Crushing Postal Workers Will Not Solve USPS Financial Woes: Postal workers won't go quietly

[Better Believe It]

So is President Obama supporting the postal workers or USPS corporate management? For some reason he failed to mention this battle against union busting in his "pro-labor" speech today. BBI


http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_vMcm5Rta2-s/Sow09A1S0OI/AAAAAAAAAC8/KmkTwjSw-U8/s200/Portland+Press+Herald+logo.png

Postal workers won't go quietly
Unions react furiously to a proposal to lay off 120,000 employees by breaking labor contracts.
By Meredith Goad
August 14, 2011

National and local unions reacted furiously Friday to a proposal by the Postal Service to lay off the workers by breaking labor contracts and shifting workers out of federal employee health and retirement plans into cheaper alternatives.

John Riley, former president of the American Postal Workers Union in Portland, called the proposal "the fight to end all fights."

"This is part of a right wing push to manufacture 'crises' that are not real to destroy unions and the middle class," Riley wrote in a mass email he sent Friday to postal employees in Maine. "Unfortunately, it is being enabled by weak Democrats and a President who barely seems to be aware there is a labor movement and working class."

Tim Doughty, president of the APWU Portland area Local 458, called the effort to dissolve the latest postal contract signed in May "astonishing" and an action that "reaches well beyond the labor movement."

Read the full article at:

http://www.pressherald.com/news/postal-workers-wont-go-quietly_2011-08-14.html


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APWU: Crushing Workers Will Not Solve Postal Service’s Financial Woes
By James Parks
August 12, 2011

Crushing postal workers and slashing service will not solve the U.S. Postal Service’s financial crisis, Postal Workers (APWU) President Cliff Guffey said in response to the announcement today that the Postal Service will seek congressional support to cut 120,000 jobs, break its labor contract signed earlier this year and withdraw from the federal health and retirement plans.

The USPS economic crisis is the result of a provision of the Postal Accountability and Enhancement Act of 2006 that requires the Postal Service to pre-fund the health care benefits of future retirees — a burden no other government agency or private company bears.

The legislation requires the USPS to fund a 75-year liability over a 10-year period, and that requirement costs the USPS more than $5.5 billion per year.

Guffey also pointed out that “the federal government is holding billions of dollars in postal overpayments to its pension accounts.”

Read the full article at:

http://blog.aflcio.org/2011/08/12/apwu-crushing-workers-will-not-solve-postal-services-financial-woes/

[senseandsensibility]

1. Solidarity with the postal workers.

My government postal carrier is great, and I think he deserves a living wage.

[Dont_Bogart_the_Pretzel]

2. Excuse me... but we ALL deserve a living wage.

Just saying.

[Claudia Jones]

42. right

Just as an injury to one is an injury to all, so too protecting workers anywhere helps workers everywhere. Fanning the flames of envy, on the other hand, supports the agenda of the opposition.

[demosincebirth]

3. Partly our own fault. Many of us vocally support union labor and yet

ship packages by non-union Fed Ex instead of USPS or UPS which are union.

[elleng]

8. Not 'our' fault at all; its the killer legislation.

[demosincebirth]

9. Sure.

[akvo]

12. If you really believe that then stop using digital media

If you really believe that then stop using email, text messaging, video conferencing, skype, your smart phone, don't use a kindle or electronic books, stop reading the NY Times online.

Do everything through the mail.

Progress means some things become obsolete. You can live in the modern computer age, or live in the past.

[nadinbrzezinski]

15. Alas it has little to do with that

and the postal service also SHIPS PACKAGES...

[akvo]

19. It has everything to do with it

Packages is not the problem. From the USPS itself:

“Electronic diversion of First-Class Mail continues to be the primary cause of our revenue shortfall,” reports Chief Financial Officer and Executive Vice President Joe Corbett in his latest “Dollars and ¢hange” quarterly video review of USPS finances.

The volume of mail handled by the USPS is way down. USPS doesn't have enough customers (letters mailed) to pay its bills. If you send more letters, then there is more revenue to the USPS, and then it can pay its bills.

