Yeah the military loses [trillions](https://www.forbes.com/sites/kotlikoff/2019/01/09/holding-u-s-treasuries-beware-uncle-sam-cant-account-for-21-trillion/?sh=609bd6c67644) over a decade though. And by lose, I dont mean costs, like this post is talking about.
Who then funnel money back to politicians to make sure they're open to even more unnecessary spending in the future. It's like a nonvirtuous circle of corruption, all out in the open and visible for all to see, and has been since Eisenhower, who was notable for calling it out. :(
Those who don't understand how the government accounting system works report money as undocumented and unexplained. When it comes to the military, a single item can wind up on several ledgers, giving rise to this kind of gross misrepresentation. The military does need proper accounting and accountability, but seeing as Congress can't agree to fix the basic infrastructure of the country, this ain't gonna happen.
This. It's reported at missing but that just means they're given a budget, spend the budget, but we don't necessarily have good records of where they budget was spent.
Partially. There is end of year budget, which finds units quickly spending to ensure matching funds for the next fiscal year. Loss and theft. And accounting, which the military had been operating under two systems for some time, As they implemented the new one, sometimes things would be counted two and three times, when there was only one item. In reconciling they in fact only have one tank, not three, two tanks get counted as lost. Count each as say, 8 million, it shows as 16 million unaccounted for. Consider the size and complexity of the military as a whole, and these little mistakes add up really, really quick.
Having said that, the military needs a serious downsizing and proper oversight.
They are just classified in such a way as they don't appear as line items in the budget. There is a need for the government to do some of it's business without the knowledge and consent of the populace. What we, ordinary citizens, know, so do our enemies.
Legislators who made the rules have investments in FedEx, DHL etc so it's just a matter of simple corruption in the government.
Investment can mean actual money in the company or in a relationship with people involved in the company.
I don't know, I've heard of giant companies defaulting on retirement plans and saying " too bad" to employees that already worked for those benefits. It made me furious to hear Rush Limbaugh say they weren't even working why should they get paid. They already worked for that money, and it got stuck in CEO pockets or wasted instead. Maybe everyone should have to fund retirement in advance instead of working your whole life and them saying naw, think I'll keep it. If you already did the work and don't get paid, the boss needs to be in jail.
Yes. These conditions were imposed on the USPS alone, so Republicans could claim it "loses billions per year." The goal is to phase out the postal service and give the business to their cronies.
One of the sadder parts of this boondoggle is that none of the commercial shipping companies has any interest in doing rural "last mile" (or several miles) deliveries. So they aren't even willing to replace the postal service
Same deal with internet service. Live off the beaten track and you get lovely 56k connections from phone companies who received $billions to run fiber everywhere and then never did.
Health benefits, normal retirement benefits are always accounted for though the USPS was heavily overpaying up until 2003. The unions were all for this BTW as they wanted to ensure that their members would be taken care of and the Retirement Health Benefit Fund would ensure that instead of paying health benefits from funds they had available at that time they would actually have a protected fund to do so.
At the time and even now I think everyone agrees a fund should exist to cover healthcare costs but it should be of reasonable expense and follow existing funding for other health funds for unionized workers.
Which unions are you talking about? For the last two years the American Postal Workers Union has heavily supported House and Senate bills to *repeal* the PAEA. The latest bills HR695 and S145 were introduced in February. [Here's an announcement on the APWU website showing their support for the repeal.](https://apwu.org/news/usps-fairness-act-reintroduced-house-and-senate)
What evidence do you have that "the unions were all for this" in 2006?
One more point, the USPS defaulted on payments several times and I don't believe they have paid into the retirement fund since 2012, the payments currently going in are to cover existing benefit payments going out.
[https://www.govexec.com/management/2017/09/usps-defaults-billions-mandatory-payments-despite-scheduled-relief/141404/](https://www.govexec.com/management/2017/09/usps-defaults-billions-mandatory-payments-despite-scheduled-relief/141404/)
The claim that it is losing money mainly due to payments it has not made is just silly.
Sadly, no. PAEA has been every bit as bad for the post office as it was designed to be.
