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.

Comments

Pension

[Gilgaron]

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?

Re:Pension

[GLMDesigns]

No. I've read articles pointing that the picture is much worse.

Does the USPS pay real estate tax? No.
Does the USPS pay market rent for the property used? No.
Does the USPS pay the water and sewage?
Does the USPS pay the tax on their electricity. (Take a look at the tax on your electric bill.)

Re:Pension

[rgmoore]

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.

Re:Pension

[TheRealMindChild]

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

Re:Pension

[Anonymous Coward]

Trump bloody hates Bezos because he owns the Washington Post, which regularly publishes factual information.

Fixed that for you.

Re: Pension

[Type44Q]

While they may be doing just fine, the amount they charge companies to spam the living shit out of us with dead trees is a complete fucking joke compared to the [relatively exhorbitant] costs for an individual to send anything.

It's pretty clear who's subsidizing who.

Re: Pension

[Type44Q]

All in that order??

Re:Pension

[skids]

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?

Re: Pension

[olsmeister]

If you want to pre-sort the mail you send, deliver it to the postal sorting center rather than having it picked up at your house, and give up the requirement to have it delivered as soon as possible, then maybe you too can get better rates.

Re:Pension

[Anonymous Coward]

This seems a little dramatic. I understand what you are saying but this is why people aren't listening to you. Dramatic rants of "the republicans will kill us all" is lost on all but the most devout liberals.

Try a different way and you'll be more successful.

Re: Pension

[AvitarX]

It's not that low.

Pre-sorting saves about $0.06 each on first class mail.

You can save another $0.15 going with lower class (standard) mail, but it can't contain a personal communication (even when a company does it) because they don't really out much effort into time or making certain someone gets it.

For that $0.06 discount, they are gaurenteed the address is good too, and that gaurenteed that their machines can read the address.

Re:Pension

[Anonymous Coward]

which regularly publishes factual information about things not involving politics

Fixed that for you.

Re:Pension

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Re:Pension

[Anonymous Coward]

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...

Re:Pension

[VeryFluffyBunny]

Yep, here's an explanation from the USPS themselves and a nice analogy to illustrate just how unfair the current attack on the USPS is: https://www.uspsoig.gov/blog/b...

Re:Pension

[MightyYar]

The criticism that they did it too fast is fair (10 years), but the change was absolutely justified and should be extended to the rest of government. Private companies have not been able to promise unfunded pensions for decades - it's a moral issue that the government is allowed to continue this practice. If you want to promise people future benefits, then actually fund those promises. Otherwise you are simply burdening your children with future obligations, and making no guarantee that they will keep your empty promises in any event. It's a lose for future taxpayers and it's a lose for the employees. The only people who win are the politicians who keep "costs down", and union leaders who can claim empty "wins".

Re:Pension

[MightyYar]

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.

Re:Pension

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, it has been established the USPS's biggest problem is their need to pre-fund all their pensions for the next 75 years.

No, they have to pay for current and future pensions using an algorithm that estimates future payments out to 75 years. There's a difference.

https://www.cnbc.com/id/45018432

Re: Pension

[kenh]

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'?

Re: Pension

[Anonymous Coward]

Look, can we get this right?

Trump bloody hates Bezos because he owns the Washington Post, which regularly publishes factual information unflattering to Trump and his circle of friends.

Re: Pension

[Anonymous Coward]

Since when are the papers expected to be unbiased. Every town used to have at least two papers. One leaned left and the to the right. You had to read both to decide what the facts were.

That's changed but no one requires the media to be unbiased. They may choose to or not. Examples: CNN and Fox.

Re: Pension

[Anonymous Coward]

You're asserting that Republicans don't believe that public services should be privatized whenever possible?

Isn't that half of their public mission statement?

Re: Pension

[Anonymous Coward]

A good part of Diane Feinstein's (D-Cal) wealth comes from selling USPS facilities. Interesting!

Re:Pension

[plopez]

1) Often state governments have the same arrangement. Note if the USPS is leasing space they do pay taxes indirectly.

2) That depends. If it is leased then once again they do so indirectly. Note also they had to purchase property in the cases where it is owned by them.

3) Yes

4) Unknown. Probably not though. They have the famous case where the court rules "the power to tax is the power to destroy". But neither do states pay Federal tax. Oh, and neither do corporations.

The US Postal Service is mandated by the US Constitution. They provide a valuable and efficient service to *all* Americans in the US. Not just the profitable locations.

This is just another way to give a monopoly to one company.

I predict this will destroy commerce via mail.

Re:Pension

[plopez]

All that proves is the USPS is more efficient than the private sector. According to Congress they *must* turn a profit and they do.

Re: Pension

[MightyYar]

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.

Re:Pension

[greythax]

And third trimester "abortions" are almost universally because we still call pulling an already dead baby out of it's mother an "abortion". Your hair is a collection of cells, but cutting it isn't murder.

Re: Pension

[Anonymous Coward]

While everyone agrees that Amazon sucks, I don't understand how they're abusing the post office.

  Do they get a sweetheart deal that drops them below cost? If not, the delivery is profitable.

Do they get a deal that's substantially better than the deal UPS gives them? If not, the deal is not corrupt.

If there's even a deal at all. But I haven't heard anyone claim that USPS loses money on average delivering for Amazon (other than the President, who is a well known pathological liar).

Re:Pension

[Gilgaron]

Oh I don't really consider it a problem that they balance their retirement budget that way, I have more of a problem for it being used to try to demonstrate that the USPS isn't solvent.

Re:Pension

[GrumpySteen]

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.

Re:Pension

[Anonymous Coward]

Habeas Corpus is still in effect.

Re:Pension

[nospam007]

"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.

Re:Pension

[MightyYar]

The accounting before was wrong, now it is right. The transition time of 10 years is, IMHO, overly traumatic - but they really aren't in very good shape because they have taken on massive obligations without funding them for decades. Maybe the Republican motivations are dark and evil, but whatever their motivation in the end we will be better for the change.

And eventually, every other department in government is going to need to go through the same trauma. The accounting rules have been a fraud for a very long time, and it's going to suck for all of us while we work out the balance of how much to raise taxes vs how much to screw people who were promised benefits by people no longer in a position to keep those promises.

Re:Pension

[greythax]

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.

Re: Pension

[kenh]

USPS Pension fund is not funded by payroll deductions.

The pensions are funded 75 years out, if employment slows down, fewer beneficiaries to fund, payments to retirement fund will go down. If USPS stopped hiring employees today, and everyone remained in the pension system, never left before vesting, never died before receiving benefits, etc. there would be no need to make any payments to the fund for 75 years - that's what it means to be 75 years funded.

Re:Pension

[Anonymous Coward]

They're probably making good money off Amazon. Amazon's even paying them extra for Sunday package delivery.

Also Amazon isn't the only online business shipping packages.

But the reality is that Trump doesn't give a rat's ass about the post office. Trump's #1 concern is Trump, and the WaPo doesn't slob his knob the way Fox News Channel does, so he has to bash Amazon.

Re:Pension

[giggleloop]

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.

Re:Pension

[Anonymous Coward]

it's a half a billion people on the government's payroll

No it's not. It is exactly zero people on the government's payroll.

The USPS does not get any tax dollars.

Re: Pension

[kenh]

When people can retire and set their kids or grandkids to be beneficiaries, then you have a real problem as they will be paid in full for far longer than 75 years.

You literally made that up, USPS retirees can't designate their kids or grandkids as beneficiaries for their retirement payments.

Re: Pension

[rahvin112]

Prefunding 75 years out is prefunding for employees that haven't been born yet.

Let that sink in.

Re: Pension

[SlaveToTheGrind]

No one, and I mean no one, pre-funds their pension fund 75 years out, it's not rational.

As others have pointed out, the USPS doesn't actually have to fund benefits 75 years out.

But in any event, the real irrationality is having defined benefit plans in the first place. Those by their very nature require long-range assumptions about lifespan and market performance, and the people who made overly optimistic assumptions decades ago are long gone when they're proven badly wrong. If an entity providing a pension ceases to exist, the pensioners get screwed because there aren't enough dollars to pay what they were promised and there's nobody to keep refilling the leaky bucket. And if people live a lot longer than projected (as continues to be the case), the entity can get put under significant pressure due to the extra unanticipated funding. Take a look at NCR for a good recent example of how this can go badly wrong.

Public pensions are generally just kicking this can down the road, to the tune of a ~5% per year increase in the gap between their promises and their assets. But the music will inevitably stop someday, and there will be some people left without chairs.

If the USPS insists on continuing with a defined benefit plan despite all that, it's perfectly reasonable in my view to ask them to put themselves (and their retirees) in an equivalent risk position by assuring sufficient funds to pay everything they promised to pay. That's all that's going on here.

Re:Pension

[smooth wombat]

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.

Re: Pension

[thegarbz]

There is no requirement to fund for 75 years out.

Yes there is. There law requires to pre-fund them, it just doesn't mention 75 years. That number comes from the United States Office of Personnel Management who provide the guidelines for how to financially account for the requirements set out in the PAEA.

and the paid personnel who are attempt to cut benefits to the employees

You mean unborn employees right?

Re:Pension

[laie_techie]

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?

Well thought out except for the aside saying that Republicans want to make money specifically off the little guy. Rich people of both parties have no qualms of making money off others - rich or poor. Also, our taxes shouldn't directly pay for politicians' yachts.

Re: Pension

[Anonymous Coward]

https://www.factcheck.org/2013/06/sen-feinsteins-husband-the-postal-service/
Her husband is part of the world's largest commercial real estate firm, which got a contract to sell off postal offices that were no longer needed. The contract seems to have gone to that firm because they are the biggest and most experienced, not because she is a senator. Nevertheless even the accidental collocation of political and financial power in the hands of a few families demonstrates what an oligarchy the US truly is.