And the same with packages. Don't read electronic magazines and books, trash the kindle, get all your reading material shipped to you.

But USPS isn't very smart when it comes to packages. I use the USPS flat rate boxes all the time. I just shipped a large flat rate package, its $14.20 flat rate, but when I asked them to weigh it and compute the price as a non-flat rate, it was $68. Something isn't working right in the USPS. Either I am getting a great steal with the flat rate, or the USPS is waaaay overpriced at $68.

[demosincebirth]

32. If there was a unionized Digital Media service I would use it. I use USPS as

often as I can...that's all I can do. How about you?

[Obamanaut]

34. Until we went "paperless" on everything financial that we do at our house, we

rec'd several bills each month via USPS, and sent checks via USPS to pay those bills. There were only a few, but multiply that by millions who have also gone paperless, and it's a chunk of money they are no longer getting.

Now about the only things that get put in our mailbox are Netflix movies, and advertisements.

edited to add: Just to be clear, I agree with what you typed. I don't think I'd want to go back to snail mail and checks.

[jimbo3]

4. The overpayments are massive,

and should rightfully be returned to the USPS. But no legislation has been passed yet to return this overpayment, although congress and the President have known about this since Jan. of 2010. Shameful!

http://www.apwu.org/news/burrus/2010/update03-2010-100120.htm

[cyglet]

5. Good to know

...at least the unions are calling them on this. Thanks APWU and NALC.

[Kat45]

6. Why are they asking Congress for permission to cut jobs, when they should be

asking to be relieved of having to pre-fund the pension accounts? That's certainly what I THOUGHT they were planning to do.

[nadinbrzezinski]

16. That be MANAGEMENT

[Starry Messenger]

7. k&r

[akvo]

10. USPS "Corporate" management? The govt runs the USPS.

Raise the price of stamps.

There is no "corporate" boogy-man or right wing conspiracy behind the USPS finances. Its strictly numbers - the USPS is spending more than it takes in. The problem with USPS is that it was designed for a day when there was nothing but snail mail. The volume of mail is way down and with good reason.

People are using email and texting and messaging, smart phones and computers allow video conferencing over the internet - why would I use snail mail when I can have real time communication?

I can see and talk to my son in Afghanistan right now and see he is safe. He can hold up his phone camera and show me his buddies and how they are living, what he is eating, even show me what kind of socks they need.

Much of the function of the USPS has been overtaken by electronic media. Its like the horse at the start of the automobile age, there will always be some demand and need for the horse but its day is over.

[nadinbrzezinski]

17. To raise the price of your stamp

or even junk mail, the US CONGRESS has to aprove this. It's been requested and denied more than once.

This is by design.

[akvo]

20. I know Congress has to approve a raise....

but this USPS problem didn't start yesterday (or with the Nov 2010 election). Its been ongoing for years. The price of stamps could have been raised in 2009 with no objection from the reps, a simple line in any bill that went through congress and the price of a stampp goes up.

But that does not solve the problem. People are not sending letters anymore, its the loss of first class mail that is the problem. Raising the price of a stamp doesn't encourage people to mail letters. Snail mail cannot compete with electronic media, and the USPS is in the business of snail mail. The USPS is a dinosaur in the age of mammals.

[nadinbrzezinski]

27. Bad analogy... dinos are actually more successful than mammals

sure T-Rex is gone... but birds are all over... yes, they are dinosaurs.

And no, you really do not get this how much this ambush was done by design... and how much the GOP and the RIGHT has been trying to destroy the USPS... this is part of a long range plan... and it is working. I see the propaganda is also working.

For the record the USPS also SHIPS... they do it well, they do it efficiently... and that is who I use these days.

[akvo]

29. But dinosaurs evolved into birds

and its time the USPS evolve to meet the new environment.

Read my post #18. Packages and shipping are not the problem, its the massive decline in letters.

If this is by design by the GOP, then explain it to me. It must have been put in place 20 years ago because these USPS problems have been around a long time. And what is the goal of the plan? The Constitution requires the nation run a post office.