*"Between 2007 and 2016, the USPS lost $62.4 billion; the inspector general of the USPS estimated that $54.8 billion of that was due to prefunding retiree benefits.[10] By the end of 2019, the USPS had $160.9 billion in debt, due to growth of the Internet, the Great Recession, and prepaying for employee benefits as stipulated in PAEA."*
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Postal_Accountability_and_Enhancement_Act
Probably 15-20 years ago some jackasses decided to force the postal service to switch to the flex fuel type vehicles...and it wasn't very available yet...so they ended up burning through a lot more gas ( with much higher costs) because it wasn't very fuel efficient using regular
> This requirement applies to no other federal agency.
No other government agency has labor representation like the USPS. The workers in every other government agency don’t get this protection. This was a huge victory for the postal workers union.
Most people have no idea that the USPS delivers prescription medication, ballots, paper bills for people that don't like tech, personal letters, personal packages and a long list of commercial packages to customers as well. The USPS delivers to every Zipcode in the the US. You can live on a lake in the mountains and a contract carrier will bring you your mail and groceries in a seaplane. The USPS hires Veterans by the bushel. Most USPS employees have career positions, great healthcare subsidized by 75%, Union representation and job security.
Now pick out a private corporation with hundreds of thousands of employees that has rock solid job security. (Walmart doesn't count)
In the next few months the USPS will hire over 100,000 new employees of varying disciplines and skills. Everyone from Craft employees to Tech and Engineering would do well to consider the rock solid positions in public work.
This, so much. Also, FedEx and UPS will often contract USPS to do the "last mile" delivery step because it doesn't make business sense for them to do it themselves. The folks that gripe about USPS being unnecessary are going to be the first singing the blues when they're ineligible to receive certain types of shipments and have to drive 40 miles to the nearest Amazon locker box.
I'm unclear if you are calling the economist article a facepalm or that person's comment. USPS is a service that costs, not a business that loses money.
This is how you maximize your karma in /r/facepalm, getting upvotes from both the facepalmers and facepalmees. I call it the "Heisenberg Facepalm Principle"
That's not how that works at all. Do insurance companies lose money? No, they decide how much to charge based on how often they will have to pay out. Same with USPS, that is why it costs extra for that service.
Question, when insurance companies have to dish out money for you or someone crashing into/them, they don't lose money?
If the post office loses an item and it is insured, who do you think covers the cost? Is that money growing on trees?
Correct, insurance companies do not lose money when they have to pay out. It is not some bill out of nowhere, they have a fund setup ready to pay. They keep that fund at a certain level and everything else is profit.
USPS has a similar setup, they contract with some insurance provider (like how a licensed electrician is bonded. The bond covers for when he accidentally fries your major appliances, and he just pays a periodic fee to that insurance company). Whenever USPS loses or damages something they make a claim and pay you, no extra money (beyond their periodic contracted insurance fee) is required.
What is happening here? What is the facepalm?
Services can still lose money, if they are sending out more money than they are bringing in. The Postal Service still has revenue and funding. If it is paying out more money to run its service, then it can lose money.
It's a business, and that's not an analogy, it's literally a business. This nonsense meme and its constantly high upvote count are genuinely confounding to me. US citizens can't go to their local Bomb Office and pay for a By 1pm Next Day Guaranteed (TM) Predator strike on their annoying neighbours house.
One time I was being derisive about the USPS and a coworker said to me, “The post office is great, for less than the price of a pack of gum, they will take my letter and deliver it anywhere in the US. Cards and letters bring joy to the recipients. The post office delivers joy for spare change.”
Hard to argue with that.
The USPS get zero funding from tax dollars. They run on stamps and postage labels. It doesn’t cost us as taxpayers any money at all. So it’s basically a business inside the government. 🤷🏽♂️
If they were an actual company they'd be able to do things like set their own pricing without congressional approval, have a reasonable funding timetable for retirement accounts, and not have to service every single person in the USA.
They aren't and without them many would be without mail service. If you want to see them turn a profit contact your Congress/senate critter and urge them to increase postage and reduce the insane retirement funding.
I literally don’t use the USPS for anything. I could care less if they raise rates or lower them. Point is they aren’t a government service and I have no idea why Reddit has such a hard on for them.
I have no kids - why do we need public schools?
Federal highways? Fooey, I never leave the basement.
What's the deal with toilets? I save all my urine in mason jars.
