Chunty - the reason USPS "loses" money is because of bullshit accounting procedures they have to follow according to laws passed by the scumbags in Congress.
If you make a budget for a year, do you count all the health insurance premiums that you are going to have to spend for the next 20 years? No? Why? Because it's a YEARLY budget.
But the USPS has to account for all of the health care coverage for all of its employees, for all of the years they think those employees will live. So coverage for a 20 year old they just hired will be the next 55 years if they think he'll live to 75. Instead of accounting for the money to cover that employee's health benefits year by year (the way real companies do), they need to pre-fund all of those years, whether or not he works one year or 25. The douchebags in Congress who want to destroy the USPS came up with this plan so they can always point to it and say "look - it's just not working, it's always losing money." They want to replace it with private companies (more likely a private monopoly) that will charge you way more to have your mail delivered and then pay their employees dick-shit.
If they didn't have this pre-funding requirement, they would be showing yearly profits.
I realize they don't cover this on Fuck's News, but there are other sources of information out there.
Hey Alex, according to you, Portland should have designed a sewage system that could cope with at least an inch and half MORE rain than the city has EVER recorded in one month. What would that have cost? Double the Big Pipe? Triple? As if our current sewer bills weren't big enough. I'm very glad to hear that you earn so much writing ill-informed columns for the Mercury that it doesn't matter.
Whoever wrote this article should move out of Portland. We have a fantastic city full of color and charm. Haters like that are the thing we don't need in this place. Keep it friendly and fun. Haters gonna hate! Btw... The Didgeridoo band downtown is super cool and that dorky brew pub bike thingy would probably be a hoot. Happy 2016!
Can we not invite back Merc writers who don't even live in Oregon? It is annoying enough when most aren't even from the Northwest. That is how far my standards have fallen, just live in Oregon!
Sounds like you've been huffing the Tea Party bullshit a little much. Does the Merc need a fact checker for stupid fluff pieces like this? Guess so.
http://www.thenation.com/article/post-offi…
If you make a budget for a year, do you count all the health insurance premiums that you are going to have to spend for the next 20 years? No? Why? Because it's a YEARLY budget.
But the USPS has to account for all of the health care coverage for all of its employees, for all of the years they think those employees will live. So coverage for a 20 year old they just hired will be the next 55 years if they think he'll live to 75. Instead of accounting for the money to cover that employee's health benefits year by year (the way real companies do), they need to pre-fund all of those years, whether or not he works one year or 25. The douchebags in Congress who want to destroy the USPS came up with this plan so they can always point to it and say "look - it's just not working, it's always losing money." They want to replace it with private companies (more likely a private monopoly) that will charge you way more to have your mail delivered and then pay their employees dick-shit.
If they didn't have this pre-funding requirement, they would be showing yearly profits.
I realize they don't cover this on Fuck's News, but there are other sources of information out there.
Maybe one thing to add would be the shitty school system that stays shitty no matter how much money gets thrown at it.
Phone bullshit as always