Re: Pension

[bugs2squash]

I presume the USPS has been directed to build a big pension pot is so that it can be raided at some future date or used to sweeten a selloff.

Re:Pension

[Dixie_Flatline]

In Canada, there's no law on the books governing abortions at all; it's a decision between a woman and her doctor.

That said, there are almost no third-trimester abortions. The only times where it might happen are when the fetus has already died. Women that carry the baby to the third trimester nearly universally WANTED the baby. There's no reason to outlaw the practice since it's only done for medically necessary reasons.

Contrary to the belief of anti-choice advocates, women that get abortions aren't doing them unnecessarily or capriciously. There's a litany of reasons why a woman might make that choice, but honestly, it's nobody's business but hers. A woman has bodily autonomy, and to deny that gives her less rights than a corpse. (This is literally true; you cannot use a dead person's organs without their prior consent, which is why you need to sign your organ donor card.)

Re:Pension

[greythax]

Because, there are people we can ask, much better qualified than YOU, called Doctors, and they can tell us when it is unnecessary to torture a mother whose baby has formed non-viably by forcing her to keep the corpse in her belly until "term".

Re:Pension

[Chris Mattern]

Article I establishes that Congress has the right to establish a governmental postal service (Section 8) but does not mandate that one be established. If Congress wants to privatize (or even abolish) the USPS it is perfectly within its rights to do so.

Re:Pension

[skids]

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.

Re:Pension

[ColdWetDog]

I am definitely NOT inviting you to my Christmas party,

Re: Pension

[Cajun Hell]

why don't you go down to your local school board and get them to pre-fund their pension 75 years out

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!

Why not, according to you it is merely being 'fiscally responsible'?

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."

Re:Pension

[MightyYar]

That's not true. Sure, the facts tend to make Trump look terrible - but avoiding the use of adjectives which express opinion is the very least you can do.

Re:Pension

[Trailer Trash]

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.

Can we get rid of this bullshit Media Matters description? Reality doesn't look like left-wing propaganda.

This originated with the "Postal Accountability and Enhancement Act of 2006", H.R. 6407. It was a bipartisan bill with wide support from both Democrats and Republicans. It had nothing to do with partisan bullshit. It passed by voice vote in the House and unanimous support in the Senate. It forces the USPS to fund its pension fund like all other federal agencies so that they don't have to be bailed out.

It was a few years after passing that the left starting claiming it was a Republican bill meant to destroy the USPS. Neither is true.

Re:Pension

[MightyYar]

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.

Re: Pension

[Anonymous Coward]

He is a true Trumpublican. Just make it up and someone will believe it because of George Soros and cover-ups and Pizzagate deniers.... it doesn't even have to sound reasonable.

Re:Pension

[fahrbot-bot]

The Post is pretty good with facts. They also have a strong anti-Trump bias. Most reasonable people do, ...

Reality has a strong anti-Trump bias. Probably retaliation for Trump's strong anti-reality bias.

Re: Pension

[reanjr]

The USPS. It's profitable and provides a service that is both far cheaper and can service far more customers than any private competition.

Re:Pension

[pots]

Well I'm not a democrat but I'm for abortion, I like all forms of birth control. I think abortion is great.

Further, I don't see any reason why it would be a "terrible choice," and I think the idea that it could be is causing a lot of harm. It certainly is a significant choice, and one which should be considered carefully as any choice should be which will have a large long-term impact on your life. That's as far as it goes.

Re:Pension

[Rick Schumann]

The US Postal Service is mandated by the US Constitution. They provide a valuable and efficient service to *all* Americans in the US. Not just the profitable locations.

Great point, really. Otherwise we end up with the 'gentrification' of the mail service. Imagine this: neighborhoods full of poor minorities suddenly don't get mail service anymore because it's 'unprofitable', being forced to drive to some far-away facility to pick up what was mail service to their door (assuming they can even get there at all). Or worse, they have to pay some sort of 'delivery surcharge' because they're not on 'normal routes', putting more financial stress on people already living paycheck to paycheck. Is this really the America we want to create?

Re:Pension

[Daemonik]

Don't forget the Post Office is the largest union work force in the US, so screwing the unions is high on the Republican agenda too.

Re:Pension

[MightyMartian]

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.

Re:Pension

[Daemonik]

name a SINGLE government agency that is efficient at what it does.

Medicare and Medicaid provide health care coverage at a vastly reduced administrative cost compared to insurance companies, and actually pays their bills on time without dragging their feet to the point your doctor is about to sue you before admitting that yes, you are covered for that procedure.

Re:Pension

[Daemonik]

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.

Re:Pension

[datavirtue]

...and aren't I, the tax payer, benefiting from the low delivery prices? I have a constant stream of packages arriving from Amazon and I pay heavy taxes. I'm OK with my taxes going to offset a real cost of mine.

Re: Pension

[orlanz]

Says one who hasn't dealt with TSA, USCIS, nor US ICE. They make the DMV seem like a well oiled, efficient, & automated machine. Yet Republicans are perfectly OK with the way these social programs operate.

Re:Pension

[JackieBrown]

Did you mean to reply to me? I think we are agreeing. I was trying to pick a stage where it's inarguable a baby

Re:Pension

[datavirtue]

There are some banks directly chartered by congress and they are pretty efficient. They manage to avoid ponzi schemes and "innovative" investments and other gambling practices. The one thing the government is good at is banking yet it chooses to let private individuals run banks and tries to run around in circles auditing them from time to time and prosecuting them when necessary. Of course this leads to rampant debt and overblown prices for durable goods and real estate.

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.

Re:Pension

[datavirtue]

Government, even the US government, is very good at banking. It is what should be a very boring domain that is easy to administer and should be kept conservative. Instead we dole out charters to criminals--literally--to run for-profit banks that dabble in other "market" activities. I'm am a totally free market person but the last place I want to see a market is at a bank.

Re:Pension

[datavirtue]

True. Business has the redeeming quality of occasionally pursuing greatness and the ebb and flow of customers and the marketplace. Government agencies are apathetic because their money just keeps coming no matter what. For them to be efficient they should be on the ropes, constantly justifying their need and reaffirming their place. Instead we have crust like the FBI, FDA, USDA (rather benign but not completely), FCC, and I'm sure others could list more that are just mired in whatever it is government agencies get mired in after numerous decades.

Re: Pension

[datavirtue]

School boards can barely fund toilet paper and they don't need pensions. I can get the same quality without paying a pension.

Re: Pension

[MightyYar]

And your statements speak nothing to your own bias?

Of course I'm biased. And in this case, I have a strong preference for news sources which at least make an attempt to be neutral.

The current group leading the GOP are not working in the majority of Americans favor,

That's an opinion, based on an analysis. I agree with you (though I would expand it to Democrats as well), but I'd like to read analysis on the editorial page. Analysis has value, but so does plain reporting of fact.

Face it, pay for play politics has broken our political system beyond recognition and the greed storm that has infected our governors is most swampy right under the GOP tent and donors. You did see the NRA was stuffing tons of money into the election supporting Trump that came straight from Russia right? What did the supreme court think would happen when they made unlimited anonymous donations freedom of speech? How can we expect anything other than treasonous grifter politicians when we define their job as grifters forced into manipulation by the highest bidder?

I agree with almost all of that, though I think you are denial about how much corporate and union money has corrupted the Democrats as well. But this is still all opinion, not really fit for the "news" page.

Re:Pension

[MightyYar]

Agreed, but "retaliation" doesn't belong in a respectable newspaper's "news" section.

Re:Pension

[smugfunt]

Private companies have not been able to promise unfunded pensions for decades - it's a moral issue that the government is allowed to continue this practice.

It really isn't. Unlike private companies, the government can create money ex nihilo. It can pay its bills, any size, any time, simply by typing numbers into a computer. It does not need to prefund anything, nor does it need to tax or borrow money in order to spend.

Re:Pension

[greythax]

I'm pretty sure that we don't stop with babies now. Terri Schiavo comes to mind. The doctors tell us what we can expect, recovery wise, and hopefully we, not the law, get the right to make decisions for ourselves/loved ones.

Re:Pension

[Green Mountain Bot]

I think he's suggesting that it is funded by a combination of employee contributions and USPS revenues, with no additional contribution from the US government general fund.

Re:Pension

[MightyYar]

can create money ex nihilo

Sort of. This might get the feds off the hook (though not without economic implications), but it does nothing for state and local government pensions that are unfunded or underfunded. And it still puts the onus on future generations - they are the ones who pay by devaluing their currency. The moral thing to do is devalue our own currency right now instead.

Re:Pension

[Bryansix]

I could tell of one but I'm also posting from their IP address so I will abstain. I will just say this. Look at the efficiency of IOU's versus Municipal run utilities.

Re: Pension

[Bryansix]

They also have a government mandated monopoly on access to mailboxes, so there's that.

Re:Pension

[acoustix]

From another poster (will_die):

The USPS law of 2006 references OPM rules. OPM says the age of death for funding purposes is 78.7 years. Lets say, the average USPS employee enters at age 20 and worked 35 years(retired at age of 55) the USPS would have to budgeted for your retirement pay of 23.7 years; this is known as a future liability.
Now that gets a little hard, the government knows they will need an employee during that time but they don't know if the person will retire from them, or if they will have a multiple people who each work 5 years during that time. So to solve that the OPM came up with a rule for accounting purposes all federal executive offices, with a few exceptions, have to figure out their retirement future liability and then they have 75 years to make sure that money is ready.
That 75 years is for accounting purposes, it is not a requirement to pay 75 years out.
As I wrote this applies to almost all federal executive offices. The USPS before 2006 was exempted and they were paying off all medical liabilities each year. The 2006 law made the USPS start to get in line with other federal offices, because the smart people who wrote the law, realized that usage was going down and there is no way the USPS could be paying retirees medical needs come 2030 if they did not have a pre-paid fund.

