Obama's Post Office Mistake

Note also that the USPS holds a monopoly on delivery of other than urgent letters. A local couple in Rochester learned this years back when they started a local express delivery service, were sued by the Post Office, and put out of business.

So, even with a legally mandated monopoly, the USPS is sinking.

Where do you get your facts? "But the post office IS government subsidized, to the tune of billions a year." Really????????? Where does that money come from? Funny, but I know better. I've been employed a the Post Office for 23 years and we DO NOT get government funding or ANY tax dollars. Since 1970 the Post Offce is a seperate entity and not run by or funded (or subsidized) by the Government. Please get your facts straight people belive you!
Cyndi Parr

Wrong again, Mr. Stossel.

The Post Office has not been subsidized since 1982:

"and phased out the general public service subsidy, which the Postal Service ended earlier than required, last accepting an operational subsidy in 1982."
http://www.usps.com/cpim/ftp/pubs/pub100/pub100_037.htm

Why do you insist of typing up lies from the Heritage Foundation?

cyndi,

you are correct it does not have a direct subsidy shown under a line item, however it is in fact subsidized to the tune that john states....they are losing money (google it)

also the subsidy of a monopoly on first class mail alone is worth how much??? one can hardly fathom what private companies competing in the first class mail game would do, (get you your mail quicker for cheaper)???! what a concept! a concept that is lost upon americans :( , hidden away by evil politicians...

Cyndi:

For starters, the government grants the Post Office a monopoly, which makes us all poorer.

They they directly subsidize the Post Office. Who do you think covers their losses? They borrow the money from the Federal Financing Bank, a division of the Treasury. Saying that's any different from other government borrowing is just an accounting fiction.

They guarantee the Post Office's debt. That's a subsidy allowing them to borrow more cheaply, forcing out private-sector borrowing. The post office won't be profitable in the future, as the respond to declining demand with higher prices, which further reduces demand. So the government is on the hook for all the Post Office's debt. Their current debt and unfunded health-care liabilities come to about $60 billion, and rising fast. I didn't count other retirement benefits, but I'm sure you could find that in their financial statements.

So the post office gets a government-guaranteed monopoly, doesn't have to pay taxes, and gets underpriced debt (a private company in their condition couldn't issue debt at all). Still, in the one area where competition is allowed, FedEx and UPS dominate... and also make a profit.

The post office is making all of us poorer (with the exception of a small special interest, which you're a member of).

The post office needs to be sold off, and competition with it allowed at the same time. Government shouldn't be operating businesses and guaranteeing themselves a monopoly.

Hi Cyndi- The USPS doesn't receive "Operational" subsidies (aka: your paycheck) but The USPS, though not Government owned, is still an (independent) establishment of the executive branch of the US Government. (39 U.S.C. § 201) and DOES receive other types of subsidies and protections. If the USPS doesn't receive subsidies, then why did the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) just submit a review to the Postal Regulatory Commission (PRC) recommending the USPS eliminate all subsidies of which are between 39-117 million dollars? (http://www.ftc.gov/opa/2008/01/postal.shtm) If it is not supported by Government dollars, why did the Postmaster General, John Potter, have to address Congress to receive "relief"? http://hsgac.senate.gov/public/_files/Potter.pdf FedEx, UPS, and DHL (which bowed out of the market) doesn't need an Act of Congress to operate, why should the USPS?

the postal service saves billions a year, by not delivering the mail to small town homes. we are forced to go to the post office to get are mail ,with limited hours i can not pay my bills on time if i can not get them but once or twice a month.I live in shirley,indiana i am getting tired of goverment B.S I pay the same prices for everything you all do. but can not get the same services like hone deliverd mail. write about the ture story of people not getting treaded fair by the postal service.

John Stossel is a paid propagandist for the health care industry. How many millions in pharmaceutical ad dollars have been used to subsidize his salary?

Goebbels would be proud to count Stossel as a disciple.

The US spends nearly twice the share of GDP on health care than any other developed country, all of whom offer their citizens universal health care, either through a government system, or strict oversight and regulation of a private system.

Health care should not be a privilege only available to those wealthy enough and healthy enough to have it offered to them. It is a basic human right that every civilized country in the world offers its citizens.

The US is not a civilized country, nor will it ever be, as long as the corporations control the politics, and pays its propagandists like Stossel to manipulate the great unwashed.

The evil that men do lives on, promoted by prostitutes like Stossel hired to screw the masses.

I forget to mention that in spite of spending nearly double the share of our GDP on health care, our outcomes are statistically worse than all other developed Western nations, all of whom offer national health care. Our infant mortality rates are higher, and our life expectancy is shorter.

To Wrong Again

Yes the USPS is subsidized by the federal government. They started being an off budget item when Clinton was in office as were the unfunded liabilities of Social Security, Medicare etc. George W. Bush had those items included in the financial statements starting in 2003 I believe. Lyndon B. Johnson is the president that started excluding
items from the budget that showed a deficit when he borrowed from Social Security to cover the Viet Nam war costs.

I keep hearing about German health care and we all know about the EU's cap and tax.