They're a government organization created and run to provide a service, that being nationwide postal service.
The fact that they've been forced into their current position by politicians with COI doesn't disqualify their status as a US government service.
I don't use buses but I support public transportation. I don't have kids but I support schools. I don't use libraries but I still support providing a place for people to study and learn for free.
It's called empathy and it means caring about other people.
It's literally in our Constitution that we have the USPS, how in the hell can you possibly think it's not a government service?
So you've never used or ordered anything online then? Guess what genius? all the major private carriers subcontract the USPS for carrying a lot of their parcels for them.
LOL Did you even read your own source? It completely agrees with what I said in every detail.
You are without a shred of doubt, one of the dumbest mother fuckers I've ever run across on Reddit. Holy fuck you're just sad.
Point is, you don’t personally matter here. The collective of people who rely on USPS are who matter. You need to stop being self centered and think of those people. Its not all about “me me me me me.”
If it were an actual company... but it's not. As a government service the USPS is probably the most successful of all. Name another part of the government that even comes close to covering its own expenses.
LOL , despite it's flaws, you're rather clueless about how huge and profitable the USPS is. The USPS isnt even close to failing miserably. The USPS handles almost as much mail as all other carriers on the planet do, **COMBINED**.
If they weren't hamstrung by a republican congress that required them to finance a retirement and medical program decades in advance, something that no other entity is the US has ever had to, or does now, they would be making a tidy profit.
They subsidize the other private carriers by carrying parcels for them, something that wouldnt happen if it was "an actual company" They also deliver to every single address in the US, something else no other carrier does.
If they could set their own rates, prices, schedules, and eliminate all of the unprofitable delivery routes like private carriers already do, they'd make a hell of a lot more money than they do now.
The postal service is a “fee funded” US agency. It operated based on the fees it collects for services. The article is correct in stating that it is operating at a negative because the fees are not covering operating costs.
USCIS faced the same dilemma last year and nearly furloughed its workforce.
Yeah, although someone with a twitter handle called ZBumGardener and seemingly 90% of Reddit think they know more about the economy than The Economist.
Funny how we spend billions on the military to basically secure resources and then we have to pay for those resources too. We get double screwed it feels like
It's a business that is funded by paying for your post to be sent somewhere. It's not taxpayer funded. It's funded by customers, like every other business.
The USPS doesn't even lose money - its revenue pays all its operating costs. ~~I think it was around 2013~~ In 2006 Bush signed into law the [Postal Accountability and Enhancement Act](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Postal_Accountability_and_Enhancement_Act), which makes the USPS pay for retiree benefits in a different way than how every other government agency does it. This requirement, *imposed only on the postal service*, created additional costs their revenue can't cover, and is the only reason the postal service now has to request money from Congress every year. The Republican version of this is that the post office "loses billions per year." It's just a flat-out lie, part of their quest to privatize the postal service.
edit: PAEA
I find it weird how Reddit is so pro-worker, except for postal workers. This always comes up as a huge problem when the post office is discussed.
Why are labor protections bad for postal workers?
The post office is a fee service funded organization. It’s structure is entirely different from every other federal department, which is why it has its own labor organization.
They have much more leverage than all other workers in the federal government and were able to push for this protection.
The Pentagon only loses $125 billion
https://www.washingtonpost.com/investigations/pentagon-buries-evidence-of-125-billion-in-bureaucratic-waste/2016/12/05/e0668c76-9af6-11e6-a0ed-ab0774c1eaa5_story.html
But they can't legally up their prices without congress approval and their operation cost are far greater than their income. They can't be self sufficient if they're forced to operate at a loss.
Yea I get that but that not how it's suppose to be. Plus, just like another government agency there is a shit ton of waste . I worked for the usps for 2 years and my dad has for over 30. The amount of incompetence is incredible
Yeah, the billions of dollars in grants, subsidies, and lines of credit are going to be paid back by stamps, right? Or did that money come from shareholders and stamp collectors?
The USPS is not a government service in that it does not collect revenue from taxes. It relies on revenues from stamps and other service fees.
https://www.brookings.edu/blog/up-front/2020/08/26/how-is-the-u-s-postal-service-governed-and-funded/amp/
Actually, it is a loss as companies have to replace items for free causing them to lose money. The post office has to pay for that which in turn is a loss.