Re: Pension

[orlanz]

This is true of large corporations like GE, Macy's, AT&T, Comcast, etc.

There are so many moving parts, politics, turf wars, budget maximizing, and protectionism that few, if any, can do actual cost accounting. There will be 1-2 out of 10 units that basically subsidize the others. 3 of those everyone knows are intentionally subsidized but the others appear to break even or barely profitable when they could be the worst ROI.

As long as this quarter somehow tallies to the expectations or deviations can be blamed on some event, no one cares to go look. Because looking might show a new incorrect picture where it's your BU that should be cut down.

Re:Pension

[fahrbot-bot]

I meant to imply that reality, not The WP, is retaliating against Trump. Sorry if that was ineptly done.

Re:Pension

[Rick Schumann]

..says the person who would be determined to be 'poor' and tossed into the woodchipper.

Re:Pension

[Rick Schumann]

Well, they can get fucked, then. Not on our watch.

Re:Pension

[MightyYar]

I don't really think they are retaliating. I think they are just going after liberal clicks in the same way that Fox chases conservative clicks. It's a shame, that's all, because most "news" organizations are moving towards this entertainment model in order to stay viable.

Re:Pension

[Rick Schumann]

I was implying that, but yes; the disenfranchisement of minorities in America. Fuck that shit.

Re:Pension

[AnalogDiehard]

Trump bloody hates Bezos because he owns the Washington Post, which regularly publishes factual information

The same Washington Post that published a questionable sexual abuse claim against a political candidate, among other claims that turned out to be unreliable?

Re:Pension

[meglon]

USPS is part of the government. The points you make are entirely moot, as the federal government pays none of those. The articles you've read are bullshit for stupid people, most likely written by people who hate the fact we actually have a federal government. Your post isn't informative, it's just fucking stupid.

USPS actually posts a profit UNTIL you take in to account the forced 100% funding of retirement benefits for workers they'll have in the future who are not even born yet. Why? Stupid fucking idiot republicans in the 2006 congress who didn't know shit about business. When you put stupid in office, you get stupid shit like this.

Re: Pension

[meglon]

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.

Re:Pension

[meglon]

No, the accounting wasn't wrong. Because you don't like the way they did it, like virtually EVERY OTHER BUSINESS doesn't mean it was wrong... kit means you don't have a clue what you're talking about. Learn about what you're discussing before spewing bullshit. You clearly don't know shit about accounting.

Re:Pension

[GrumpySteen]

And where in all that do you see a reason for a 2016 deadline for prefunding when they're okay out to 2030 (which is the figure you cited)?

Put simply, the Postal Accountability and Enhancement Act of 2006 set up a short deadline which has made it impossible for USPS to cover the required payments. If the prefunding were done with smaller payments over a longer period, it's entirely possible they wouldn't have defaulted on their payment last year.

Re: Pension

[mapkinase]

> we believe

No, we don't.

Re:Pension

[Rick Schumann]

In Canada, there's no law on the books governing abortions at all; it's a decision between a woman and her doctor.

That, alone, makes me wonder if I'd be happier living in Canada. If it wasn't for my liking warm days and sunshine in the spring and summer and mild weather in the fall and winter I'd be all over it.

Re:Pension

[kiminator]

Fiscally responsible? Congress is requiring that the USPS pre-pay its pension plan for employees who have not yet been born. A fiscally-responsible pension plan is one with a reasonable buffer and conservative accounting practices such that it isn't likely to ever lose so much that the USPS can't cover the loss. Given the size and stability of the USPS, a buffer of 30-50% of their yearly pension payouts should be more than sufficient. If they really wanted to be conservative, they could go for 2-3 years.

75 years makes zero sense under any reasonable accounting scheme. It's really a blatant attempt to kill the USPS. There's no other way to read it.

Re:Pension

[kiminator]

It's still a quibble that doesn't change the overall picture.

The USPS is being asked to fund all of the future payments for all of its current and former employees, assuming they'll live to the age of 75 on average. That's absurd. There's absolutely no justification for such a rule.

I know of no other situation where organizations are required to retain payments that will be made decades in the future. Why should the USPS be required to save money for a new, 20-year-old employee who won't start receiving any payments at all for decades? If there is any obligation here, it should simply be that the USPS has to have a savings amount proportional to the current year's retirement outlays. That's it.

Re:Pension

[kiminator]

It happens. There are quite a few people who vote with the Democratic party for reasons other than abortion rights. This is especially the case among populations with conservative religious views who have been turned off by the Republican party's racism (e.g. some Latinx voters). Sometimes these people end up siding with other views common in the Democratic party, but not always.

Re:Pension

[The Rizz]

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.

Re:Pension

[The Rizz]

If you can run something in a way that makes money, instead being a black-hole for tax revenue, and at the same time provide similar or adequate service why wouldn't you?

Except that's precisely what USPS is doing. Compare their service and pricing to FedEx or UPS - the USPS outdoes them 70%+ of the time, with 0% of their budget coming from tax revenue, and they're consistently turning a profit.

Your whole "capitalism is always good, socialism and communism is always bad" mentality is fucking toxic and leads to horrible markets. Simply put, some industries are best run by capitalism, but others are best run under socialist or communist policies. Others (such as mail and package delivery) are best run by a combination of the above (capitalism and socialism in this case).

Any push for everything to be run under a single one of those philosophies is a disaster - different industries work better or worse under different ideals, and the government should be flexible enough to consider which is best with what.

Re:Pension

[Daemonik]

Who cares what the supplier's costs are? They bid on contracts. If they bid too low that's their problem, not the government's.

Typically short sighted. For one, it's pretty damn inconvenient when your supplier goes bankrupt in the middle of your own production run and you have to scramble to find another supplier. Also, if you know how much what your supplier is selling you costs to manufacture, then you have a better idea if they're overcharging you.

My main critique though, is for instance, software. Most corporations are over licensed on software, just to be safe, and don't even know if the software they've paid for is being utilized to it's full potential.

Re: Pension

[phantomfive]

Also, every government expense is basically a rounding error next to Medicare, SS, and the military. You could completely get rid of the postal service, get rid of every other inefficiency in government, and it would make very little difference in the overall budget (especially the growing deficit). People argue very emotionally about this topic but it's not really worth getting emotional about.

Re: Pension

[phantomfive]

Your last paragraph is exactly why America will go bankrupt. Even if they had a 10 trillion surplus, they would find a way to go bankrupt anyway.

Re: Pension

[phantomfive]

WSJ still puts out good stuff, and so does the nyt, especially on topics other than politics.

Re: Pension

[Anonymous Coward]

It's accurate. But then to fix that, people vote in managers who think the agencies shouldn't exist. Shockingly, those people don't fix that problem.

This is the Republican cycle -- it sucks, so tell people it sucks to get elected, then make sure it sucks so they can shut it down. And next time Blue is in power, they can Say it sucks even more now.

Democrats suck for different reasons, but at least they want to try.

Re: Pension

[quantaman]

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.

I believe Fox News has fully embraced the role of propagandists, I think MSNBC has started moving that way but I don't think they're quite that far gone, and some new media like Vox are attempting to be intellectually honest progressive advocates.

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)

The right answer isn't always the middle.

The GOP has had a major problem with facts for years. Remember death panels? Birtherism? Fake voter fraud scares? Palin in '08? The clown convention of Not-Romneys of the 2012 Republican Primary? All of these things should be laughed out of serious consideration, and they all precede Trump.

The problem isn't that the media is getting biased, the problem is that half of the US political establishment has gone so far off the deep end that you can't reach them without an oil rig.

Re: Pension

[Anonymous Coward]

AC here. Please show me your source. Here is mine.

USPS careers website links to OPM's civil service retirement forms. Beneficiaries are not only limited to the employee or spouse.

http://www.opm.gov/forms/pdf_fill/sf2808.pdf

Re: Pension

[q_e_t]

Government agencies spend significant effort determining theirs costs and reporting on them to Congress and, to some extent, the public.

Re: Pension

[gordguide]

75 years is an actuarial accounting standard. Sometimes seen as an obligation to fund or project costs, it's actually a limit ... in other words no pension fund anywhere projects beyond 75 years, even if they could.

Re: Pension

[MightyYar]

I'm a registered Democrat, dipshit.

Though to be fair I've also registered Republican, depending on where I live. I like to have an actual vote in the primaries.

Re: Pension

[MightyYar]

I didn't say it wasn't well-intentioned. It just makes it more difficult to get neutral-viewpoint news, which for a few of us matters more than whether we agree with everything we read.

Re: Pension

[MightyYar]

The problem isn't that the media is getting biased, the problem is that half of the US political establishment has gone so far off the deep end that you can't reach them without an oil rig.

It's not an either/or. Both things have happened. Republicans regularly make indefensible statements, but just read the headlines on CNN any given day (not today, love of war coverage usurps their hatred of Trump) - full of adjectives and they freely mix their news and opinion headlines.

Re: Pension

[MightyYar]

I'll go further - the Washington Post is still a damn fine news source... it's just that they have decided to set aside worries about bias and so you need to go elsewhere for further reading. It's now just "in the mix" as opposed to the kind of thing you could read cover-to-cover and consider yourself well-informed. Maybe it's just false nostalgia on my part...

Re:Pension

[MightyYar]

They did not do it like every other business, unless you mean the way it was done in the 50s. Businesses have been required to fund pensions for decades now, and you'll notice that once promises became liabilities the pensions all went away in the private sector. Slowly government is accepting the standards recommended by accounting regulatory bodies and counting pensions as the liabilities they are.

I'd love to know what your accounting credentials are, if I'm so ignorant. I may be accounting-retarded, but it sounds like you haven't read anything about it in 30 years.

