Quote:
Originally Posted by tucker6
Umm, apparently you do not know something which everyone who has gone past the 7th grade knows...
http://fortune.com/2015/03/27/us-postal-service/
American taxpayers subsidize the USPS at a rate that surpasses the costs associated with any Congressional mandate. He estimates that, all told, the subsidies and legal monopolies that Congress bestows upon the post office is worth $18 billion annually.
And stop with the "earned' comments. I go to the post office every now and again, and you guys certainly do NOT earn what you make. |
I'm talking about actual tax payer subsidies to the postal service. You, and Mr. Shapiro are talking about advantages. None of those are actual monetary payments, but lets look at each of his claims.
Laws that ban any other shipping service from delivering letters and packages directly to and residential and business mailboxes.
This true only if you use the word mailboxes rather than addresses. UPS cannot put a package in your mailbox, but it can leave it between your screen door and your door; it can leave it on your porch; it can ring your door bell. UPS and FedEx can both deliver time sensitive letters to your address. The only thing they cannot do is deliver regular mail.
Also, where does Shapiro get this $14b figure? Besides out of his rectum.
And why is his estimate any more accurate than the one made by the Postal Regulatory Commission. In case you don't know, the PRC is not particularly friendly to USPS. Maybe the reason USPS productivity gains are 0.7% compared to 2.5% for the others is because USPS is more efficient to begin with.
Tax Breaks. USPS is exempt from local property and real estate taxes as well as other taxes and fees.
Correct. All federal properties are. You've heard of the Constitution, right? You've heard of McCullough v Madison? That's the one that gives us the dictum, "The power to tax involves the power to destroy." The federal government and any of its aspects can not be subject to the whims of it's inferiors.
A word about parking tickets and other traffic violations. A postal truck will not get a parking ticket for parking in a no parking zone while delivering packages or picking up from a collection box; neither will a UPS or FedEx truck. This is a matter of law, but were it not the police are going to look the other way as long as you do not abuse the situation.
While it is true that postal vehicles can not be charged with traffic violation by local authorities, it is also true that every postal driver is strictly instructed to obey all traffic laws and if you die in a traffic accident, you stay dead.
A story that will upset you greatly. I was on my way home from work in my private vehicle. I was still in the town in which the PO I work at was located.
I had taken a different route home because I needed to stop at a store. Somehow I missed a stop sign and was pulled over. The cop who pulled me over had a reputation locally as a real hard nose. He was about to write the ticket when he looked at me and said, "Where do I know you from?" I told him that I was the window clerk at the Post Office and that he often came in there. He said oh yeah and told me to be more careful in the future.
Finally this nonsense about you go the Post Office once and again, Likes this proves anything. Do you go to the Post Office at three in the morning and watch them unload forty and fifty pound sacks from trucks. Do you watch them sort eighteen letters and eight flats a minute for two or three hours straight. You don't even know what a flat is. Do you walk with them five or six hours a day in freezing cold, blistering heat, pouring rain or snow.
TELL ME. WHAT DO YOU DO? WHAT IS YOUR JOB THAT GIVES YOU THE RIGHT TO JUDGE OTHERS? I eagerly await your reply but I don't expect I will ever get it.
ETA: I do all my grocery shopping at the same locally owned store. Sometimes I go in their and the checkout ladies are standing at their registers just waiting for the next customer. I never think that they are lazy bums stealing their pay checks. I understand that there will be many times when they will be extremely busy.
The difference is I don't need to put someone else to feel good about mayself