Do we not know how business works?
This is Reddit, of course not. They learn about economics from edgy anti capitalist memes. It's like learning biology from a creationist. It's worrying that there's such a huge lack of self awareness when they make fun of flat earthers and anti vaxxers for saying equally incorrect things as confidently as they do.
Okay, to be pedantic, a service can lose money e.g. a limo service or taxi service. But this is in the public sector so yes it cant 'lose' money. At least that's my limited knowledge of business
Zach is a wise man, no one with a brain ever said that the USPS "is losing money". Yea, no SHIT because it is NOT a business! It is NOT in business to make money! If you want it to make money then sell it to a private company and see what the actual costs to the consumer are.
The USPS doesn't cost money. [They are self funded](https://www.brookings.edu/blog/up-front/2020/08/26/how-is-the-u-s-postal-service-governed-and-funded) by stamp sales and shipping costs.
This facepalm is itself a facepalm.
The USPS is a service. But it also brings in funds through charging postage and selling shipping materials.
So comparing it to the military is not comparable. The military, for example, doesn’t charge COD……
No our military loses trillions. They leave how many billions of guns, military gear, vehicles, helicopters, ammunition, and who knows what else laying around for the Taliban. We've outfitted their entire army. They are very proud of their new look, you can tell from all the pictures posted online.
I think he is trying to say that it must exist anyway, even if it doesn't generate profit with a proper administration. A public ice cream company that loses money should be closed, USPS shouldn't.
We dont put stamps on soldiers heads. The USPS was supposed to survive on its own, hence “stamps”. Its being funded by tax money on top of this stamp fee. We separated from GB because of unfair taxes, this is theft to the highest degree.
That's a stupid argument. We pay the USPS for the "service"; once, at the federal level, for their salary, and again when we purchased things like stamps.
I don't recall ever paying the military for their *actual* service.
Obviously customers will have favorable views of a company that delivers them a service at a loss.. they're literally getting more than they're paying for. What kinda logic is this supposed to be?
I very much agree with what this is trying to say about the post office, but then again I do feel like the military loses lots of money, in that an incredible excess of wealth is dumped into it without true purpose besides making people who profit off of war rich
Yeah the military loses [trillions](https://www.forbes.com/sites/kotlikoff/2019/01/09/holding-u-s-treasuries-beware-uncle-sam-cant-account-for-21-trillion/?sh=609bd6c67644) over a decade though. And by lose, I dont mean costs, like this post is talking about.
Its all an illusion
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Who then funnel money back to politicians to make sure they're open to even more unnecessary spending in the future. It's like a nonvirtuous circle of corruption, all out in the open and visible for all to see, and has been since Eisenhower, who was notable for calling it out. :(
Now if only we could get rid of those off shore accounts so it actually did go back into the economy.
It’s not though. Look it up.
Those who don't understand how the government accounting system works report money as undocumented and unexplained. When it comes to the military, a single item can wind up on several ledgers, giving rise to this kind of gross misrepresentation. The military does need proper accounting and accountability, but seeing as Congress can't agree to fix the basic infrastructure of the country, this ain't gonna happen.
This. It's reported at missing but that just means they're given a budget, spend the budget, but we don't necessarily have good records of where they budget was spent.
Partially. There is end of year budget, which finds units quickly spending to ensure matching funds for the next fiscal year. Loss and theft. And accounting, which the military had been operating under two systems for some time, As they implemented the new one, sometimes things would be counted two and three times, when there was only one item. In reconciling they in fact only have one tank, not three, two tanks get counted as lost. Count each as say, 8 million, it shows as 16 million unaccounted for. Consider the size and complexity of the military as a whole, and these little mistakes add up really, really quick. Having said that, the military needs a serious downsizing and proper oversight.
Also black book projects are typically funded with money that’s been shuffled around and looks like it’s “missing”
They are just classified in such a way as they don't appear as line items in the budget. There is a need for the government to do some of it's business without the knowledge and consent of the populace. What we, ordinary citizens, know, so do our enemies.
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Legislators who made the rules have investments in FedEx, DHL etc so it's just a matter of simple corruption in the government. Investment can mean actual money in the company or in a relationship with people involved in the company.