And for the record, my company ships thousands of packages a year weighing anywhere from a couple of pounds to almost 1,000 lbs. We stopped using USPS 2 years ago because USPS was too slow, too hard to deal with, and lost packages (including items that were tracked, insured, signature and return receipt). Now we use UPS, FedEx, and a couple of other companies - they are fast, easy to deal with, they have not lost a package, and have delivered only 2 items late (1 day late in each case), a far superior record than USPS.

[nadinbrzezinski]

30. Yes, it has been part of a LONG RANGE EFFORT

yes over twenty years, Read CATO on this,

[hay rick]

58. Fred Smith, Fed Ex CEO, on Cato board.

Smith also fraternity brother of GWB and fellow skull and bones member.

FedEx also largest postal subcontractor.

[akvo]

68. I looked up CATO on this

They argue for privatization and I can understand privatization of some USPS functions. FedEx and UPS (and others) have demonstrated that the private companies can handle large parts of mail delivery without any govt funding. Some functions will never be profitable (such as mail delivery to remote rural areas) will have to be subsidized by the govt. Whether UPS etc. is subsidized to deliver mail to these areas or some reduced version of the USPS handles these areas, I don't really care or see much difference. Frankly, I think if the private carriers handled these areas then the govt would monitor them closely unlike the USPS.

But whether there is a longe range conspiracy or not, the fundamental problem is unchanged. The USPS is in trouble because it cannot compete with electronic media. Email etc has replaced first class mail (letters). I doubt 20 years ago anybody predicted that would happen.

[Better Believe It]

22. USPS should not be viewed as a profit making venture and should not be. It's a public service.

If it's a totally run government operation, as you say, should other public services like our schools and libraries also be run to make a "profit"?

[akvo]

26. And its required by the Constitution

but thats not the issue. As I've written in other posts, the USPS is setup as if it were the only mail delivery organization, and it is built around paper snail mail. The USPS is needed, but in the digital age its role has to be adjusted. The USPS is geared to life in the 1970's, not life in the 21st century. We don't need (or even use) daily paper mail pickup and delivery to every single mailbox in the USA.

[summerintx]

65. There's something everyone overlooks

Never mentioned is what happens to journalism when the postal service is no longer there to deliver the magazines and weekly newspapers. Already struggling independent news may well not survive. The for-profit mail companies do not deliver everywhere; it's not cost-effective for them. Journalists have to support themselves and their families so if their magazines and newspapers go under, the decimation of the fourth estate will be nearly complete. Corporate media is too beholden to government handouts and policies to be anything more than toothless watchdogs.

If we cannot get timely, accurate information we will not be able to keep our freedom.

The USPS and a free press have a long history together. For the first several decades, postal subsidies ensured delivery of many different newspapers far and wide. Franklin, Jefferson, and Madison knew that a free press had to have policies that encouraged and made possible their ability to thrive. Votes in favor of postal subsidy of news was nigh unanimous. The only question seemed to be if newspapers and magazines would be fully or partially subsidized. George Washington and others thought they should be fully subsidized.

[Claudia Jones]

43. correct

The right wingers constantly talk about government agencies as though they were businesses and should be judged as such. That is part of a long term strategy to privatize everything by first getting people to think of government in business terms. It is pathetic to see so many Democrats advancing that idea here. What good dos to do for people to vote Democratic, and bully and badger other people about that, when they spend all of the rest of their time promoting and repeating right wing ideas?

[hay rick]

60. Postal revenues cover operating costs.

From 2006 to 2010, revenue from operations covered operating costs. From 2006 to the present, the Postal Service has shed almost 20% of its employees, going from 700,000 employees in 2006 to 574,000 and falling in 2011.

The deficit incurred during this time period is entirely attributable to mandated contributions to the PSRHBF (Postal Service Retiree Health Benefit Fund). Nobody else pre-funds retiree health benefits. The mandate is sabotage, pure and simple. Article here: http://www.nalc.org/PostalFacts/pdf/TP.BranchP.0711.pdf

[summerintx]

64. Congress and the Postal Board of Governors control USPS

The USPS is a quasi-private entity at this point, but since it was placed in the Constitution as a vital public service originally Congress has hamstrung its independence. So they can't raise the price of stamps without the Board of Governors approving it, even when costs escalated with the price of gasoline last year. They can't change to a 5-day delivery without Congressional approval or do lay-offs.

