Comments | herbie: Postal Service (not the band)

herbie

Postal Service (not the band)

Jan 15, 2009 05:25

So apparently. The USPS is looking for a bailout loan and is looking at cost cutting measures such as cutting Saturday deliveries. For some reason this bothered me, though I'm not sure why. However, I had an idea from the "go big or go home" school of thought, with a little Works Progress Administration thrown in ( Read more... )

Comments 4

ww2planes1 January 16 2009, 02:42:57 UTC

(in the interest of complete disclosure, my dad works for the Postal Service)

For the record, part of the reason why the USPS is losing money (apart from the obscenely high gas prices and greatly reduced volume- do you pay your bills online? yeah, so do a lot of other people) is that the Federal Government is requiring the Postal Service to pre-pay retirement benefits for postal workers. The net result is that the government is basically fleecing the postal service to the tune of several billion dollars. It's worth noting that none of the government agencies are being forced to do this.

herbie January 16 2009, 10:28:03 UTC

Pre-pay to who? That's weird (especially considerinf it looks like that prepayment turned a $2.5 billion profit into a $2.5 billion dollar loss...)

ww2planes1 January 16 2009, 22:52:51 UTC

Pre-pay into a government fund? I'm not sure exactly. But yes, in essence I think that is at least partly to blame for the postal service's loss.

ww2planes1 January 17 2009, 00:37:44 UTC

OK, just clarified with Dad ( ... )