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> It is broken from the inside. Mind elaborating on that one? A postal service that delivers 47% of all mail on the planet and serves millions of Americans tha

> It is broken from the inside. Mind elaborating on that one? A postal service that delivers 47% of all mail on the planet and serves millions of Americans that are unserved or underserved by other services. They did this for decades as a self-sufficient service that funded itself, and its current deficit 100% caused by Congress forcing them to pre-fund the health and retirement benefits of all of its employees for at least a half century in the future, something literally no other company or business has to do. Of course it was actually a plan to use that money to reduce the federal deficit.

tryptophan 5y ago
>literally no other company or business has to do. Actually every other company and business HAS to do this. Ever wonder why private pensions went away? I also am always amazed at how people point to this funding requirement as a bad thing. So it is now bad...to actually set money aside for benefits you are promising????
- micromacrofoot 5y ago
  The USPS needs to pre-fund their medical promises for retirees, but can't cancel those benefits without an act of congress... this is actually one of the unique bits. The private sector can just cancel those medical benefits at any time. Really those benefits should be shifted to Medicare and the burden should be taken off of the USPS. Also, private companies need to pre-fund these retirement benefits too (with fewer general restrictions so they can change if they're having financial issues) but no other government agency other than the USPS has to. The timing of the pre-funding legislation was also a little problematic because they had to rapidly catch up... this hamstringed their capital for about a decade so they put a lot of modernization initiatives on hold. Then toss in a pandemic and the fact we're stuck with a sycophantic postmaster general and you've got a screwed postal system.
- wan23 5y ago
  Normally pensions are funded by investing, not by setting aside cash for the retirement of people who haven't even been hired yet. Even worse, they have to borrow to meet this requirement to hold cash they won't need for years, so now they're paying interest instead of earning it.
  - NovemberWhiskey 5y ago
    >Normally pensions are funded by investing, not by setting aside cash for the retirement of people who haven't even been hired yet If that's meant to be a description of the USPS situation then it's not at all accurate. The USPS is required to calculate its actuarial liability for its retirement fund by considering both current and future liabilities for the next 75 years (I think that's the part where I think you're getting 'setting aside cash for the retirement of people who haven't even been hired yet'). That is true. But it also deducts from that liability the expected future accruals (i.e. the contributions to the pension fund that those people who haven't been hired yet will make). I think you can probably agree that you need to do both of these things when considering the sustainability of a pension fund, no?
missedthecue 5y ago
I'm sorry, this is just mis-information. A couple of points: - The USPS lost money literally every year between 1960 and 1988. (Tab T30800-A), and then they lost billions more in the 1990s before a few years of mixed profitability and then back to billions in losses. Their total profit and loss since 1960 is in the negative hundreds of billions. https://www.bea.gov/national/Release/XLS/Survey/Section3All_xls.xlsx https://www.bea.gov/national/Release/XLS/Survey/Section3All_... - The pre-funding period lasted 10 years, from 2006 to 2016. It's been half a decade since the pre-funding requirement ended. If you look at their financials, their total pension billing in 2019 was $3.8 billion. They lost $8.8 billion on operations. There is no mathematically possible way their pensions are to blame for this.
- burkaman 5y ago
  The USPS is a government service, it can't "lose money". Does the fire department lose money? It doesn't make any sense. The USPS is a revenue generator and a budget item, but those two things are not linked.
- kube-system 5y ago
  Should the USPS be profitable? It's not an investment, it's a public service that supports the operational needs of the country.
  - missedthecue 5y ago
    They have a literal monopoly on the deliver of letters. They have a monopoly on the use of mailboxes. Profitability is a gauge of efficiency, and the USPS is a funds incinerator. Having a monopoly on the delivery of letters should be a self sufficient operation. I'm for removal of the monopoly entirely. Most other countries like Japan, Germany, the UK, Netherlands, and others have privatised post with great success. There is no reason the government should continue to run it in the US.
    - kube-system 5y ago
      You can deliver documents via for-profit couriers in the US. They're going to charge you profitable rates, though -- not necessarily rates that are accessible for poor citizens. Those countries you've listed that have privatized (or partially, in the case of some of them) are subject to strict regulations so that they continue to provide basic levels of service to keep their countries moving smoothly. If you want to see what Deutsche Post would do without those government regulations they're subject to domestically, look no further than the price to send a document across the US via DHL. The bottom line is, many of the mail services that countries need to operate smoothly are not profitable. The only difference between any of the mail services in any country on the planet is the mechanism by which the government forces them to provide those services.