[Bluebear]

11. Just an oversight. He will put on comfortable shoes any day now

[Hosnon]

13. Perhaps someone can educate me here, because I see this as vastly different from America, Inc.

I support labor without question in the private sector because I see the owners siphoning the wealth of the company at the expense of the workers (unless forced to do otherwise).

Is the same thing going on here? Is there wealth within the USPS that exists but is being withheld from the workers? Or is the business model in need of revision (a business model which definitely does NOT require profit to be successful)?

My presumption is to support labor, but I do see a distinction here.

[nadinbrzezinski]

14. IN 2006 the postal service was REQUIRED to prefund

the retirement fund for the next ten years. This was for present and FUTURE retirees. It has been funded but congress will not let them touch any of this. If they did... guess what? They would be in the black.

This is as simple of an explanation as can be.

[Hosnon]

21. So the problem is an accounting problem, with an easy fix?

Well then I expect Boehner will get right on it (and then complain that the USPS, as a government entity, doesn't function properly).

[nadinbrzezinski]

28. Issa was one of the men behind that bill

and of course now as Chariman is doing exactly that... you can't touch this since it is "taxpayer money."

It is funded well beyond where it needs to be...

[Occulus]

49. They're using it as a path to privatization. n/t

[Claudia Jones]

44. public agencies are not businesses

There is no "business model" that is appropriate to apply to public agencies.

[Hosnon]

53. The USPS is more of a business than most government agencies.

E.g., It has revenues and expenses. The primary difference is that it need to turn a profit.

[Claudia Jones]

54. all organizations

All organizations have revenue and expenses.

[Hosnon]

55. "E.g."

But to that point, not to the extent that the USPS does. Most government agencies are funded primarily by tax revenues from the general fund.

[Claudia Jones]

59. regardless of funding

Regardless of how a public agency is funded, the purpose is to serve the public. Businesses serve private interests.

[devils chaplain]

18. As a USPS employee...

I'd like to say thanks to those who've expressed kind words towards the Postal Service and that I'm glad you've had good experiences. There are bad apples among us who can make for bad customer service experiences, but having seen it all from the inside I'd take us over UPS or Fed-Ex any day. And to those who think we're overpaid: the private sector UPS and Fed-Ex workers make more money than we do. It's true. Our problems stem from the fact that we can't set our own prices and that we are forced to do a gargantuan amount of unprofitable endeavours that UPS or Fed-Ex would never, ever do: flat-rate mail to rural Alaska, operating post offices in the middle of nowhere, etc.

[akvo]

23. You are absolutely correct

but the day has come to restructure the size and role of the USPS. Times have changed, the USPS is not the only or even the primary mail carrier for the nation. Credit card bills, mortgage payments, utility bills, bank statements, almost everything is being handled electronically these days. If its important or time critical, its generally emailed.

Daily USPS paper mail delivery to every mailbox in the nation is no longer needed. The USPS is an organization setup to meet a need that no longer exists. Some functions will have to be retained (maybe mail delivery twice a week), but an organization capable of daily home pickup and delivery and handling millions of paper letters a day is not needed any longer.

[Better Believe It]

31. If home delivery isn't needed any longer why do I get mail almost everyday?

And it's not all junk mail. It's personal mail from people who don't use computers and/or e-mail, mail from people who want to send local newspaper clippings, family photos and other items, presents that are always welcomed, bills that are not welcomed and yes advertising .... some of which is actually useful!

I take it you don't have or need a mailbox for incoming or outgoing mail.

[former9thward]

36. You may like your daily mail, junk or otherwise.

They could include me out, happily. I have not gotten a piece of needed or useful mail in at least a couple years. Most people are in my boat. We don't need or want the daily mail.

[Better Believe It]

37. "Most people are in my boat. We don't need or want the daily mail."

Well that's why you haven't gotten any useful mail .... you live in a boat!

