"they're not a federal agency."
But 100Ks of USPS employees were govt employees and paying int other govt pension plan before USPS was speciously privatized. It's not a private for-profit organization and Congress makes all the key USPS decisions and restrictions.
I'm 100% in favor of getting congress out of the USPS' decision making. The USPS should have complete autonomy and be allowed to make whatever decisions are necessary in order to be self sufficient.
Part of being self sufficient is funding their retirement benefits.
" it concluded that USPS had overfunded its pension plan by more than $70 billion."
and that was before the Repugs forced USPS to pump $50B more into the fund in 10 years.
If that's true, then let's move all USPS employees & retirees out of the federal program, cut the USPS a check for whatever they've overpaid and let the USPS go on about it's merry way.
Won't happen, Congress, esp Repug Congress, loves to misgovern, as part of their fundamental hate-govt ideology, and things up, esp when unionized employees are the victims.
Pretty much anything congress involves themselves in is destined to be mismanaged. Thus my support for cutting the USPS loose.
http://theweek.com/article/index/255...postal-service
The $1.1 trillion omnibus spending bill expected to clear Congress this week has a little something for just about everyone — except postal workers. Tucked in among the bill's 1,582 pages are instructions to the U.S. Postal Service "that 6-day delivery and rural delivery of mail shall continue at not less than the 1983 level." Also, "none of the funds provided in this Act shall be used to consolidate or close small rural and other small post offices in fiscal year 2014."
That blocks for another year the USPS's bold plan (or a cry for help) from last February to end Saturday delivery. Closing little-used post offices is also a perennial suggestion by the red-ink-bleeding quasi-independent government agency. The Postal Service didn't ask Congress to approve its five-day mail plan, but Congress shut it down anyway.
Last fiscal year, the USPS lost $5 billion. This bill handcuffs the USPS for another year, at least.
The marching orders from Congress wouldn't be so bad if lawmakers "had decided to appropriate money to keep rural post offices open" or offset the costs of Saturday delivery, says Slate's Matthew Yglesias. "But Congress in its wisdom has not delivered any money."
And that pretty much encapsulates the troubled relationship between Congress and the USPS. Lawmakers want the Postal Service to run itself like a for-profit business, but they retain the right of final say over all its major business decisions. The USPS is legally obligated to serve every address in the U.S. and its territories, but it can't set its own prices, decide where to expand or cut its operations, or make other basic business decisions.
Members of Congress representing rural areas are especially adamant that the USPS serve their cons uents. This involves maintaining money-losing post offices in places where other types of service would be more cost-effective. The push to end Saturday delivery is fine with most Americans — 71 percent, according to a CBS News poll last February; 80 percent (including 76 percent of rural respondents), according to an Ipsos poll commissioned by the USPS. But greeting card and direct mail companies strongly oppose the move, and their lobbyists have made sure Congress knows it.
The biggest slap Congress has delivered to the USPS, though, is a 2006 decision to make the agency pre-fund its pensions for 75 years, an onerous burden not required of any other government agency, let alone adopted by any private company. Most of the USPS's losses are caused by this requirement. The other factor is the steady decline in First Class mail, as more people use the internet for routine correspondence.
the "USPS DESTRUCTION ACT OF 2006":
"The PAEA stipulates that the USPS is to make payments of $5.4 - $5.8 billion into the Postal Service Retiree Health Benefits Fund, each year, from 2007 to 2016 in order to prefund 50 years of estimated costs. This requirement also explicitly stated that the USPS was to stop using its savings to reduce postal debt, which was stipulated in Postal Civil Service Retirement System Funding Reform Act of 2003.[4] This is in addition to deductions from pay for federal contribution to social services.[5] This pre-funding method is unique to the USPS. In June 2011, the USPS had to suspend its weekly payment of 115 million into the fund because it had reached 8 billion dollars in debt and the retirement plan had a surplus of 6.9 billion dollars.[6] The Postal Service has not made any of the pre-funding payments since that time."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Postal_...on#cite_note-2
Hovering chairs... Hovering fat people...
Soda, check. Fat people, check. Watching TV, check. Sit on our asses, check.
Hovering chairs... Something broke out of the corral. Ohh that Wall-E.
US govt should GTFO of USPS totally, which would mean dropping the destructive forward funding of pensions.
then USPS should add to its charter being a Euro-style gyro/postal bank, sort of a non-profit, customer-owned national credit union, with retail banking and loans with money provided as a no-profit utility rather than as for-profit wealth-sucking scam of current commercial banks.
