Comment by jdeibele | Hacker News Reader

Comment by jdeibele | Hacker News Reader

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Wow.

USPS continues to bleed money but that's due to the mandate from Congress about pre-funding pensions. That's a requirement that nobody else has - see the articles about the 3rd-largest coal company declaring bankruptcy and shedding its pension obligations.

Is always understaffed? Yeah, there are lines a lot of the time. So go to USPS.com if you can and buy postage online. Go to the offices that have ATM-like machines if you can't. My usual problem is that I have a letter that I don't want to send Priority Mail and I've gotten out of the habit of having 10 different amounts of postage labels.

Misplace the mail? I signed up for their service that sends me a picture of almost every piece of mail that gets delivered. The last problem with the mail that I can remember having was dropping off a check at the airport while leaving on a trip. The contractor suggested that mail there got extra inspection, which delayed it. I'm not sure that's right but I can see somebody dropping something "bad" in the mail right before they leave the city/state/country.

They're certainly not perfect and I bet it's not any more fun to work there than when "going postal" was a thing. But I'm pretty happy with USPS.

> USPS continues to bleed money but that's due to the mandate from Congress about pre-funding pensions. That's a requirement that nobody else has[.]

This is misinformation that unfortunately has become quite widely spread.

Private employers generally are required to pre-fund their pension obligations: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Employee_Retirement_Income_Sec.... FedEx and UPS both have around a 90% funded pension fund: https://www.investmentnews.com/article/20180509/FREE/1805099...; https://www.pionline.com/article/20190221/ONLINE/190229950/u....

What the 2006 postal reform legislation did is require the USPS to pre-fund its retiree health benefits as well. While it's technically true that private employers don't have that same requirement, that is only because their employees are eligible for Medicare. Like other private employers, FedEx and UPS, and their employees, pay the employer/employee Medicare taxes. Postal employees, by contrast, do not pay into Medicare and are not eligible for Medicare benefits.

There is some crazy idea out there that Congress somehow required the USPS to fund its employee health benefits to make government services look bad. That is complete nonsense. When the reforms were enacted, the postal service had a $75 billion unfunded liability for health benefits: https://taxfoundation.org/primer-postal-service-retiree-heal.... Congress saw the impending disaster, and (pretty much unanimously) voted to impose the funding requirement.

I think the "crazy idea" also stems from the PRC regulating price increases. From a consumer viewpoint, it makes sense to regulate prices, but - again - from a consumer viewpoint, I'll agree that the USPS delivers a service for a VERY competitive price. And contrary to joering2's comment, they do an amazing job at it (considering the sheer volume).

>USPS continues to bleed money but that's due to the mandate from Congress about pre-funding pensions. That's a requirement that nobody else has - see the articles about the 3rd-largest coal company declaring bankruptcy and shedding its pension obligations.

The USPS hasn't actually made those payments in years.

All that the USPS has to do is put aside enough money to pay for pension obligations they incur. That's not "pre-funding" anything. It's paying for an expense that the business incurs. If they can't do it then they're bankrupt and should be reorganized so that they don't incur expenses they can't pay. Coal companies going bankrupt and shedding pension obligations is exactly the thing that's trying to be avoided.

Non pre-funded pensions are absolute madness. Pension funds are going bankrupt left and right. They are built on the ridiculous premise that the fund’s investments will perform well or that the parent company will be making enough money to pay out anyway.

They should probably just switch to defined-contribution plans and abandon the pension program altogether. I imagine politics got in the way of that, and that pre-funding the pension is the compromise position.

The unusual pension funding requirement forced on the USPS might be an instance of: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Starve_the_beast

It might have that dual purpose, but I’d rather them have to properly fund their retiree healthcare and defined benefit pension expenses than be in the situation that most governments are in where today’s taxpayers get to pay for benefits earned in prior years.

Ideally, they would get rid of those retiree healthcare and defined benefit pension benefits and just pay their employees more in cash, and let them buy annuities if they want. That would make the whole operation far more transparent and get rid of possibilities of corruption and numbers games being played with these deferred pay agreements.

Perhaps. But any company who makes the claim of pensions or "we'll promise to pay you more later" should be legally required to store that in escrow.

So if/when they try their little bankruptcy schemes, it won't work.

I agree, at least for modern for-profit corporations. The USPS has a better track record than that class, is at least quasi-gov't, and, as a citizen, I'd be happy considering all USPS obligations backed by the full faith and credit of the US gov't.

I would disagree.

My wife and I will have different payouts for Social Security, because the younger have been stolen from. Every year that the federal govt adds to Social Security is one year less I get. And that matters to my housing, quality of food I eat, medical help, drugs I need, and basic quality of life.

https://www.ssa.gov/planners/retire/retirechart.html

I pay in the same percentage as older, yet they can retire earlier and get their money. And given my family proclivities of massive heart attacks in late 50s/early 60s, I'll see none of it. And I'm diabetic - this country cares little to none about health care... How many "supplements" will I need for medicare when I'm close to retirement age?

Where I'm sitting, I don't have that much to look forward to, given how much I've (forcefully) paid in. And I have little trust in the chuckleheads in office the last 20 years - since I've been able to vote.

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