Re: Pension

[AutodidactLabrat]

Thank you for citing facts.
Amazing how much republican't BULLSHIT leaks around here
Have to wonder what the Russkies are paying these days

Re:Pension

[Shadowkahn]

Republican leadership doesn't believe it. Their voters believe it, but then many of them also believe Clinton ran a child sex ring from the basement of a pizza joint that doesn't have a basement.

The leadership knows exactly what's going on, and exactly what their policies will do, and exactly who their policies will hurt and who they will help. But they also know that even the dim bulbs who vote for them won't like being told that they will be poor for the rest of their lives while their representatives' rich puppeteers will continue to get richer, and so they lie about what their policies will do and who they will hurt.

It really is time we move away from "Republicans want good things for the public, they're just totally wrong in how to bring them about" and recognize that Republicans are very smart, and want to destroy the country as we know it.

Re: Pension

[reanjr]

Sure, but nothing's stopping FedEx from installing private, exclusive boxes at any address that wants one. Or for UPS and FedEx et al to share the box.

Re:Pension

[Ol Olsoc]

Jeff Bezos owns the Washington Post, which is doing a lot of investigative reporting on Trump. Therefore, Bezos must be punished. You do as the boss tells you to do, or else he destroy you. This is Trump's America now bitches - all must fall in line or get punished until they swear fealty to teh best president ever. His word is law.

Re:Pension

[Ol Olsoc]

No. I've read articles pointing that the picture is much worse.

Bezos owns Amazon - the reason that he must be punished is clear, and obvious. Trump's word is law, and we must do extreme vetting on the fake news put out by anyone who opposes him.

I was thinking that in order to have America work correctly, we must have approval to avoid this fake news bullshit that socilists like Bezos and the failing New York times. Trump is considering making his one true faithful news medium, Sean Hannity, minister of truth. All stories must be approved by Hannity, and anything that does not meet Hannity's approval must be punished as treason. Only true news will help drain the swamp. MAGA!

Yours in Christ Jesus,

Re: Pension

[eric_harris_76]

The USPS is extremely inefficient. Auditing it can only be a good thing.

And unconstitutional. Not that that much matters, in post-constitutional America.

Re:Pension

[wallsg]

Maybe it would be good for everyone who believes that government is the answer for everything and have more power to remember... Occasionally the Other Side will be in control and use that power for things you don't like.

Solution: don't give the government any more power than you'd want the Other Side to have.

Re:Pension

[kenh]

All retirement plans should be prepaid/invested. That's the responsible thing to do.

Read an article about pensions in Oregon, they give retirees the option of choosing the method that pays them the most among several - here's my favorite:

Pretend the state employee put 6% of their salary in an imaginary retirement account, further pretend that the retirement account paid market-average returns every year, and then, after you figure out how much they would have, if their imaginary 6% investment had grown with the market over the years, then pretend that the state matched that 6% contribution and was similarly invested all those years, paying market rates AND THEN calculate the retirement fund the worker has to draw from.

Of course the employee never contributes 6%, the employer (the state) never contributes the 6% on behalf of the employee, the employer never contributes their matching 6%, and it is all fiction until the employee retires, then the states runs the numbers and tries to squeeze the pension money out of their budgets going forward.

The insanity of this program isn't that pension costs are 12% of salary annually, it is that those costs are never considered until the worker retires, no money is ever put aside for the employee. To properly fund this pension, Oregon would have to start putting away 12% of every workers salary, and invest that money in some financial instrument that tracks the overall market performance year after year - can Oregon afford to properly fund these pensions? No. It's insane.

On top of current retiree obligations, every pension-eligible worker would suddenly cost the state 12% every year...

Re:Pension

[Peter P Peters]

Well I'm not a democrat but I'm for abortion, I like all forms of birth control. I think abortion is great.

Same here. Most of our problems are related to too many people, not enough environment, so it follows that all forms of birth control should be supported.

Re: Pension

[Bryansix]

They already do reach every customer in the country but less efficiently. The post office has places it won't deliver mail to. In order to get mail, you have to have a PO Box in the post office. Crestline, California is one such place. However, FedEx and UPS will deliver to the door even though that takes a lot more work and involves driving down single lane roads that are usually unplowed in the winter. The only thing they have going for them is that they don't have to open a mailbox and secure the package. They just throw it over the fence and then forge the customer signature.

Re: Pension

[Bryansix]

At their own cost. Individual homeowners install the mailboxes for the post office. They pay the cost, not the USPS.

Re:Pension

[The Rizz]

there is no tax on those investments unless you have an income tax.

So, you've never heard of capital gains tax then?

Two problems here: (1) Capital gains tax is a type of income tax, so if there's no income tax, there's no capital gains tax. (2) Capital gains tax only applies when money is withdrawn from an investment, and even that has ways around it (such as in the US with the estate tax exemptions, which allows 100% capital gains tax avoidance in an estimated 99.8% of cases).

he's probably right

[kick6]

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.

Re:he's probably right

[belthize]

I think the moon is made out of cheese. We should audit NASA while we're at it.

Re: he's probably right

[Type44Q]

I think Amazon is the only thing keeping the USPS from insolvency.

I'm afraid "think" simply isn't the right word.

Re:he's probably right

[technosaurus]

International postal treaties. Ever wonder why it is cheaper to have a product shipped from China than from your next door neighbor... Thats the biggest red line item on the USPS books.

Re:he's probably right

[Anonymous Coward]

Bad at their job? USPS is the only service that delivers to my place. UPS and FedEx don't...if I get a package from them, I need to drive to the nearest distribution center which takes about 30 min. Nothing like having to leave work early just to drive to pick up a package. I never order online unless USPS is a shipping option, otherwise it's easier to just go to a retail store.

Re:he's probably right

[Anonymous Coward]

Everybody knows the answer to that. They were a government service, supported by tax dollars with all the civil service rules to follow and all the benefits of being unionized government employees (infinite cash available). When it was spun off, the cow stopped giving milk but the USPS couldn't adapt to being run like a private business.

The post above is one of the cases where I genuinely can't determine whether the poster is being serious or satirical.

Re:he's probably right

[Rick Schumann]

LOL no we're talking about Trump here, it'd be more like "I think Man going to the Moon was fake news and I'm ordering an audit of NASA over it!"

Useless without Congress

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Re:Useless without Congress

[Anonymous Coward]

Even if the USPS was in the red, it's still an incredibly valuable and critical piece of public infrastructure and should be well funded. Yes, even at a net loss. If we can light $600+ billion on fire every year to fund the most powerful military in the world, we can throw a few pennies at the postal service.

Re:Useless without Congress

[Trailer Trash]

Even if the USPS was in the red, it's still an incredibly valuable and critical piece of public infrastructure and should be well funded. Yes, even at a net loss. If we can light $600+ billion on fire every year to fund the most powerful military in the world, we can throw a few pennies at the postal service.

Here's the thing, and I say this as a libertarian. Well, let me show you something:

http://constitutionus.com/

Scroll down to Article I, Section 8, paragraph 7. It's short, I'll put it here:

(The Congress shall have Power) To establish Post Offices and post Roads;

It's actually in the Constitution! This is a fully legal part of the federal government. This isn't the Department of Education.

The founders recognized that this was a really important function of the government, so important that they put it in a list of only 18 areas over which the federal government has legal authority.

I'm glad the USPS funds itself, but I don't care, actually. It's a very important thing to have around and we need to protect it, even if that means throwing a little money at it now and then.

That said, it also needs to fulfill its pension obligations.

Re:Useless without Congress

[Sumus Semper Una]

Here's the thing, and I say this as a libertarian. ... It's actually in the Constitution! This is a fully legal part of the federal government.

What does the US Constitution have to do with libertarianism? I was under the impression that the concept was "I think public services should be privatized" and not "I think public services should be privatized... unless they were in the constitution."

It's not that I'm saying you don't have a point about the importance of a post office as a public utility. I'm just honestly confused about how people are using the term libertarian.

Re: Useless without Congress

[Trailer Trash]

You are probably unaware, but the point of the legislation was to force them to fund their pension fund like everybody else. They werenâ(TM)t doing it, now they are. Thatâ(TM)s why the bill had nearly unanimous support from both parties. Left wing groups like think progress later claimed it was a Republican attempt to destroy the USPS, and their wholly false talking points are now parroted endlessly online by people too stupid to actually educate themselves, as shown by the post to which I responded and itâ(TM)s clueless upvoters.

Re:Useless without Congress

[Trailer Trash]

Here's the thing, and I say this as a libertarian. ... It's actually in the Constitution! This is a fully legal part of the federal government.

What does the US Constitution have to do with libertarianism? I was under the impression that the concept was "I think public services should be privatized" and not "I think public services should be privatized... unless they were in the constitution."

This is what happens when you believe the looney left smears against libertarianism instead of researching for yourself.

Re:Useless without Congress

[Sumus Semper Una]

Sorry for the necro. Busy weekend. I actually didn't use any newspapers or news reports. Instead I read through the wikipedia article for an initial overview. It seemed like a pretty straightforward and comprehensive overview of Libertarian philosophy, but no mention of any sort of constitutionality. I was assuming you weren't a left-libertarian, so I didn't understand why the constitution was relevant to your world view. It wasn't until later this weekend when I got to this section that I found any mention at all of the US Constitution. Apparently there's an offshoot in the US that is more correctly described as a US Libertarian Republican that, among other things, espouses strict adherence to the US Constitution. And it's sometimes shortened to Libertarian. You have to admit, Libertarian on its own has a confusing connotation since it describes several conflicting ideologies.

peer-to-peer package delivery

[vossman77]

It is hard to crunch the exact numbers, but I am in the camp that Amazon helps the USPS stay afloat, by giving them something to do. The way the USPS is structured government control but technically independent, there is not way there they can turn a profit.

That said, this is just going to push Bezos to implement his Uber/Lyft delivery even quicker. I've seen those white van of Amazon, tossing packages on my door stop, taking a picture, sprinting back to their van, and speeding off to their next drop.