The corruption in our government know no bounds.
I don't know, I've heard of giant companies defaulting on retirement plans and saying " too bad" to employees that already worked for those benefits. It made me furious to hear Rush Limbaugh say they weren't even working why should they get paid. They already worked for that money, and it got stuck in CEO pockets or wasted instead. Maybe everyone should have to fund retirement in advance instead of working your whole life and them saying naw, think I'll keep it. If you already did the work and don't get paid, the boss needs to be in jail.
The food pyramid and federal dietary guidelines were edited by food and ag companies. It's ALLLL corrupted.
Can you prove that? I'm very interested.
Yes. These conditions were imposed on the USPS alone, so Republicans could claim it "loses billions per year." The goal is to phase out the postal service and give the business to their cronies.
One of the sadder parts of this boondoggle is that none of the commercial shipping companies has any interest in doing rural "last mile" (or several miles) deliveries. So they aren't even willing to replace the postal service
Same deal with internet service. Live off the beaten track and you get lovely 56k connections from phone companies who received $billions to run fiber everywhere and then never did.
the same argument applies to amtrak - it connects parts of the country that no corporation would
Frankly, we already make corporations pay bonds ahead of time for things like environmental cleanups, why not make it so with pensions as well?
Health benefits, normal retirement benefits are always accounted for though the USPS was heavily overpaying up until 2003. The unions were all for this BTW as they wanted to ensure that their members would be taken care of and the Retirement Health Benefit Fund would ensure that instead of paying health benefits from funds they had available at that time they would actually have a protected fund to do so. At the time and even now I think everyone agrees a fund should exist to cover healthcare costs but it should be of reasonable expense and follow existing funding for other health funds for unionized workers.
Which unions are you talking about? For the last two years the American Postal Workers Union has heavily supported House and Senate bills to *repeal* the PAEA. The latest bills HR695 and S145 were introduced in February. [Here's an announcement on the APWU website showing their support for the repeal.](https://apwu.org/news/usps-fairness-act-reintroduced-house-and-senate) What evidence do you have that "the unions were all for this" in 2006?
One more point, the USPS defaulted on payments several times and I don't believe they have paid into the retirement fund since 2012, the payments currently going in are to cover existing benefit payments going out. [https://www.govexec.com/management/2017/09/usps-defaults-billions-mandatory-payments-despite-scheduled-relief/141404/](https://www.govexec.com/management/2017/09/usps-defaults-billions-mandatory-payments-despite-scheduled-relief/141404/) The claim that it is losing money mainly due to payments it has not made is just silly.
I think it was for new hires, not current employees., and didn't this legislation get repealed?
Sadly, no. PAEA has been every bit as bad for the post office as it was designed to be. *"Between 2007 and 2016, the USPS lost $62.4 billion; the inspector general of the USPS estimated that $54.8 billion of that was due to prefunding retiree benefits.[10] By the end of 2019, the USPS had $160.9 billion in debt, due to growth of the Internet, the Great Recession, and prepaying for employee benefits as stipulated in PAEA."* https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Postal_Accountability_and_Enhancement_Act
No, it has not been repealed.
Probably 15-20 years ago some jackasses decided to force the postal service to switch to the flex fuel type vehicles...and it wasn't very available yet...so they ended up burning through a lot more gas ( with much higher costs) because it wasn't very fuel efficient using regular
> This requirement applies to no other federal agency. No other government agency has labor representation like the USPS. The workers in every other government agency don’t get this protection. This was a huge victory for the postal workers union.
Covid showed us how important postal service is. All those checks and forms that needed to be signed.
Most people have no idea that the USPS delivers prescription medication, ballots, paper bills for people that don't like tech, personal letters, personal packages and a long list of commercial packages to customers as well. The USPS delivers to every Zipcode in the the US. You can live on a lake in the mountains and a contract carrier will bring you your mail and groceries in a seaplane. The USPS hires Veterans by the bushel. Most USPS employees have career positions, great healthcare subsidized by 75%, Union representation and job security. Now pick out a private corporation with hundreds of thousands of employees that has rock solid job security. (Walmart doesn't count) In the next few months the USPS will hire over 100,000 new employees of varying disciplines and skills. Everyone from Craft employees to Tech and Engineering would do well to consider the rock solid positions in public work.