tryptophan 5y ago

>literally no other company or business has to do. Actually every other company and business HAS to do this. Ever wonder why private pensions went away? I also am always amazed at how people point to this funding requirement as a bad thing. So it is now bad...to actually set money aside for benefits you are promising????

micromacrofoot 5y ago
The USPS needs to pre-fund their medical promises for retirees, but can't cancel those benefits without an act of congress... this is actually one of the unique bits. The private sector can just cancel those medical benefits at any time. Really those benefits should be shifted to Medicare and the burden should be taken off of the USPS. Also, private companies need to pre-fund these retirement benefits too (with fewer general restrictions so they can change if they're having financial issues) but no other government agency other than the USPS has to. The timing of the pre-funding legislation was also a little problematic because they had to rapidly catch up... this hamstringed their capital for about a decade so they put a lot of modernization initiatives on hold. Then toss in a pandemic and the fact we're stuck with a sycophantic postmaster general and you've got a screwed postal system.
wan23 5y ago
Normally pensions are funded by investing, not by setting aside cash for the retirement of people who haven't even been hired yet. Even worse, they have to borrow to meet this requirement to hold cash they won't need for years, so now they're paying interest instead of earning it.
- NovemberWhiskey 5y ago
  >Normally pensions are funded by investing, not by setting aside cash for the retirement of people who haven't even been hired yet If that's meant to be a description of the USPS situation then it's not at all accurate. The USPS is required to calculate its actuarial liability for its retirement fund by considering both current and future liabilities for the next 75 years (I think that's the part where I think you're getting 'setting aside cash for the retirement of people who haven't even been hired yet'). That is true. But it also deducts from that liability the expected future accruals (i.e. the contributions to the pension fund that those people who haven't been hired yet will make). I think you can probably agree that you need to do both of these things when considering the sustainability of a pension fund, no?

missedthecue 5y ago

I'm sorry, this is just mis-information. A couple of points: - The USPS lost money literally every year between 1960 and 1988. (Tab T30800-A), and then they lost billions more in the 1990s before a few years of mixed profitability and then back to billions in losses. Their total profit and loss since 1960 is in the negative hundreds of billions. https://www.bea.gov/national/Release/XLS/Survey/Section3All_xls.xlsx https://www.bea.gov/national/Release/XLS/Survey/Section3All_... - The pre-funding period lasted 10 years, from 2006 to 2016. It's been half a decade since the pre-funding requirement ended. If you look at their financials, their total pension billing in 2019 was $3.8 billion. They lost $8.8 billion on operations. There is no mathematically possible way their pensions are to blame for this.

burkaman 5y ago
The USPS is a government service, it can't "lose money". Does the fire department lose money? It doesn't make any sense. The USPS is a revenue generator and a budget item, but those two things are not linked.
kube-system 5y ago
Should the USPS be profitable? It's not an investment, it's a public service that supports the operational needs of the country.
- missedthecue 5y ago
  They have a literal monopoly on the deliver of letters. They have a monopoly on the use of mailboxes. Profitability is a gauge of efficiency, and the USPS is a funds incinerator. Having a monopoly on the delivery of letters should be a self sufficient operation. I'm for removal of the monopoly entirely. Most other countries like Japan, Germany, the UK, Netherlands, and others have privatised post with great success. There is no reason the government should continue to run it in the US.
  - kube-system 5y ago
    You can deliver documents via for-profit couriers in the US. They're going to charge you profitable rates, though -- not necessarily rates that are accessible for poor citizens. Those countries you've listed that have privatized (or partially, in the case of some of them) are subject to strict regulations so that they continue to provide basic levels of service to keep their countries moving smoothly. If you want to see what Deutsche Post would do without those government regulations they're subject to domestically, look no further than the price to send a document across the US via DHL. The bottom line is, many of the mail services that countries need to operate smoothly are not profitable. The only difference between any of the mail services in any country on the planet is the mechanism by which the government forces them to provide those services.