What do we call this new delivery service: peer-to-peer package delivery?

Re:peer-to-peer package delivery

[rjr162]

Not only this, but they're logistics suck.

Ordered something and did next day delivery to an Amazon store as I needed the part for a repair and no one locally had it. The site said it would be there by 8pm, although I was hoping it would arrive sooner as the store is in the town I work in, where as I live 40 minutes away and it was to be delivered on a Friday.

Long store short, 8:03pm hit before Amazon updated that my package was delayed by the carrier but they couldn't give a why, even though the status in the app said the package had been delivered to the carrier. It updated my delivery to be "Monday to Wednesday". I called Amazon to complain as I paid the extra for the next day. They refunded that cost and I asked how they didn't know when it would arrive as THEY are the carrier. They said it would be there Tuesday. Guess what arrived over the weekend (I can't remember now if it showed up Saturday or Sunday).

Amazon's Logistics/delivery service (or whoever they contract out to and slap that label on) is utter crap.

Re:peer-to-peer package delivery

[Oswald McWeany]

Not only this, but they're logistics suck.

Ordered something and did next day delivery to an Amazon store as I needed the part for a repair and no one locally had it. The site said it would be there by 8pm, although I was hoping it would arrive sooner as the store is in the town I work in, where as I live 40 minutes away and it was to be delivered on a Friday.

Long store short, 8:03pm hit before Amazon updated that my package was delayed by the carrier but they couldn't give a why, even though the status in the app said the package had been delivered to the carrier. It updated my delivery to be "Monday to Wednesday". I called Amazon to complain as I paid the extra for the next day. They refunded that cost and I asked how they didn't know when it would arrive as THEY are the carrier. They said it would be there Tuesday. Guess what arrived over the weekend (I can't remember now if it showed up Saturday or Sunday).

Amazon's Logistics/delivery service (or whoever they contract out to and slap that label on) is utter crap.

I tried the Amazon Prime free month thing over xmas-time. Was very dissatisfied with it. Over half the prime shipping they sent me took longer than the two days they promised at the electronic check-out. (Probably due to being the busiest shipping time of the year...) that's the only time I've really been dissatisfied by Amazon. The extra day (or two days for one package) delay in Prime shipping wasn't a big deal, I didn't need it then, but it didn't bode well for the free-trial, and bothered me that they promised on date when I checked out and couldn't keep that promise. (granted, I never intended to buy Prime anyway- but it didn't look good for the service)

Re:peer-to-peer package delivery

[martinfb]

What's to stop the delivery person from snatching back a pkg after delivery; using that pic as "proof"?

How is Amazon hurting the USPS? Seems to me that more pkgs is more revenue for the USPS.
"Delivery boy" is the USPS's job, is it not?

Cost of Audit?

[EnOne]

What will be the total bill in both the auditors time and the postal workers time?

If there is anything found will it be less than the total cost of the audit?

Re:Jealous

[jellomizer]

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.

Re:Will they

[Opportunist]

Put it in the Amazon cloud.

Re:USPS is screwing USPS

[Opportunist]

Well, as long as you're not receiving anything, I can see how you think FedEx, UPS or (especially) DHL are superior to the postal service...

Sure about that?

[tomhath]

There's two sides to every story. Costs to the taxpayer aren't always in the form of direct payments.

Re:Sure about that?

[skids]

That's a pretty frickin thin "second side" to the story. Downright ridiculous, actually.

Re:Sure about that?

[tomhath]

You can't counter the facts so you deny them, very convincing argument.

Re:Sure about that?

[ImdatS]

You are right, the USPS seems to receive subsidies (according to that article).

BUT: these subsidies are given regardless of whether it makes a profit or not. The difference between what the POTUS says and reality is that he says that the LOSSES of the USPS are paid for by the tax-payers. This is not the case. The (indirect) subsidies mentioned in the article are given to the USPS regardless of which customer they server, whether they make a profit or loss.

In exchange, the USPS is obligated to deliver mail to every household in the USA. That's the deal we had here in Good Ol' Europe. We privatized the postal services - and it still works.

But coming back to the main topic: the POTUS seems to belive something and because he *believes* in it, it becomes true for him.

I had a boss about 20 years ago and he had the same problem. When he believed something, it was actually TRUE for him. Even a lie-detector could not detect anything. Because he *believed it to be true*, so he was "telling the truth".

I don't know what this illness is called, but there is a medical term for it.

Re:Sure about that?

[Anonymous Coward]

That's a pretty flimsy "other side" to this story:

"Laws that bar any other shipping service from delivering mail and packages directly to residential and business mailboxes." = $14 billion

First, that isn't money given by taxpayers. Second, I get letters via other carriers several times a year (most commonly from credit card companys). The catch with that law is that it's literally about the MAILBOX, not the act of delivery. The mailbox next to your door or driveway is for the USPS only, and nobody is supposed to put anything else in there. But other carriers can deliver letters to your door, or to other non-mailbox receptacles on your property. It's just that, for letters, other carriers are nowhere near as cheap as the USPS, so most people use the USPS for delivering those.

"Tax breaks" = $2 billion

Yeah, well every business gets tax breaks. Every individual gets tax breaks. The USPS essentially operates as a non-profit. Other non-profit organizations are exempt from many of these taxes too. Many for-profit businesses get deal with state and local governements to exempt them from taxes. Pretty flimsy to say this is the taxpayer giving them money

"Cheap borrowing" = $0.5 billion

And yet, they are still borrowing that at a rate that is HIGHER than what for-profit banks borrow at.

Finally, this last claim is just amazing.

Finally, Shapiro points out that the USPS pays its workers salaries and benefits far above the rates paid to similar workers in the private sector. Labor accounted for 78% of the organization’s costs in 2014, “with about 89% of those costs involving employees represented by collective bargaining.” These higher labor costs, plus the absence of a need to innovate due to government-granted monopolies, has freed the USPS from $20 billion in labor and productivity costs per year, Shapiro estimates.

So wait...that taxpayers have to bear the cost of USPS paying higher than average wages to their union empoyees? That's just golden.

Re:Sure about that?

[nedlohs]

80% of those "costs to the taxpayer" are the monopoly on mailbox delivery. Which actually costs the government $0 - it costs society via reduced competition, but the topic is cost to the government

Re:Sure about that?

[tomhath]

The article doesn't say they can't toss a package on your lawn, it says they can't put anything in your mailbox. And what about the other subsidies it points out? (tax breaks, etc)

Re:Sure about that?

[bugs2squash]

I suspect mailboxes would be unusable if the USPS lost the monopoly. Filled with crap within hours.

Re:Sure about that?

[skids]

He's right. I didn't deny them. I laughed at them. Heartily. Because they are absurd on their face.

Re:Sure about that?

[Enigma2175]

The bulk of the money that Shapiro claims is subsidizing the post office is that item ($14 billion of $18 billion total) so it seems to be the logical item to discuss. I don't see how barring other companies from delivering to US mailboxes is a subsidy, having that law takes no money from the treasury and I question the value Shapiro claims it provides - that number is based on a ton of assumptions about a hypothetical competitor which does not currently exist and the study that Shapiro was basing his research on said it was worth $2.9-$3.9 billion annually, not $14 billion.

The other items are more concrete and they do rise to the level of a subsidy, but the USPS also has a large number of responsibilities that private companies don't have like rural delivery requirements, Saturday delivery and the oft-mentioned pension requirements which offsets the benefits. Congress mandated those requirements and they also passed the laws providing the subsides. If Trump is looking to change the way the USPS operates he is barking up the wrong tree, he needs to be talking to Congress not the USPS. But for him it's not about finding ways for them to be more efficient, it's about trying to retaliate against Amazon. Personally, I hope Amazon just drops the USPS contract altogether but I don't think that they are prepared to do that yet.

Re:Sure about that?

[Megol]

Not in general no. One can acknowledge something as generally true while find the argument using that something as absurd, either as it doesn't apply to a situation or as having little to no impact in the situation.

This isn't too uncommon when arguing against anti-AGW* people that like to point out a problem and making that problem out to be critical in the AGW argument. Or even simpler (but in the same context) the argument that Al Gore have a private plane and he use it contributing to the global warming, that's true and it's a downright ridiculous argument against AGW.

(* some are reasonable of course but they aren't as loud as the ignorant mass)

Re: Do the reasons actually matter?

[Anonymous Coward]

The problem is they were forced to prefund all pensions for 75 years. It kind of takes a while to do that, since they have to get approval to adjust prices, etc.

But I'm sure Mr Bankrupt will fix them.

"Fix."

Don't they pay postage?

[kilfarsnar]

"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."

I'm confused. Doesn't Amazon pay for the postage on the packages it ships? I would assume they do. If so, how are they not paying these costs? And isn't the purpose of the Post Office to be a "delivery boy"? What's going on here?

Re:Don't they pay postage?

[Kierthos]

They (Amazon) do pay. Trump is (or was) apparently under the impression that selecting "Free Shipping" for your purchases from Amazon meant that the Post Office didn't get any money for delivering that package.

Re:Don't they pay postage?

[guruevi]

Yes, but they're paying a LOT less than what regular folks pay. The postal office rates for the rest of us are set up not to make a huge profit but also not to make a huge loss, Amazon and others have been able to 'negotiate' lower rates than that with the only chip that Amazon and co has to put up is: well, if you don't take our packages, you have to lay off 10-20% of your workforce - now take the packages and lend some money from the government to pay for it ($15B in the last decade according to their own accounting office).

Re:Don't they pay postage?

[Kierthos]

I worked for FedEx Office for a number of years. So, in addition to running copies and such, I also had to process packages that customers dropped off at our store.

Guess what? FedEx offers deep discounts too, depending on how much you ship. There was a guy who came in once or twice a week just during my shifts who was sending multiple packages each time. And his discount was something like 20%.