:)

Well, it must be nice not getting any mail with pictures, presents and other stuff from friends, magazines or even bills in the mail.

So your friends just text you or send e-mails? Not even a handwritten note?

And you don't even get any bills in the mail?

I and my spouse look forward to out mail everyday.

We get nice mail.

We get actual handwritten letters since friends and relatives are literate and do know how to write.

Has writing letters also gone the way of poney express?

Perhaps among some younger folks who learned how to use their thumbs to text.

U no what I mean?

[former9thward]

38. I do no what u mean.

Seriously I have 2 stamps pinned to my bulletin board and they have been there for at least a year. My friends refuse to even take phone calls -- everything has to be text crap. My parents will still take my calls because they think computers are a passing fad.

[Occulus]

48. Most people with money, anyway

I know several people who can't get internet access, my Mom being one. I know others my own age, and younger, who can't afford it.

You'd cut them off, yes?

[former9thward]

52. No one is being "cut off"

First, almost every library (and maybe every library) in the country has internet access which is available to patrons. Second cutting down delivery to three days is not cutting anyone off. They will still get their bills, etc. on time. Bills aren't sent out the day before they are due.

At some point we got rid of drinking troughs for horses even though there were a few people still using horses while most had switched to cars. Time moves on. We can't keep every out of date method of inter-reacting with one another until the last person in the country using it dies off.

[Occulus]

63. You are FULL of assumptions.

In the first place, plenty of small towns in rural areas- likely many of the same places that don't have internet access- don't have libraries, the ones that do aren't funded properly, and those that are have a limited number of stations.

"Bills aren't sent out the day before they are due."

No. But that doesn't matter one good God Damn if it takes a week or more to get to you, does it?

Do you ever consider future ramifications, former9thward? Do you ever give a single moment's thought to the people that don't live up to your idealistic, simplistic, childlike notions of how the real world works?

[former9thward]

66. Luddites have existed at every point in the history of technology.

Your posts reaffirm that.

[Occulus]

51. You are so, SO wrong

I work in a postal distribution center.

The truth is 100% opposite every last one of the assertions you make in that post.

You are 100, exactly wrong.

[demosincebirth]

33. I know some who work for FedEx. They do not make more than Postal workers. Thanks to

your union, you have decent wages, benefits and pension.

[spanone]

24. ...and there are a half a million of them.

[dipsydoodle]

25. For what it worth

over the past 9 years or so I have an absurd amount of stuff shipped by USPS from the US to the UK - at least 100 banjos and guitars, numerous Reyn Spooner shirts and more pairs of sneakers than I can count and I've never had any problems whatsoever,

They are every bit as reliable as our own Royal Mail over here and the USPS website is great for tracking too.

[Liberal_in_LA]

35. yep. I still use USPS a lot

[me b zola]

39. K&R for my Dad

His USPS job provided us with a solid life. We didn't have as much as some of the kids I went to school with, but we had more than enough. Every summer we were able to take a vacation in the rv and see so much of this country. I am so very grateful for the life that I was able to have because of unions.

Sometimes the anger gives way to sadness. Just WTF.

[defendandprotect]

40. Agree -- purposeful RW destruction of government services -- from education to PO. ...

Here's more --

http://abcnews.go.com/Business/postal-office-nears-default-close-year/story?id=14449522

U.S. Postal Service could close this winter
... problems, may soon close ... in the next couple of months. Without it, over 574,000 Americans who work for the U.S. Postal Service will ... of this year, the postal service had ...
www.digitaljournal.com/article/311183 - Cached

Postal Service may close entirely this winter ...
Postal Service may close entirely this winter as billion dollar losses mount ... disastrous, the agency would eventually run out of money early next year and ...
www.dailymail.co.uk/.../U-S-Postal-Service-close-entirely...
More results from dailymail.co.uk »

[on point]

41. First thing to do - Raise rates on advertising trash to equal first class

Hopefully this will eliminate some of the garbage problem in the US that is just wasting resources and feeding recycle bins / and or land fills.