German doctors are fleeing low salaries, unmanageable patient loads, inadequate care as population ages. And business are fleeing the EU because of cap and tax costs with no improvement in emissions. They say they cannot compete unless other countries have similar controls. Does that put the push for U.S. cap and tax and health care reform in perspective?

Yes, the world wants us to have the same as them because even though we protect most of the world, they are still aware that the EU will eventually lose many jobs to the US unless we stifle our free enterprise system.

Socialism is failing people but you won't see it in our media.

http://www.spiegel.de/international/0,1518,399537,00.html

http://www.spiegel.de/international/business/0,1518,566441,00.html

Lee:

1. Americans are wealthy enough to spend more on health care. So what? Some analysts say we should target a 30% of GDP by mid-century.

2. The universal health care in the UK, Canada, and Europe suck. As my mother used to say: "If everyone was jumping off roof tops I suppose you would too."

3. The U.S. has the greatest life expectancy when deaths for non-medical causes are removed. Go focus on urban murders and crazy car drivers.

4. Infant mortality is Europe is lowered by the fact that many babies admitted to neo-natal ICUs in the U.S. are simply categorized as still-births in Europe.

1. Americans are broke.
2. I live in Canada for nearly 6 months a year. My in-laws, kids, and grandchildren have all benefited from the Canadian system. My daughter works in that system at one of Canada's leading urban hospitals. She would not trade places to be in the US system, nor would any of my relatives, nor would any of my Canadian friends. The slanted view of the Canadian system that Stossel the propagandist presented where he sought out those few anecdotal cases were people were not well served is just not true of the system as a whole, in spite of its flaws.

Leach, please cite the right wing propaganda site from which you dug up your "stats."

I've seen the neo natal units in the Canadian system, where all 3 of my grandchildren were born. They are state of the art, second to none in the US.

Stossel cited those who could have died and did die under the Canadian system. What about all the Americans who die of cancer because they are uninsured. I'm talking about middle class and upper middle class people who could not get insurance due to other pre-existing conditions, or who were dropped by their health care providers, but who weren't poor enough to qualify for medicaid.

Stossel's citing of the Canadian failures without comparing them to the millions of Americans who have died or are at risk in our heinously unfair system, is not only meaningless, it is misleading and prejudicial in the extreme.

How difficult would it have been to get a couple of Canadians to talk about how much they like their system. He could have gotten a stadium full to tell him that he's full of crap, in fact. But that's not what his handlers are paying him to do. He's a propagandist, not a journalist. In fact, he's a disgrace to the profession of journalism, if such a profession even exists any more, in the US corporate controlled state media.

They only tolerate posts like this one because they know how meaningless they are. They control the great unwashed, like you, Leach.

Glad you're happy, Lee. Feel free to stay in Canada as long as you like. I would ask, however, that you be true to your principles.

In particular, if it ever occurs that you need a specialist or diagnostics like MRI or CAT scans, and if you are subject to the extraordinary delays that characterize such care in Canada, don't come south to make use of our horrible system.

Deal?

Mike- My comment was aimed at yours specifically, but Leach's was equally contrived. Too much Rush Limbaugh and Stosselization and will do that to you. You've probably also been Hannitized-- all forms of insidious right wing brainwashing, using methods developed and taught by Goebbels.

I will be happy to stage an intervention. I will send a team of crack liberals to deprogram you.

Hey Cyndi-
You want to pay 30 bucks to send a piece of mail, be my guest.

I think they should abolish the post office too. Get rid of all that junk mail. Save a few trees in the process. Stop global warming. Yeah. That's it. Abolish the postal service. End global warming.

Oh, wait, you're probably in favor of global warming. You probably can't wait to go to the beach in Pittsburgh. Who needs polar bears anyway. They just eat fish and smell bad. Less fish for polar bears, more for people. Eat fish, live longer.

Mike-

You know absolutely nothing about the Canadian system. You've been listening to Limbaugh and Stossel too much.

I am an American. I live in the US and I am badly served by the US health care system. As a 58 year old, tagged with a bogus pre-existing condition tag, by our great free market insurance companies, I've got no coverage for those kinds of things. What do you suggest for the millions of people like me?

The long waits for necessary tests in Canada reported by the propagandists simply are not true.

My daughter works in nuclear medicine in a major Canadian hospital giving just the tests you describe. She is on call nights and weekend, frequently working on Saturday and Sunday's when people need tests urgently.

It's a bald faced lie that people who need these tests can't get them on a timely basis.

From your comments, it's absolutely clear that you have never been to Canada, have never experienced its health care system as an observer, as I have, and have never spoken to a Canadian about the system.

In short, you are an ignorant twit. Stop watching so much TV and drinking so much beer. And too much time at the firing range shooting off those automatic weapons will scramble your brain. You really should lay off that stuff.

You're a Hannitized, Stosselized, Limbaughite, and you are in grave danger. I can help you, if you are willing to recognize that you've been brainwashed.

But my quarrel isn't with you. You are just a poor unfortunate. My quarrel is with Stossel. He knows better, but he has allowed himself to be bought. He's just evil.