Hell, as an employee, I could get a 75% discount on anything I shipped via FedEx.

My point is, the Post Office is hardly the only organization that offers discounts to people or companies that use their services a lot. And FedEx still made money off them.

Re:Don't they pay postage?

[ledow]

Erm...

If you're giving large companies that use your service a discount on your service that means you can't profit from them... YOU'RE the idiot. Not them. Raise the prices.

Fact is, though, that it's just not true. At best, they can't compete with others offering the same service for a lower price. Again - YOU'RE the idiot, if you're unable to compete, USPS.

If the only alternative is layoffs (which is bollocks, but let's roll with it)? Guess what... you're already on the knife-edge. If the alternative is no USPS because it turns down custom or a USPS that's losing some money because it's too stupid to just set a price at which it at least breaks even, which is the best political option there?

Fact is, it's nothing to do with layoffs, though. Those will inevitably follow whether they have no money coming in or they're making a loss. That's just a difference in timing, not outcome.

Price your services to break even at minimum. If your competitors can then do the same job for less? There's probably a reason you're not going to be in business for long.

Re:Don't they pay postage?

[anegg]

I used to work for a large company that had offices all over the United States, and a contract with Federal Express for overnight package delivery. The discount was so good that it was cheaper for me to ship my Christmas gifts back to my family by Federal Express "Next Day" service (through my company) than it was to send them via UPS or the USPS via ground shipping. Deep discounts for a guaranteed high volume of business are not unusual, and are not by themselves an indication of an unfair/money-losing deal. [This was before the existence of Amazon/Internet retailers in general]

Re:Don't they pay postage?

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, what he's doing is relying on UPS's fake analysis that they have been peddling to try to trick congress into forcing the USPS to increase their rates so that they can charge more too. But, as with everything President Buttercup, its just a convenient pretext for his butthurt. In this case its over factual press coverage of his actions. Remember, this is the guy who brags that he likes to "hit back 10x harder."

Re:Don't they pay postage?

[gtall]

That made my whole day, thanks!!

Re:Don't they pay postage?

[guruevi]

The difference is that FedEx is a for-profit company, they make a markup on every package sent, so they can give some discounts but their margins are already razor-thin.

The postal office is a government-ran organization, they by definition do not make a profit and have an unlimited fund, they get some money from customers but they also get money in the form of subsidies, federal funds, more than a billion dollars in "loans" and exemptions on all sorts of things regular companies have to pay for. Their regular prices are set simply so they won't, across the entity, make a loss, hence it only costs 50 cent to mail a letter across the country.

If FedEx were $60B in debt and having more than 1B in operational losses, they would be insolvent and declare bankruptcy. The USPS can't declare bankruptcy, the government simply keeps funding them.

Re:Don't they pay postage?

[guruevi]

Not the way politics work. If you say you're going to lay off 200 government workers, your senator intervenes and gets the workers funded regardless of whether they do a job. If Amazon promises their senator a $20k donation and tells them they'll keep 200 people working, they'll get a discount because USPS is a government organization and doesn't independently set its prices according to the market.

Re:Don't they pay postage?

[Rick Schumann]

Donald Trump is not a very intelligent man, not at all. He's got an average IQ at best. He (attempts to) make up for that by talking louder and being an accomplished bully, throwing his considerable weight around. People are modding you as 'funny', but the fact of the matter may well be that Trump really does think that somehow Amazon is not paying the USPS for shipping, instead of the reality: they're absorbing the cost themselves as an incentive to their customer base, which in the long run nets them more profit overall. Obviously it's an effective business strategy because look how successful they are. Also as several others have pointed out, Bezos owns the Washington Post, which truthfully criticizes Trump regularly, and we all know quite well that Trump throws a tantrum when anyone criticizes him.

Re:Don't they pay postage?

[GerryGilmore]

Dude, THAT was funny as hell! Well done!

Re:Don't they pay postage?

[wv5k]

Where do you people get this stuff? The government does NOT keep on funding them. In times of net red ink, they borrow from the Treasury like any other corporation would borrow from a bank, and it then repays those loans. There hasn't been a dime of taxpayer funds involved in operating the USPS for decades...

Re:Don't they pay postage?

[guruevi]

you forgot the sarcasm tags. In case you are serious: who funds the treasury, who approves loans from it and where can I pick some of that free money up?

Re:Don't they pay postage?

[wv5k]

USPS has the ability to borrow and then of course repay (at normal rates of interest) from the Treasury. It is an actual corporation, and is treated as such. The only real advantage over dealing with a private bank is it cannot be refused a loan IIRC. Also it's not easy to borrow, as all such issues have to be formally approved by the board of governors. A really slow, idiotic form of supervising a conglomeration of the size it is...

Re:Do the reasons actually matter?

[rgmoore]

I rather suspect that he has access to really good base information on the subject

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.

can't blame Amazon for everything

[kiviQr]

either you blame them for destroying brick and mortar stores or for destroing USPS - it can't be both. It it is both USPS in modern e-commerce model is doing something really inefficient.

Re:can't blame Amazon for everything

[Locke2005]

Amazon is building out their own network of brick and mortar stores, proving the brick and mortar chains are having problems because they failed to adapt to modern technology. Amazon is looking at buying up Toys R Us stores. Toys R Us failed because they were ridiculously over-leveraged with $5 billion in debt, not because Amazon took away all their business. Apparently the Toys R Us geniuses failed to anticipate the possibility that their debt service costs would exceed their profits.

Re:can't blame Amazon for everything

[avandesande]

It uses loss shipping (ie taxpayer dollars) to drive brick and mortar stores into the ground. Why is this exclusive?

Re:can't blame Amazon for everything

[gtall]

No, the Toys R Us geniuses did anticipate that, they simply figured their business had a sunset provision and were perfectly fine with it.

Re:Jealous

[Oswald McWeany]

Someone is mighty jealous of Bezos net worth.

Unlike Trump, Bezos is a real billionaire. Trump actually has a net negative net worth, but he considers the "Trump" brand as an asset worth billions. 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.

Re:Do the reasons actually matter?

[Oswald McWeany]

I rather suspect that he has access to really good base information on the subject

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.

But rather than ever admit he's wrong he will make up false facts and spend the remaining two and a half years of his presidency bashing Amazon.

anyone care to wager?

[Doctor Device]

what do we think the odds are that the audit will come back saying "the USPS has a massive pension they are required to fund, fixed infrastructure and payroll costs, and declining revenue due to the prevalence of digital technology supplanting many of their services." versus coming back "Jeff Bezos is actually a secret Chinese agent working for the deep state to import Mexican rapists and their families into the country illegally to spread fake news."?

Re:Do the reasons actually matter?

[Anonymous Coward]

He might accidentally find an actual problem, and in his awkward, inept way come up with a plan for a solution that (over a couple of years) solves the problem.

Yeah, he'll hire John Ratzenberger who played the postman on Cheers to turn it around. Or some Fox News commentator to do it.

Trump's business knowledge is greatly overstated.

Re:Do the reasons actually matter?

[Anonymous Coward]

I rather suspect that he has access to really good base information on the subject, while we are all relegated to commenting on news articles (that have to make money by with selling shock and outrage).

Do you honestly believe this move was motivated by anything other than him seeing a news article (let's be honest - news segment - he doesn't read his news) that sold him shock and outrage? Yes, maybe he'll stumble on a solution to a problem we weren't aware we had. But that's really not the kind of president I'd prefer to have in charge of my country.

Universal Postal Union

[technosaurus]

There is a good article on it at https://psmag.com/economics/th... Its part of the reason why it is cheaper for consumers to buy directly from overseas than from a local shop ... especially items under 2kg.

Re:Universal Postal Union

[ColdWetDog]

Most interesting.

"There are more things in heaven and earth, Donald
Than are dreamt of in your philosophy."

What?

[bigdavex]

In other news, Amazon is using Starbucks as their coffee boy, Seattle City Light as their electricity bitch, and various product manufacturers as their production slaves.

Art of the Deal?

[ripvlan]

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.

Re:Art of the Deal?

[Anonymous Coward]

It is a gov't service. So it runs rain or shine.

which is why amazon, and other retailers, and even ups and fedex, uses the post office... letter carriers go by nearly every address, every single day, anyway, whether their trucks are empty or full.

amazon gets lower rates because they label and size packages for automated sorting and because they tell the post office ahead of 'mailing' where packages are going from and to. any business with the volume of amazon could get the same rates if they did the same thing. the fucking rates are published and non-discriminatory aside from technical and volume restrictions and requirements. amazon isn't paying some secret super-low rate, amazon can offer 'free shipping' because of retail markup and because of the sheer scale of amazon prime (many, many more people do not use their shipping benefit than do).

Re:Art of the Deal?

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, this is definitely one of the problems; the USPS is required to provide a level of service in markets that aren't profitable and has to meet the whims of congressional oversight; the pension issue is one FedEx and UPS don't have to deal with (or indeed any other private and public entity for that matter!). Neither UPS or FedEx deliver to me; if I get a package from them, I need to drive half an hour to the nearest distribution center. It's sure a lot easier to make a profit with a delivery service if you don't actually have to deliver but still charge the fees!

Re:Art of the Deal?

[Locke2005]

The USPS has one big advantage over every other delivery service: legally, they are the only people that can put anything in anybody's mail box. They also have another advantage that all their real estate infrastructure was paid off years ago, so their capital costs are lower than any newer delivery service. Their big disadvantage is huge debt for an overly generous retirement plan, but then GM has the same problem.

Re:Art of the Deal?

[PPH]

Actually not strange at all. When negotiating a position, one makes an assertion about what a 'fair' price should be. Even if in the end, one has to split the difference with the counter party. And sometimes, such negotiations start off as an adversarial elationship. That's Trump's style. Trump is now negotiating on behalf of the postal service. He made an assertion about the equity of the current pricing structure. Its up to Amazon* to make a counter offer.