Here's how liberals/progressives try to help the poor:
Coming to a Post Office Near You: Loans You Can Trust?
According to a report put out this week by the Office of the Inspector General (OIG) of the U.S. Postal Service, about 68 million Americans -- more than a quarter of all households -- have no checking or savings account and are underserved by the banking system. Collectively, these households spent about $89 billion in 2012 on interest and fees for non-bank financial services like payday loans and check cashing, which works out to an average of $2,412 per household. That means the average underserved household spends roughly 10 percent of its annual income on interest and fees -- about the same amount they spend on food.
Think about that: about 10 percent of a family's income just to manage getting checks cashed, bills paid, and, sometimes, a short-term loan to tide them over. That's more than a full month's income just to try to navigate the basics.
The poor pay more, and that's one of the reasons people get trapped at the bottom of the economic ladder.
But it doesn't have to be this way. In the same remarkable report this week, the OIG explored the possibility of the USPS offering basic banking services -- bill paying, check cashing, small loans -- to its customers. With post offices and postal workers already on the ground, USPS could partner with banks to make a critical difference for millions of Americans who don't have basic banking services because there are almost no banks or bank branches in their neighborhoods.
Families rely on financial services more than ever, but those who need them most -- who struggle to make ends meet -- too often must contend with sky-high interest rates and tricks and traps buried in the fine print of their loan products.
If the Postal Service offered basic banking services -- nothing fancy, just basic bill paying, check cashing and small dollar loans -- then it could provide affordable financial services for underserved families, and, at the same time, shore up its own financial footing. (The postal services in many other countries, it turns out, have taken steps in this direction and seen their earnings increase dramatically.)
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/elizab...b_4709485.html
USPS Payday and Car le Loans would be great
would be lower interest rates than the payday and car tiltle loan sharks, if USPS would offer them at all.
Sounds like a credit union of sorts.
They may as well do it.
If USPS banking is more available to poor people than CU's, then yes, do it.
The Repugs and financial sector will block it at conception.
The Repugs and corrupt, incompetent TBTF banks are trying to wound and close FCUs as compe ors by overturning an 80-year old tax exemption.
Here's how the banks respond to the tiniest threat to their retail banking, extractive oligopoly.
Big Banks Push To End Credit Unions’ Tax-Exempt Status
Cooperatively run credit unions used by 96 million Americans could lose their tax exempt status if Congress approves a proposal from big banks to tax the not-for-profit financial ins utions. Behind the push to impose a tax on credit unions is the American Bankers Association (ABA), an lobbyist organization representing the $13 trillion U.S. banking industry.
Credit unions have been around for decades, but have enjoyed a sharp increase in popularity in the wake of the Occupy Wall Street movement — when activists urged customers to open accounts with credit unions as a way to avoid fees for bank services as well as the profit imperative weighing on for-profit corporate banks. In four of the last five fiscal quarters, credit unions have gained at least 600,000 new members, pushing the total up to 2.7 million since 2012, according to a recent report by Credit Union magazine.
Big banks vs. credit unions
Despite controlling 94 percent of financial assets in the U.S., big banks have responded to the surging popularity in credit unions by turning to Congress, where they hope to pass a tax.
http://www.donttaxmycreditunion.org/...exempt-status/
The Post Office Banks on the Poor
PEOPLE like to complain about banks popping up like Starbucks on every corner these days. But in poor neighborhoods, the phenomenon is quite the opposite: Over the past couple of decades, the banks have pulled out.
Approximately 88 million people in the United States, or 28 percent of the population, have no bank account at all, or do have a bank account, but primarily rely on check-cashing storefronts, payday lenders, le lenders, or even pawnshops to meet their financial needs. And these lenders charge much more for their services than traditional banks.
The average annual income for an “unbanked” family is $25,500, and about 10 percent of that income, or $2,412, goes to fees and interest for gaining access to credit or other financial services.
But a possible solution has appeared, in the unlikely guise of the United States Postal Service. The unwieldy ins ution, which has essentially been self-funded since 1971, and has maxed out its $15 billion line of credit from the federal government, is in financial straits itself. But what it does have is infrastructure, with a post office in most ZIP codes, and a relationship with residents in every kind of neighborhood, from richest to poorest.
Last week, the office of the U.S.P.S. inspector general released a white paper noting the “huge market” represented by the population that is underserved by traditional banks, and proposing that the post office get into the business of providing financial services to “those whose needs are not being met.” (I wrote a paper years ago suggesting just such an idea.) Postal banking has a powerful advocate in Senator Elizabeth Warren, Democrat of Massachusetts, who has publicly supported the plan.