[badtoworse]

45. I agree

80 - 90 percent of the mail we receive is junk mail. Terrible waste of resources

[They_Live]

46. You can do somehting about that...

it takes a little persistence, but I've managed to cut most of my junk mail (credit card offers, weekly coupon circulars) down to almost nothing.

[L0oniX]

47. I would have no problem paying a dollar for a stamp.

[mother earth]

50. Solidarity with all the labor unions. Class warfare is being waged.

[WinkyDink]

56. His observation about Obama is right on, and it stems directly from Obama's upbringing:

"....a President who barely seems to be aware there is a labor movement and working class."

Barack Obama grew up in Indonesia and in Hawaii. He never had the "American Black" Civil Rights experience. He never had a laborer's experience.

I do not doubt the President's intelligence; I wonder about his empathy.

[StarsInHerHair]

57. I have the solution-take the needed funds from the Pentagon, they cant sau how big

their "black" budget is, so they can't really quantify how it would make even a dent in their activity

Postal Accountability and Enhancement Act of 2006 <-----GUT THIS, it was passed to create this very mess.

[spin]

61. Does that mean that my mail service will be less reliable than it is today? (n/t)

[Ilsa]

62. We need to spread the word at every chance why this is happening.

The news media isn't explaining what the problem is: the 2006 act to pre-fund all the healthcare.

[adigal]

67. I had a big fight with a woman postal worker one day - about benefits

I said something against Bush, and she said something like, "I work hard for my benefits, let those without figure it out themselves." I went off on her, about others working hard, but not having the security she has. One can only hope that she sees the error of her ways now.

[PATRICK]

69. First, What value IS the Postal Service?

The only fully nationwide physical delivery network, Because- and not despite of- the huge variety of electronic options and media outlets there is no other single way to communicate with each American citizen or even targeted locations and groups. Is putting paper into a mailbox outmoded? just like paper voting ballots, but it is the only sure way to deliver advertising or anything else you need to be able to put into any American's hand. Things have shifted and multiplied over the years but this is one dinosaur still standing and delivering. The fault for NOT having a trustworthy and single electronic delivery system to every citizen at a non-profit bargain? Private enterprise and its Congressional stooges. The reason the USPS is under assault from the top and under mismanagement(hired by the same kindly Congressional and Presidential appointments we are still saddled with)? The same.

Without government interference(LOL now that the First class monopoly is not such a profitable business to loot) the network could underprice and outdeliver any other comparable service, although it would take some expansion to takeover the UPS package delivery system. Instead the big rivals come whining anytime the USPS infringes on their private enterprise even though no tax dollars are spent. Because Congress would never let us be a business in the first place, the nation's benefit be damned. Suddenly then we are are a service? Can't admit that ever because we would be too big to fail and embarassingly cheap to bail out creating real economy boosting jobs.

Firing workers so that automated machinery can be served and services cut to consumers and the network destroyed does what for the service or the economy? Is there anything even left to sell to the bulk mailer middlemen in bed with the political maggots appointed by the government? AT&T had a future in telecommunications awaiting. There is little left that is profitable in the USPS once the network is gutted to "force" the final betrayal. But there are worms who will squeeze something out of ad mail sweat shop centers and force you to fund and keep your boxes open enough to buy some more pols who are eagerly looking for ways to destroy America at this point.

Whatever madfloridian has tried to do to educate you about the hostile takeover of public services and infrastructure either has had an effect or it hasn't. The simple truths are buried under the corporate Pravda blather of many years. The survival of your service depends largely upon the unions and in the nation they had clout because they existed as a force in every locale of the US. They had learned to lobby for the cutting loose of the USPS from the government pinch-penny dole, the corruption and inefficiency, because, bluntly they could never get a meager raise without Congressional approval until the fateful strike. Ah yes, when the sanctimonious bastards of yesterday in the House denied hundreds of thousands of underpaid workers and then voted THEMSELVES a raise. I guess that kind of indignation is passe nowadays- and still illegal.

The union knows the future and the reality, but currently the Federal violation of an independent contract(worked out with a management that knew then exactly what it knows today) does nothing but grind America as a whole further into the dirt.