*Actually, practically every organization using the USPS need to speak up. Because this isn't about renegotiating Amazon's price. It will affect every large distributor.

Re:Art of the Deal?

[Rick Schumann]

It's because Jeff Bezos is richer and more successful overall than Trump knows he is, and he can't handle that fact. So he lashes out like a spoiled 5-year-old and throws temper tantrums. Not very 'Presidential' behaviour, wouldn't you agree?

Re:Art of the Deal?

[fatwilbur]

A good deal is in the eye of the beholder, and in many cases only applies to one side. You can change positions based on who's interest your representing. Have you ever started a new job in a different department at the same company, and found yourself defending things you used to argue against?

Re:Art of the Deal?

[ripvlan]

usually it's easier than that. He probably doesn't like the reporting by the Washington Post. And while Amazon and the Post aren't directly related - he figured hurting Amazon will hurt Bezos will hurt the Washington Post.

OR

maybe even easier than that. He saw the balance sheet for the Postal Service and thought "nobody is paying enough for the services.... raise Rates !!"

        "Oh and I hate the Washington post which is owned by Bezos who is in charge of Amazon so I'll pick on them" (see item 1)

Re:Do the reasons actually matter?

[squiggleslash]

I rather suspect that he has access to really good base information on the subject, while we are all relegated to commenting on news articles (that have to make money by with selling shock and outrage).

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.

Re:Do the reasons actually matter?

[Anonymous Coward]

Trump doesn't act on accurate information, he acts on whatever information supports his views. Bezos has pissed off Trump, mostly because he runs WaPo. Trump wants to find ammo that supports anything that will hurt Bezos. That is to say, he's witch-hunting Amazon, claiming it's bad for the US taxpayer, because it supports his feelings.

He might have more information than the rest of us but so what? He only pays attention to that part of it that supports his feelings. 'The USPS is in financial trouble' - well that's true, but that's due to its pension plan, not the profitable parcel post delivery Amazon uses. Trump's perfectly willing to ignore that part though, because it doesn't support his goals.

Re:Do the reasons actually matter?

[rhazz]

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.

Please explain this to an outsider

[Anonymous Coward]

How is generating more work and jobs for the postal service is a bad thing. Can't they just raise the price if there is more demand?

Re: Please explain this to an outsider

[Anonymous Coward]

Not to Amazon nope. And not just Amazon, lots of international companies including China post! They have to subsidise by having to offer set prices regardless of actual delivery costs. Same happens in the UK with international deliveries, post office has to subsidise to ensure the public get cheap pricing

Re: Please explain this to an outsider

[PPH]

This is pretty much how all national postal services work. They calculate a uniform price list for delivery based on package size and/or weight. And then charge that uniformly for all deliveries, no matter what the actual effort expended is. It's not so much cheap pricing (although UK mail is subsidized across the board) as it is uniform pricing.

The USPS is actually subsidizing delivery to rural locations. They'd be much more profitable (or lose less) if they didn't have to haul mail and packages out to locations in the boondocks.

Re: Please explain this to an outsider

[Anonymous Coward]

Yep but in the UK the post office / Royal Mail only have to subsidise foreign postal services, not private companies.

I can send parcels under 2.5kg from our design office in Shenzhen using China post for the equivalent of £1.85 / $2.65. Thats over 6000 miles of travel, over 300 miles between it landing in the UK and getting to us.

To send exactly the same parcel in the UK using the post office to send the parcel a total of 18 miles to our R&D office costs £14.75 / $21

I had never thought about this as being a problem till now though clearly itâ(TM)s a massive loss for tax payers, even if its indirect

Re:Do the reasons actually matter?

[OneAhead]

POTUS ... good ... information ... *snicker* ... ability with finance ... BRUHAHAHAAA

*snort* Say, my good man, would you by any chance be interested in the bridge on this here picture? I can make you a really good price...

Re:Do the reasons actually matter?

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

I rather suspect that he has access to really good base information on the subject, while we are all relegated to commenting on news articles (that have to make money by with selling shock and outrage).

Also, he has at least some familiarity and ability with finance, unlike many other politicians.

In any event, lets assume he's bumbling into a subject which we've identified as a problem for many years. He might accidentally find an actual problem, and in his awkward, inept way come up with a plan for a solution that (over a couple of years) solves the problem.

Or he might decide there's really no problem there, and the matter will fade from public memory.

In any case, it's probably good that someone is looking into the problem in the first place.

I get what you’re saying, basically the glass is half full, maybe “looking at” the USPS will be a good thing.

However, conservatives v. USPS is recent history. They want to privatize it, they want to make the USPS look bad, so they can shut it down with public support. This is not media hype, this it’s actually what many Republicans are pushing for. Trump mixing signals and making Amazon sound like the bad guy - while going after the USPS - is Trump being Trump.

This same born-yesterday approach applied to foreign policy could have us saying “Let’s give the little round guy a chance, he has a girls name, maybe he got picked on a lot.”

Do the audit!

[Locke2005]

When the results come out, it will prove Trump is a dotard that has no idea what he is talking about. And the anti-Trump media will be certain to publicize that. I expect the report will come out right before the 2018 election.

Re:Do the audit!

[bugs2squash]

It's hard to believe that the USPS is not audited from time to time anyway. I thought in particular that the Amazon and Netflix deals had been scrutinized in the past.

Re:Do the audit!

[Locke2005]

What Trump doesn't understand is that Amazon does all long-haul shipping itself, presorts all items, and delivers them on a palette to a local Post Office. All the Post Office has to do is sort the items off the palette into mail trucks and do local delivery. Amazon also tells the Post Office in advance about every package they are delivering to them (and pays a $1.50 fee for every one they miss.) That's why Amazon gets a lower rate than having a single package shipped anywhere in the US! (And yes, I worked in a Amazon sorting center during Christmas rush last year.)

Re:Do the audit!

[Locke2005]

Doesn't have Spany McBoneSpur's picture, but the first two examples of the use of the word "dotard" are quotes from people talking about Trump. In other words, Trump IS a textbook dotard!

Re:Trump gets his news from National Enquirer

[Locke2005]

I believe tracking Trump's untruths is the modern definition of a herculean task.

Crybaby Trump throwing yet another fit

[Rick Schumann]

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!?

Re:Crybaby Trump throwing yet another fit

[Rick Schumann]

{Citation needed}

Re:Crybaby Trump throwing yet another fit

[antdude]

Voted for fun since all candidates suck. :P

Re:Crybaby Trump throwing yet another fit

[antdude]

Also, votes wouldn't matter due to the lame electoral system.

No! Fuck-wad it isn't

[gerald.edward.butler]

That would be for abortion

You are fucking idiot. Saying something is someone's choice is not being "FOR" something. You are a fucking worthless piece of shit. The only ABORTION I'm for is aborting your dumb worthless piece-of-shit ass off the face of the earth. You are a fucking worthless, shit-bag, piece of garbage. May you and all your progeny die of horrible rotting cancer you fucking shit-faced prick!

Re:No! Fuck-wad it isn't

[JackieBrown]

Republicans are not against people being paid livable wages but the person I responded to first thinks that since no law is in effect forcing companies to do this, they are against livable wages.

Yet for abortion, you seem to think being against laws stopping it doesn't make you for abortion

Re:Jealous

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Re:What about your local religious institute?

[Anonymous Coward]

I agree. Except for the "cheap", "public", and "service" components.

Re:Do the reasons actually matter?

[supremebob]

Now, now... We all know that the CNBC commentators are the true business experts. He'll bring them in to manage the USPS instead.

Trump is a bankruptcy king - why does he care?

[Anonymous Coward]

Trump is only distracting the american people with more meaningless drivel.

Why does anyone even listen to him about fiscal responsibility or profit? He is a pro at bankrupting businesses. He certainly won't be trying to find anyone who is good at the analysis either. Everyone with talent is running as far away from him as possible.

USPS is a key foundation to small businesses in the US.

Trump could focus on not breaking the US economy, or maybe hiring people for his cabinet that aren't corrupt, or maybe just resigning and letting a big boy run the country.

Draining the swamp

[sinij]

I am glad Mr. Trump is fulfilling his election promise to drain the swamp by going after Amazon. The national nightmare of independent media critically covering the office of The President of the United State is soon to be over. Washington Post and Bezos will soon regret foolishly exercising the freedom of speech and freedom of the press.

Re:Do the reasons actually matter?

[iMadeGhostzilla]

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

Isn't that attitude how he won the election?

Re:Good Idea

[kenh]

It gets very expensive until fully-funded, then it is just incremental payments. It's an idea, there are worse ideas, but don't for a second pretend it is a common thing, or that anyone else in the world does it.

Re:Jealous

[gtall]

Yeah, good CEOs are a dime a dozen, why any failed real estate developer could be one.

Re:Do the reasons actually matter?

[gtall]

"I rather suspect that he has access to really good base information on the subject" What? Like some yokel on FOX News?

USPS still delivers Amazon?

[DewDude]

I've been getting all my stuff delivered by Amazon Logistics. I also use same-day or next day because I'm an impatient bastard.

Re:Do the reasons actually matter?

[ColdWetDog]

Yep, a broken watch tells the time twice a day (in the old analog world). But Washington is FULL of blur ribboned panels that have investigated both real and hallucinatory problems and even come up with ideas to fix them. Hasn't really moved the dial much (so to speak).

Oliver piece was pro-choice, not pro-abortion

[Anonymous Coward]

I've known of plenty of people who are most definitely "for abortion." There are plenty of examples out there, but a recent one that comes to mind is John Oliver's segment on Last Week Tonight

WTF? I watched that and am familiar with it, so your lie isn't going undetected.

That segment was purely about pro-choice. Women who couldn't afford kids and had already decided that they wanted abortions, went looking for them and were defrauded by dishonest organizations who tricked them.