The U.S.P.S. — which already handles money orders for customers — envisions offering reloadable prepaid debit cards, mobile transactions, domestic and international money transfers, a Bitcoin exchange, and most significantly, small loans. It could offer credit at lower rates than fringe lenders do by taking advantage of economies of scale.
The post office has branches in many low-income neighborhoods that have long been deserted by commercial banks. And people at every level of society have a certain familiarity and comfort in the post office that they do not have in more formal banking ins utions — a problem that, as a 2011 study by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation demonstrated, can keep the poor from using even the banks that are willing to offer them services.
Many will oppose the idea of a governmental agency providing financial services. Camden R. Fine, chief executive of the Independent Community Bankers of America, has already called the post office proposal “the worst idea since the Ford Edsel.”
But the federal government already provides interest-free “financial services” to the largest banks (not to mention the recent bailout funds). And this is done under an implicit social contract: The state supports and insures the banking system, and in return, banks are to provide the general population with access to credit, loans and savings. But in reality, too many are left out.
It wasn’t always this way. In 1910, President William Howard Taft established the government-backed postal savings system for recent immigrants and the poor. It lasted until 1967. The government also supported and insured credit unions and savings-and-loans specifically created to provide credit to low-income earners.
But by the 1990s, there were essentially two forms of banking: regulated and insured mainstream banks to serve the needs of the wealthy and middle class, and a Wild West of unregulated payday lenders and check-cashing joints that answer the needs of the poor — at a price.
People need credit to increase their financial prospects — that’s the theory behind government backing of student loans and mortgages. The Latin root of the word “credit” is credere — to believe. But belief is something that mainstream lenders lack when it comes to assessing the creditworthiness of the poor. And yet establishing credit not only allows individual families and communities to grow wealth, but also allows our economy to do so. Everyone benefits.
There is, of course, a certain irony in the post office, cash-strapped and maxed out on credit, looking to elbow in on the business of check-cashing and payday-loan storefronts.
And while the U.S.P.S. white paper stresses that its own offerings, rates and fees would be “more affordable,” a note of alarm is raised when it highlights the potential bonanza that providing financial services to the financially underserved could yield, stating that the result could be “major new revenue for the Postal Service” estimated at $8.9 billion a year. It’s a plan that could indeed save the post office, which last year recorded a $1 billion operating loss.
In this potential transaction between an ins ution and a population that are both in need, it would be wise to look back a century ago, at the last time a similar experiment was conducted.
In 1913, the chief post office inspector, Carter Keene, declared that the postal savings system was not meant to yield a profit: “Its aim is infinitely higher and more important. Its mission is to encourage thrift and economy among all classes of citizens.” Any benefit to the post office’s bottom line should not come at the expense of those who can least afford it.
http://mobile.nytimes.com/2014/02/08...l?from=opinion
I don't think it will ever happen, not unless the federal government stops extorting money from the USPS, and lets them profit on it. Looks like another way top make them fail.
Elizabeth Warren's Postal Banking Idea Has Big Public Support, New Poll Finds
Many Americans say they would support the U.S. Postal Service expanding into basic banking and financial services and would sometimes use those services if they were available, according to a new HuffPost/YouGov poll.
Expanding post office services to include banking was recently explored in a report by the Postal Service inspector general, and is backed by Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D.-Mass.) as a way to bring affordable basic banking services to low-income neighborhoods. Those neighborhoods are often ignored by banks and served only by check cashers and payday lenders that charge high fees.
According to the new poll, 44 percent of Americans said they would favor the Postal Service offering basic financial services like bill-paying, check-cashing and small loans. Thirty-seven percent said they were opposed, and 19 percent said they weren't sure.
The survey also found that more Americans have a favorable opinion of the Postal Service than they do of banks, check cashers or payday lenders. Opinion of the Postal Service was about on par with that of credit unions.
A post office expansion into banking services would improve existing options, a plurality of Americans believe. The poll found people were more likely to say that a Postal Service expansion into basic financial services would provide healthy compe ion to existing services (47 percent) than say the post office would have an unfair advantage (17 percent).