Lost good jobs and for good. Minimal wage disposables in the wreckage of a nearly non-profit service to enrich the pockets of a few(bulk mailers, future owners of a USPS privatization breakup), a blow to the labor movement, a loss of tax revenue and consumer income, a curtailing of bargain service, in particular to businesses suffering now. So if someone wants to send a message to voters, to consumers, to charity givers, to anyone for any important reason what sure way is there to reach the most people? A text message via multiple phone services? A line on Yahoo? An ad on FOX TV or a some radio stations or stations? Newspapers with their readerships declining so much most businesses wonder if the price of an ad is worth it? How about smoke signals?

The bargain public service was instituted by Franklin to unify the nation, strengthen communication, information, dissemination of newspapers and was given a "monopoly" so that the profitable easy portions of such enterprises would not deprive the rest of the citizens. Before social security was on a futurist's quilled parchment there was this idea that a stamp could reach to the farthest frontiers of America or across the street. The concept seems strange only to the resentful in search of a quick buck. As with so many raped domains in the public commons you will lose everything to enrich a few. You might as well reverse history, burn the Declaration, shred the Constitution, and play "The World turned Rightside up again" at Yorktown while Washington surrenders to Cornwallis.

For all the interference and costly spending on truly outdated automation job killers and mail shredders, for all the job-killing, service reducing consolidation of postal centers so that mail can be lugged around all over the place in costly transportation delays, the price of a stamp is less than a newspaper and gallon of milk(!), to which it had been traditionally compared if not indexed.

And yes, despite the outright enmity of the GOP we have been strangely safer under GOP presidents. All the Board of Governors are Clinton or Bush appointees, the Bush in the majority with power to appoint the Postmaster and Assistant Postmaster. The Postal Rates Commission is another that determines whether our "business" is allowed to raise the price by a penny. Despite all these chains and delays the system works and is stand alone a good for our country.

Only, unlike the illegal strike back under Nixon, the special mailings of bank business and accounts is not in the USPS. Back then the nation and world could grind to a halt as hapless national Guardsmen and supervisors tried to move the mountain of mail in which the lifeblood of the economy was buried. Yet hurting the service by the pols themselves imperils the economy today in the several ways I mentioned to absolutely no benefit to the federal budget and more than some big hurt.

And because there is no truth, no tax money, no positive effect on the economy to be discussed we have the usual lies, alarm and silence dished out by the very usual suspects in these dramas. Maybe we can train the TFA people for fifteen minutes to slog through neighborhoods at newsboy wages to take letter carrier's places. Maybe we can rely on the Internet to announce to the entire nation we are being had and should revolt. Maybe political challengers can find enough volunteers to somehow attach brochures on every single door the USPS reached every day.

And I would like to see tomb-stoned every DU plant who rushes with an implicit sneer to trash and victimize the next worker in line for blood sacrifice because they "deserve" it. The attitude about all the handy services and Chinese built gadgets that the bubbled economy temporarily still provides at high cost is not a progressive future to brag about. Nor the %^&**%$#% electronic vote stealing gimmicks versus pencil, paper and citizen oversight.

Despite ALL this.

When even in my own family I have discussed this(as you can imagine) at some length, when the breathless headline comes out as if this is actual recent news- only minus truth and details- it is spun back and of course I groan and re-explain. You can't believe in the treachery of corporate news and keep reading them. They get to you every time one way or another with their insistent poison. Ss it was thirty years ago that the USPS is in trouble, outdated(TIME magazine said that thirty years ago- wha' happened? It got better as union jobs got better and businesses flocked to its service as they still do despite a slump). Panic children, the USPS must shut down!!! Time to cut jobs throw ashes on your heads and live with it. Same old goddamned lies. Same liars in fact and the same American people who need to talk to their local postman mainly if they ever want to find a fact. Sadly, some of those postmen too have succumbed to the Big Con over the long years, such is the power of the blowhards' blowhorn against that simple dependable box parked in front of your home and the union worker who delivers.

[Better Believe It]

70. Thanks for your thoughtful and informative post.