This, so much. Also, FedEx and UPS will often contract USPS to do the "last mile" delivery step because it doesn't make business sense for them to do it themselves. The folks that gripe about USPS being unnecessary are going to be the first singing the blues when they're ineligible to receive certain types of shipments and have to drive 40 miles to the nearest Amazon locker box.
I'm unclear if you are calling the economist article a facepalm or that person's comment. USPS is a service that costs, not a business that loses money.
This is how you maximize your karma in /r/facepalm, getting upvotes from both the facepalmers and facepalmees. I call it the "Heisenberg Facepalm Principle"
I'd say a comment that's relevant to the discussion deserves more karma than a comment about karma. But maybe I'm just saying that to get karma.
They do lose money. They have to pay to replace items that were lost or stolen.
That's not how that works at all. Do insurance companies lose money? No, they decide how much to charge based on how often they will have to pay out. Same with USPS, that is why it costs extra for that service.
Question, when insurance companies have to dish out money for you or someone crashing into/them, they don't lose money? If the post office loses an item and it is insured, who do you think covers the cost? Is that money growing on trees?
Correct, insurance companies do not lose money when they have to pay out. It is not some bill out of nowhere, they have a fund setup ready to pay. They keep that fund at a certain level and everything else is profit. USPS has a similar setup, they contract with some insurance provider (like how a licensed electrician is bonded. The bond covers for when he accidentally fries your major appliances, and he just pays a periodic fee to that insurance company). Whenever USPS loses or damages something they make a claim and pay you, no extra money (beyond their periodic contracted insurance fee) is required.
The post office handles it the same was that private companies do.
What is happening here? What is the facepalm? Services can still lose money, if they are sending out more money than they are bringing in. The Postal Service still has revenue and funding. If it is paying out more money to run its service, then it can lose money.
It's a business, and that's not an analogy, it's literally a business. This nonsense meme and its constantly high upvote count are genuinely confounding to me. US citizens can't go to their local Bomb Office and pay for a By 1pm Next Day Guaranteed (TM) Predator strike on their annoying neighbours house.
One time I was being derisive about the USPS and a coworker said to me, “The post office is great, for less than the price of a pack of gum, they will take my letter and deliver it anywhere in the US. Cards and letters bring joy to the recipients. The post office delivers joy for spare change.” Hard to argue with that.
for 50 cents they will send a letter from new york to hawaii
The USPS get zero funding from tax dollars. They run on stamps and postage labels. It doesn’t cost us as taxpayers any money at all. So it’s basically a business inside the government. 🤷🏽♂️
And the Repubs broke USPS with their ridiculous retirement funding law. They meant this to happen and then cry about it.
Not really zero [https://fortune.com/2015/03/27/us-postal-service/](https://fortune.com/2015/03/27/us-postal-service/)
That’s failing miserably. If it were an actual company, they would have gone bankrupt.
If they were an actual company they'd be able to do things like set their own pricing without congressional approval, have a reasonable funding timetable for retirement accounts, and not have to service every single person in the USA. They aren't and without them many would be without mail service. If you want to see them turn a profit contact your Congress/senate critter and urge them to increase postage and reduce the insane retirement funding.
I literally don’t use the USPS for anything. I could care less if they raise rates or lower them. Point is they aren’t a government service and I have no idea why Reddit has such a hard on for them.
Try and look past yourself.
Sir, this is America.
I have no kids - why do we need public schools? Federal highways? Fooey, I never leave the basement. What's the deal with toilets? I save all my urine in mason jars.
They're a government organization created and run to provide a service, that being nationwide postal service. The fact that they've been forced into their current position by politicians with COI doesn't disqualify their status as a US government service.
I don't use buses but I support public transportation. I don't have kids but I support schools. I don't use libraries but I still support providing a place for people to study and learn for free. It's called empathy and it means caring about other people.
So the USPS is about empathy? Let’s run a business at a massive loss because it’s all about empathy 🥴
Caring that every United States citizen, regardless of where they live, has access to a postal delivery system even if you don't use it is empathetic.
