb luck, dumber voters, and the failure of Comey to release the facts about both Clinton and Trump investigations...plus Russia stoking division among the Democrats and Liberals over the Sanders bullshit.
And when Fedex and UPS are asked if they want to reach EVERY SINGLE RESIDENT IN THE COUNTRY EVERY SINGLE DAY..... their answer is no. Fedex and UPS don't want to compete with USPS, a small fact republicans can't seem to understand.
Fascism: An authoritarian and nationalistic right-wing system of government and social organization. See also: NAZI's
It would be nice if we could get some fundamental reform that would relieve us of income taxes (Sales or VAT instead) and put the brakes on debt issuance.
The reason there's both income tax and sales/VAT is because sales tax the poor more heavily than the rich. You only pay sales tax on what you buy - and the poor are spending nearly 100% of their paychecks each month. Compare that with the rich, who spend very little of their paychecks and invest the rest - there is no tax on those investments unless you have an income tax.
Wealth inequality is bad enough as it is. Switching to only sales/VAT will make that problem even worse. If you want to be more fair, switching it the other way is the better way to go: Higher income tax, and the removal of sales tax, will fight income inequality. Of course, there are other reasons for sales tax to exist (tourism spending, for example), but those would take a lot more evaluation to see if the costs/benefits make it worthwhile, or truly add anything to the system.