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/0...n_4776767.html
10 Ways The Post Office Could Save the Economy and Change Our Lives
Ever since the inspector general of the U.S. Postal Service authored a white paper [3] endorsing the concept of postal banking, more advocates and policymakers have become intrigued. Postal banking [4] is actually an old idea [5]: Dozens of countries offer simple financial services through their posts, and here in America, Postal Savings Accounts served millions of customers from 1911-1967 (the post office still sells money orders today). But it could also fix a number of our current problems simultaneously, even ones you haven’t thought about. Here are 10 different applications of postal banking, in order from most to least obvious:
1) Financial inclusion for low-income Americans.The most recent data from the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation shows that about 10 million households are “unbanked,” with no access to traditional financial services. Another 24 million are “underbanked,” meaning they have a bank account but still use alternative services like check cashing stores, pawnbrokers or payday lenders. The unbanked and underbanked represent over one in four households in the U.S. In many cases they literally can’t find a bank in their communities; 93 percent of all bank branch closings since 2008 have come in ZIP codes where the average household income is below the median level. By offering basic financial services – an ATM card, an interest-bearing savings account, even potentially small loans – the Postal Service can give millions stable access to banking, a critical component of our modern society. Try renting a car, obtaining health insurance on healthcare.gov or even getting a job without a bank account.
2) Reducing inequality and boosting the economy. Unbanked and underbanked Americans pay a hefty price for their lack of access. According to the Postal Service IG report, the average household spends $2,412 a year on interest and fees for alternative financial services. This is about one-tenth of their gross income, going right into the corporate accounts of unscrupulous and predatory operations. If the post office can deliver these services at a dramatic discount, they could save families thousands of dollars, and drive the conglomerates that prey on these communities out of business. Not only does this fit with the regulatory imperative of protecting Americans from financial abuse, it gives them breathing room to pay for necessities, putting the money back into the economy. People who filed for bankruptcy in 2012 were just $26 a month short of meeting their expenses. Discounted financial services could fill that gap, lifting many Americans out of desperation and stretching their income.
3) Stabilizing the Postal Service. We should be careful with trying to balance the books of the post office on the backs of the working poor. But the good news is that the Postal Service’s finances are not as dire as advertised – most of the recent shortfall comes from them having to pre-fund retirement benefits [6] 75 years out, something no public agency or private business has to do – and the modest income earned from basic banking services can merely help keep them flush. It’s a far better alternative than mass layoffs [7] and branch closures at the nation’s second-largest civilian employer, which allows hundreds of thousands of families a union job and a ladder into the middle class. Post offices already have the critical physical infrastructure to serve these communities – 58 percent of their branches are in ZIP codes with one bank branch or fewer. Offering banking will ensure the Postal Service keeps those branches and survives long into the future.
4) A better way to deliver federal benefits. Did you know that Social Security benefits no longer get distributed via check? State and federal agencies, to save money and promote convenience, have started to deliver benefits through direct deposit, or for those without a bank account, through electronic benefits transfers (EBT) onto debit cards. Predictably, big banks pick up this business [8] and charge high fees for beneficiaries to access food stamps or unemployment insurance. With postal banking, federal benefits could get loaded onto Postal ATM Cards at no additional cost, saving the government and beneficiaries money. Moreover, the unbanked would have an easy way to access their benefits.
5) A savings vehicle for the poor.President Obama tried to address the problem of inadequate savings for retirement with myRA, a savings system deducted from paychecks that earns a modest rate of return without risk of loss. I’ve written [9] about how myRA doesn’t really do much to solve the retirement crisis. More important, myRA accounts over $15,000 must get rolled over into a Roth IRA, subjecting that money to the vicissitudes of the market and the Wall Street financial advisers who charge exorbitant fees for the privilege. The Postal Service could offer the exact same savings account as myRA, without having to roll it over. This at least promotes savings that could be used in an emergency or as a modest aid in retirement.
6) Bringing immigrants into society.Historical data shows that the old Postal Savings System was most popular with recent immigrants, who had experience doing their banking at postal branches in their countries. Currently, immigrants take advantage of the post office for money orders and “Dinero Seguro [10],” an electronic money transfer service to nine Latin American countries. Adding postal banking could really cater to these communities by hooking up with other global postal systems. The International Financial System of the Universal Postal Union includes over 60 countries, making it simple and cheap to transfer funds electronically from one country to another. International money transfers from the U.S. rose to $51 billion in 2012, and the Postal Service is well-positioned to facilitate this. Immigrants using a government agency could bring them closer into U.S. society and ease the hardships of our immigration system.