I wonder how long ABC will allow my to continue attacking like this. Their censors must be asleep, or secret liberal subversives.

Hey censor, are you a liberal subversive at heart? Like me? Come out of the closet! You'll feel cleansed!

Lee:

I come by my conservatism honestly; I've been a conservative for most of my 61 years on the planet. I don't get marching orders from Hannity, Limbaugh, Beck, Stossel or anyone else.

It's a common liberal trope that conservatives are either (a) mendacious hypocrites or (b) stupid goons. It never occurs to folks like you that conservatives and libertarians might come by their principles honestly: by reading, observing, and cogitating on the state of the nation and the world. I offer Frederich Hayek, Milton Friedman and Thomas Sowell as scholarly representatives of conservatives with intelligence and integrity. More names available upon request.

While I believe your opinions on health care are deeply flawed, and that the U.S. health care system will become much worse if the Democratic proposals are enacted, I'm at least willing to grant that you come by your perspective honestly. If you like, I can say your mind is a captive of Michael Moore, Janeane Garofalo and John Stewart, but where would that leave us?

In any event, you didn't answer the question I posed: are you willing to forgo treatment in the U.S. in favor of whatever treatment you can get in Canada? I'm more than willing to forgo treatment by Canada's national health care and live with the U.S. system. Certainly US health care has flaws, but the Democrat "cure," IMHO, is far worse than the disease.

Oh, and for the record, I live in Western New York and have traveled quite extensively in Canada. I must admit I've never had to call on the tender mercies of the Canadian health care system; I've simply read enough in both U.S. and Canadian publications to be much less sanguine than you about adopting such a model.

So: are you willing to live with the consequences, good and bad, of the Canadian system? Or do you still value the U.S. as a backup should things get dicey in Canada?

Instead of ad hominem attacks on those who disagree with you, put your money where your mouth is.

Lee Adler

John Stossel's not "evil", and he's interviewed plenty of Canadians (doctors and others qualified enough to comment on their healthcare) in his healthcare reports. As you're calling someone like Stossel (a libertarian who leans left on social issues) a right winger, your extreme left wing ideology is showing.

I'm glad that you are satisfied with the Canadian Healthcare system, which I'm sure has its advantages over the American counterpart. Others (including Canadians) aren't. I'm Asian, and believe you me, horror stories exist in that part of the world, in terms of incompetent doctors, some long waiting time, and lack of care.

Those who of us who have connections outside of the US, or can read in another language, can bring much to the healthcare debate, whether it's for a "univeral" model or against it. But if we offer some principled arguments against it (perhaps derived from personal experience) then we're bunch of zombies listening too much to "Rush Limbaugh and John Stossel"? Who seriously follows these people outside of the US?

Of course, this kind of ad hominem attacks are typical for lefties. To dismiss a certain cause, just associate it with controversial right wing figures. I'm no fan of Rush Limbaugh, and I don't agree with Stossel on drug legalization, but that doesn't deter me from recognizing good arguments.

Why don't you b*tch to the Canadian doctors and experts who supplied Stossel with the information, instead of ranting here? Stossel had a point to raise, but these officials helped shape it.

Lee:

While I enjoyed hunting in my youth, the only time I fired an automatic weapon was during at AFROTC summer training in 1968 prior to my commissioning in 1970.

If I mail a 10 lb box from here to East Moline, IL with 2-day service by USPS it'll cost me $9.85 by flat rate box or $11.49 by regular Priority Mail.

The USPS carrier will come to my door and pick the package up for free if I leave a note in the mailbox. The carrier is always friendly and stops for a minute to exchange greetings. If I was to choose to drop the package off at the PO instead, I'd only have to drive 4 miles into town. I can count on the box arriving in EM in two days.

The same package by UPS with the same scheduled service will cost me $9.35 plus a pickup charge. UPS charges $4 for pickup even though the truck passes by here everyday anyway. $9.35 + $4 = $13.35.

The UPS driver stops just long enough to jump off his bus, grab the package, scan it and race back to his truck before peeling out and racing back to the highway. The UPS man carries a GPS monitor these days and his managers know if and when he takes so much as a bathroom break. Too much "non-productive" time in a day and the UPS industrial engineers are all over him for his labor crime. If I was to drop the package off at the UPS depot instead, I'd have to drive 45 miles to their nearest dock in Lenexa, KS.

FedEx service here is even worse than UPS. The drivers are contractors and don't work for FedEx. Often, it's not even FedEx. It's someone they've outsourced the work to in an unmarked van. You never know who the stranger coming in the drive is until he announces "FedEx man!!"

The Post Office is doing fine. Obama is right and, once again, Stossell is wrong.

While we're comparing, ship a package by USPS to Canada and another by UPS. When the USPS box arrives for nothing more than the original postage charge while UPS mysteriously adds "customs brokerage fees" to their billing after the fact, get back to us again on what a fine bargain UPS service is.

Foolishness. More Stossell/Milton Friedman/Ayn Rand foolishness.