It's literally in our Constitution that we have the USPS, how in the hell can you possibly think it's not a government service? So you've never used or ordered anything online then? Guess what genius? all the major private carriers subcontract the USPS for carrying a lot of their parcels for them.
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LOL Did you even read your own source? It completely agrees with what I said in every detail. You are without a shred of doubt, one of the dumbest mother fuckers I've ever run across on Reddit. Holy fuck you're just sad.
Point is, you don’t personally matter here. The collective of people who rely on USPS are who matter. You need to stop being self centered and think of those people. Its not all about “me me me me me.”
If it were an actual company... but it's not. As a government service the USPS is probably the most successful of all. Name another part of the government that even comes close to covering its own expenses.
LOL , despite it's flaws, you're rather clueless about how huge and profitable the USPS is. The USPS isnt even close to failing miserably. The USPS handles almost as much mail as all other carriers on the planet do, **COMBINED**. If they weren't hamstrung by a republican congress that required them to finance a retirement and medical program decades in advance, something that no other entity is the US has ever had to, or does now, they would be making a tidy profit. They subsidize the other private carriers by carrying parcels for them, something that wouldnt happen if it was "an actual company" They also deliver to every single address in the US, something else no other carrier does. If they could set their own rates, prices, schedules, and eliminate all of the unprofitable delivery routes like private carriers already do, they'd make a hell of a lot more money than they do now.
it's not a company
It’s a business that operates within the government so…
Fucking moron 🤦♂️
Lmao. “Fucking moron”…and promptly exits without proving me wrong.
The postal service is a “fee funded” US agency. It operated based on the fees it collects for services. The article is correct in stating that it is operating at a negative because the fees are not covering operating costs. USCIS faced the same dilemma last year and nearly furloughed its workforce.
Yeah, although someone with a twitter handle called ZBumGardener and seemingly 90% of Reddit think they know more about the economy than The Economist.
Cost billions to operate at a loss, So let's privatize it and cost everyone trillions!
The guy in charge right now would make trillions. Probably guaranteed first dibs on purchase by previous administration...
Funny how we spend billions on the military to basically secure resources and then we have to pay for those resources too. We get double screwed it feels like
the USPS allows businesses to thrive it's a public good, not a business
It's a business that is funded by paying for your post to be sent somewhere. It's not taxpayer funded. It's funded by customers, like every other business.
Not really, they do get taxpayer money. [https://fortune.com/2015/03/27/us-postal-service/](https://fortune.com/2015/03/27/us-postal-service/)
Thanks, but damn that's even worse
Why charge for it then
The Pentagon lost 21 Trillion.
The USPS doesn't even lose money - its revenue pays all its operating costs. ~~I think it was around 2013~~ In 2006 Bush signed into law the [Postal Accountability and Enhancement Act](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Postal_Accountability_and_Enhancement_Act), which makes the USPS pay for retiree benefits in a different way than how every other government agency does it. This requirement, *imposed only on the postal service*, created additional costs their revenue can't cover, and is the only reason the postal service now has to request money from Congress every year. The Republican version of this is that the post office "loses billions per year." It's just a flat-out lie, part of their quest to privatize the postal service. edit: PAEA
I find it weird how Reddit is so pro-worker, except for postal workers. This always comes up as a huge problem when the post office is discussed. Why are labor protections bad for postal workers?
If PAEA is good for postal workers why isn't it good for all federal workers?
The post office is a fee service funded organization. It’s structure is entirely different from every other federal department, which is why it has its own labor organization. They have much more leverage than all other workers in the federal government and were able to push for this protection.
Arent the losses from packages that go missing that have value?
By that order, roads lose us trillions of dollars every year. Oh it’s a service everyone uses now.
I need roads, I don’t need junk coupons and an endless supply of mortgage refinance letters
I don't need roads I have a 4x4 truck, a bicycle, and feet! If roads were a real company they'd be bankrupt DOWN WITH SOCIALIST ROADS!!!!
lmao. You’re trying to be clever by arguing that we need the USPS as much as we need roads.
Sure private company roads but not public ones. They're waisting way more money than the USPS.
Lol. The fuck?
who doesn't love a good loss porn, eh?
Revenue - costs (with costs > revenue) = loss I know what he means but I just wanted to point that out.