7) Preventing iden y fraud.The recent data breaches at Target have revealed a shocking truth [11] – America has the worst payment security system in the world, and as a result, over half of the world’s iden y theft happens here. Unlike most developed countries, U.S. credit and debit cards have a magnetic stripe, instead of the more secure “chip-and-PIN” system (where cards have a microchip in them, and customers have to use a PIN number at the point of sale). If you read the excuses from major banks [12] about why they haven’t upgraded this outdated system, you’ll see a lot of finger-pointing at retailers who don’t have the proper card readers. In reality, banks just don’t want to pay for the upgrade of issuing new cards and the customer service [13] of dealing with forgotten PIN numbers. The Postal Service, with no old debit cards to retire, could immediately use chip-and-PIN systems and force the upgrade the country needs.
8) Modernizing the payment system. Hey, forget credit and debit cards; that’s old technology. Countries like Kenya have successfully experimented [14] with mobile payments, making transferring money as simple as sending a text message. Benefiting from starting from scratch, the Postal Service could integrate accounts with mobile seamlessly, enabling convenient payments through smartphones for everything from utility bills to the corner store. Our current payment system is slow [15]; it takes days for a check or debit card transaction to clear when with mobile payments it could take minutes, and banks refuse to upgrade [16] the system (notice a pattern?). The Postal Service could serve as the backbone for a new system that would improve payments for individuals and small businesses.
9) Safeguarding personal data.Like every other business in America, banks sell your personal information to advertisers and use your data as a profit center. This is one way that predatory lenders target low-income communities, finding their leads through personal financial data. With postal banking, your information is likely to be protected [17] by the Privacy Act of 1974, which applies to all government agencies. This would be perhaps the first legitimate halt to the mass big data grab that infects practically everything we do these days, and it would help prevent deceptive credit practices by denying crooked businesses the information they need to target people.
10) Ending recessions. Truly. Postal banking would integrate well with the concept of giving everyone with a Social Security number an ATM account with the Federal Reserve [18], instead of intermediating it through a commercial bank. The physical ATMs could be at any of the 35,000 postal branches nationwide (or through their mobile-enabled postal account). Rajiv Sehti, an economics professor at Barnard College and Columbia University, explains [19] that this would allow the Fed to directly target economic downturns. When the economy lags, the Fed could place a few hundred dollars in everyone’s account, with the proviso that it gets spent immediately. That would offer an immediate and timely Keynesian stimulus, paid for by normal Fed operations (the Fed made $79.5 billion last year alone). Conducting monetary policy this way would do a lot more to help Main Street than the current quan ative easing, which raises asset prices and helps mostly the wealthy.
This menu of possibilities for postal banking makes it extremely attractive, along with the fact that, according to the inspector general report, the Postal Service may explore it under its existing authority, rather than having to hope for an act of Congress. The Postal Service Board of Governors [20] can begin this process tomorrow by starting some pilot programs. New Board of Governors nominee Vicki Kennedy [21] (Ted’s widow) can follow in her family’s footsteps by improving the lives of millions of ordinary Americans through postal banking, the Swiss army knife of public policy.
http://www.alternet.org/news-amp-pol...tter965373&t=6
Last edited by boutons_deux; 03-07-2014 at 05:44 PM.
LOL...
What a stupid article.
Did you know the Postal Service plans to increase revenues with Sunday deliveries?
I'm glad I never have to go to alternet because boutons reposts every damn article they ever put up.
If Congress Doesn’t Act In The Next Month, It Could Be The End Of The Postal Service As We Know It
If Congress does not pass legislation that would save the Postal Service from financial collapse before the end of its current session, the future of the country’s mail service will be in the hands of a senator who opposes government unions and thinks the Postal Service should be privatized.
In January, Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WI) is slated to take over as chairman of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, which oversees the federal workforce and the entire Postal Service. Johnson has said that the Postal Service should go through a bankruptcy process that would result in a downsized, private corporation that would lose the benefits of governmental oversight and regulation. It could also allow the revised en y to terminate or substantially modify its contracts, including its collective bargaining agreements with various postal unions.
Last year, Sens. Tom Carper (D-DE) and Tom Coburn (R-OK) introduced the Postal Reform Act of 2014 which would restructure the needless requirement that the agency pre-fund 75 years’ worth of employee health benefits, a demand no other businesses or ins utions face. The bill would also allow for a gradual end to Saturday mail service if financially necessary, as well as the eventual termination of door-to-door service, but would not mandate either of these steps.
http://thinkprogress.org/economy/201...ostal-service/
Looks like Repugs, having screwed USPS under dubya by the 75-year pension contributions, will finally destroy USPS, screw its employees and their pensions, and screw their stupid, ignorant, masochistic rural voters who use, and work for, rural USPS's a lot.
Just another example of inefficient government tbh.
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