If you're "pro-choice," you need to accept that there are multiple options available. You can't say "I want you to choose as long as you choose what I want you to."

See, this is how we know that you're lying and that you know that you're lying. The segment did not include women who wanted to have the kids and then got talked out of it. And if you paid attention, you would have realized that there wasn't even anyone to do that -- there'd be like zero or one Planned Parenthoods in some area, and a dozen fake places that misrepresented what they do. The women who wanted to have kids were totally free to do that, and nobody has produced evidence that someone tried to defraud them into getting abortions. And especially, that segment on the show did not include that. We know that for sure (you're definitely lying) because you can watch it and see.

You're a liar. You either 1) didn't watch it, or 2) you did watch it and got angered that your fraudulent organizations that exists purely for the purpose of deceiving people, are getting found out and will soon be made illegal, so you're lying to try to buy the criminal-minded shits a little more time.

BTW, I normally don't think of pro-life people as criminal-minded shits. The way that most people decide the difference between that's-a-person-with-rights vs that's-not-a-person is pretty arbitrary, and few people on either side are really able to provide a robust explanation for how they categorize these little specs of goo. Not all pro-life people are scumbags; I think many of them mean well. But the people whose bullshit Jon Oliver caught: they're dishonest scumbags. You shouldn't be lying to protect them .. unless you're one of them. And if you are, go fuck yourself. You're going to give all pro-life people a bad name. I bet the not-criminally-minded ones don't appreciate that.

He seems to hate Amazon

[plopez]

This seems like a poor excuse
https://www.cnet.com/news/dona...

Re:Do the reasons actually matter?

[jeff4747]

Also, he has at least some familiarity and ability with finance, unlike many other politicians.

Trump went bankrupt running a casino.

Twice.

I don't believe there actually is any evidence he has any familiarity with finance.

Nobody is trying to eliminate USPS

[walterbyrd]

A lot of posters here seems to be very confused about that.

The existence of the USPS is not under attack. Just certain practices that may need to be modified.

Re:Nobody is trying to eliminate USPS

[GerryGilmore]

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.

President Wiggum!

[sootman]

Every time I see that line, "I am right about Amazon costing the United States Post Office massive amounts of money for being their Delivery Boy" I am reminded of Chief Wiggum saying, "we can't be, er, (makes air quotes) "policing" the whole city."

http://chiefwiggumfiles.tumblr...

Government pays for lots of USPS benefits

[Anonymous Coward]

https://about.usps.com/careers/working-usps/benefits.htm

The Postal Service participates in the Federal Employees Health Benefits (FEHB) Program, which provides excellent coverage and flexibility with MOST of the cost paid by the Postal Service.

The Postal Service participates in the federal retirement program, which provides a defined benefit (pension), as well as disability coverage.

As a result of all this, the USPS has about a $100 billion unfunded pension liability - backstopped completely by the US taxpayer.

Now go ahead and tell me the USPS isn't costing the taxpayer a dime.

Re:Government pays for lots of USPS benefits

[tj2]

...based on a Congressional requirement to fund their pension *75 YEARS* into the future. They are being forced to fund a pension fund for people that won't even be born for years to come, solely to make it look like they are in trouble to people who don't bother to look at *why* they appear to have a problem funding the pension.

Re:Government pays for lots of USPS benefits

[Anonymous Coward]

Furthermore, the $100 billion unfunded liability is on top of the $400 billion reserve they already have saved to pay out all of their current employees pensions. They have cash on hand available to pay for pensions for 60 years. And those 60 years assume worst case scenarios for pensions (that pensioners live a long time, that the rate of new pensions they have to pay keeps increasing, etc). So, since they don't have the extra 15 years they are *required by congressional law* to have, they are "in the red". Even though they have more than enough money on hand to pay all expenses 60 years into the future.

Now, will you please show me a national corporation with enough cash on hand to pay all expenses for 60 years and explain to me why you consider them "in the red" because they don't have enough cash on hand for 75 years of expenses?

Milliones To Audit

[JimSadler]

To audit USPS will cost a large fortune. It is wasted tax dollars and the public should be offended. How about taking the millions that that audit will cost and assigning it to wounded soldiers instead of wasting it on a senseless, political red herring.

China is the cause of USPS woes

[Going_Digital]

Chinese sellers are sending packets into the US for less than it costs to deliver them. The USPS is subsidizing China.

China pays next to nothing for US postal service

[rlh100]

I buy a lot of small "maker" electronics from china. Many items that cost a buck or so with free shipping to the US. I dont see how the Chinese postal service is paying fair rates to the post office considering the price of a 1oz letter is $0.50 and for a 1oz package is $3.50. The USPS is definitely loosing money on each package delivery from China.

I am part of the trade imbalance with China. I buy things from China for typically 20%-40% of the US price. Typically with free shipping. Delivery takes longer. Typically 2-3 weeks. But if I am not in a hurry, the wait is worth the savings.

Re:Do the reasons actually matter?

[modmans2ndcoming]

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.

Re:Jealous

[meglon]

Trumps a whiny little narcissistic piece of shit with the emotional stability of a two year old with crap filled diapers... a perfect representative for the anti-American fascist GOP.

Re:Do the reasons actually matter?

[meglon]

His only familiarity with finance is how to con people out of their money. His only skill is to con idiots into believing he's smart, well, and filing bankruptcy papers... he's damn good at that.

The problem with the USPS... republican congress shitheads who don't know a fucking thing about business.

Re:legal monopoly

[desdinova 216]

I would think it's more likely that, as others have mentioned that Trump has a grudge against Bezos because of Bezos owning the Washington Post.

this is slashdot, I thought details mattered here!

[Thud457]

I'm quite sure "POTUS" does have access to more accurate and detailed data on USPS than the average slashdot reader.
But Donald Trump, wouldn't trouble to avail himself of such facts.

This is strictly DJT acting out because Jeff Bezos is an actual billionaire who happens to own the Washington Post, which refuses to stroke DJT's tiny fragile ego.

Re:Do the reasons actually matter?

[Rick Schumann]

Friend, this is all about Donald Trumps' fragile ego and, I suspect, his barely average IQ. He can't handle the fact that Jeff Bezos not only owns the Washington Post, which rightly criticizes Trump practically every day (and we all know Trump throws temper-tantrums whenever someone disagrees with him, questions him, or criticizes him), but also that Bezos is richer and a more successful businessman than Trump ever was or ever will be.

Re:this is slashdot, I thought details mattered he

[OneAhead]

I'm quite sure "POTUS" does have access to more accurate and detailed data on USPS than the average slashdot reader. But Donald Trump, wouldn't trouble to avail himself of such facts.

True. Both nuances were already pointed out by other people, and implied. This being the internet, I guess I should have been more explicit about that.

Re:Do the reasons actually matter?

[iMadeGhostzilla]

So a long chain of improbable events, that more or less never happened in history, is more likely to have taken place than one man having a correct intuition about the moods and needs of the electorate, which has happened quite a few times in history.

Not to mention that he was not alone as millions were going along with it, and that it was more or less predicted by some early on, such as George Friedman of Geopolitical Futures in his September 2015 article, "The crisis of the well-crafted candidate." Yes he was talking about Hillary and Jeb. You may want to read it.

Re:Do the reasons actually matter?

[autoprt]

good comments. it's like no one can see Trump for what he is including my mom and he has her support hook line and sinker which is amazing in itself. between fox news and sarah (tokyo rose) sanders lately i just stay away from news days at a time and just focus on my personal life. at first it was humorous all the crazy stuff going on. now i'm just ready to turn the page but unfortunately pence scares me more than trump.

Re:Translation

[mmdurrant]

Trump is the only person who believes this, despite having received copious information to the contrary.

It's bizarre to me that so many seemingly intelligent people don't see through the man's transparent personality. EGO drives all of his decisions. He's a living example of everything that people mock about "doing science wrong", starting at his preconceived notions and working backwards to identify data points that confirm his position.

That you would call accurate, reasoned assessments of the man "potshots" is interesting. The guy is a dangerous clown who has cultivated an image of success despite all evidence to the contrary.

If we evaluated his actions in a vacuum - knowing not that he was President Donald Trump, a man who has spent his entire life crafting an image - but just someone who had suffered the string of business failures that he has and found themselves in the most powerful position on earth. We would be rightly terrified. This person clearly has done nothing in their life that would warrant putting them in such an important position. Yet... here we are.

Call me deranged all you like. The man is a delusional, walking, talking catastrophe of a human being.

Well, Amazon did get started that way...

[sacrabos]

In their beginning, Amazon would intentionally order out-of-print books along with the one book they wanted, in order to get free shipping on their orders from publishers. So, doing something to intentionally take advantage of USPS isn't out of the question, IMHO.

Re:China pays next to nothing for US postal servic

[BobSteinVisiBone]

Crazy but true. The blame goes, not to Amazon, nor the USPS, nor China. The United Nations UPU (United Postal Union) treats China like an undeveloped bit player

Under current rules, those charges
(called terminal dues) are set ludicrously
low for certain countries, among them
China. (Under UPU rules, for example,
China, the world’s second-largest
economy, gets the same break on
terminal dues as do Gabon and
Botswana.) This means that the USPS
actually charges China Post less to
deliver a package from China into the
U.S. than it charges a U.S. business or
customer to deliver a similar size
package within the 48 states. The post
office is losing money on every package
it delivers from China — costs it has to
pass on to its own American customers,
not to mention U.S. taxpayers.

(Arthur Herman, National Review)

Article in Forbes last fall. "As U.S. Postage Rates Continue To Rise, The USPS Gives The Chinese A 'Free Ride'" - https://www.forbes.com/sites/w...

Article in Washington Post almost four years ago, "The Postal Service is losing
millions a year to help you buy cheap stuff from China" - https://www.washingtonpost.com...