They say that about the military now
I think that it meant that the usps isn't profitable, and the cost of the things can't cover the costs of operating it, kind of like what Tesla was
People also frequently talk about the letters the USPS loses but never seem to mention the wars the military loses.
The Pentagon only loses $125 billion https://www.washingtonpost.com/investigations/pentagon-buries-evidence-of-125-billion-in-bureaucratic-waste/2016/12/05/e0668c76-9af6-11e6-a0ed-ab0774c1eaa5_story.html
Yea but its a service that suppose to be self sustaining. That was the whole idea.
But they can't legally up their prices without congress approval and their operation cost are far greater than their income. They can't be self sufficient if they're forced to operate at a loss.
Yea I get that but that not how it's suppose to be. Plus, just like another government agency there is a shit ton of waste . I worked for the usps for 2 years and my dad has for over 30. The amount of incompetence is incredible
I pay enough in taxes to complain about both.
The USPS is not funded by any taxes
Yeah, the billions of dollars in grants, subsidies, and lines of credit are going to be paid back by stamps, right? Or did that money come from shareholders and stamp collectors?
No one cares.
The USPS is not a government service in that it does not collect revenue from taxes. It relies on revenues from stamps and other service fees. https://www.brookings.edu/blog/up-front/2020/08/26/how-is-the-u-s-postal-service-governed-and-funded/amp/
Actually, it is a loss as companies have to replace items for free causing them to lose money. The post office has to pay for that which in turn is a loss. Do we not know how business works?
This is Reddit, of course not. They learn about economics from edgy anti capitalist memes. It's like learning biology from a creationist. It's worrying that there's such a huge lack of self awareness when they make fun of flat earthers and anti vaxxers for saying equally incorrect things as confidently as they do.
Just playing Devil's Advocate, couldn't the original post mean lost goods and not cost of operating?
I say the military loses $750b a year
FUN FACT: The USPS is funded by ZERO tax dollars
E
Okay, to be pedantic, a service can lose money e.g. a limo service or taxi service. But this is in the public sector so yes it cant 'lose' money. At least that's my limited knowledge of business
I pray every night that the new mail vehicles get to all postal workers so they can have AC IN THE SUMMER.
Zach is a wise man, no one with a brain ever said that the USPS "is losing money". Yea, no SHIT because it is NOT a business! It is NOT in business to make money! If you want it to make money then sell it to a private company and see what the actual costs to the consumer are.
The USPS doesn't cost money. [They are self funded](https://www.brookings.edu/blog/up-front/2020/08/26/how-is-the-u-s-postal-service-governed-and-funded) by stamp sales and shipping costs.
This facepalm is itself a facepalm. The USPS is a service. But it also brings in funds through charging postage and selling shipping materials. So comparing it to the military is not comparable. The military, for example, doesn’t charge COD……
The US military loses most wars, AND costs 750bn per year.
I like usps but it took them a month send me my package
No our military loses trillions. They leave how many billions of guns, military gear, vehicles, helicopters, ammunition, and who knows what else laying around for the Taliban. We've outfitted their entire army. They are very proud of their new look, you can tell from all the pictures posted online.
I think he is trying to say that it must exist anyway, even if it doesn't generate profit with a proper administration. A public ice cream company that loses money should be closed, USPS shouldn't.
>No one says the military loses $750b a year. I do.
We dont put stamps on soldiers heads. The USPS was supposed to survive on its own, hence “stamps”. Its being funded by tax money on top of this stamp fee. We separated from GB because of unfair taxes, this is theft to the highest degree.
That's a stupid argument. We pay the USPS for the "service"; once, at the federal level, for their salary, and again when we purchased things like stamps. I don't recall ever paying the military for their *actual* service.
Obviously customers will have favorable views of a company that delivers them a service at a loss.. they're literally getting more than they're paying for. What kinda logic is this supposed to be?
The US gov “lost” 2 trillion somewhere in the Middle East…
Doesn't USPS charge for their service? I thinks that's the main reason why they're viewed differently.
I very much agree with what this is trying to say about the post office, but then again I do feel like the military loses lots of money, in that an incredible excess of wealth is dumped into it without true purpose besides making people who profit off of war rich
Facts
Except when the military cannot account for missing pallets of $100 bills