Comment by rubyn00bie | Hacker News Reader

Comment by rubyn00bie | Hacker News Reader

A lot of this is manufactured bullshit; it's not losing shit (or shouldn't be). It's being bankrupted by absolutely fucking insane benefits requirements imposed on it in 2006.

From: https://ips-dc.org/how-congress-manufactured-a-postal-crisis...

> In 2006, Congress passed a law that imposed extraordinary costs on the U.S. Postal Service. The Postal Accountability and Enhancement Act (PAEA) required the USPS to create a $72 billion fund to pay for the cost of its post-retirement health care costs, 75 years into the future. This burden applies to no other federal agency or private corporation.

SEVENTY-FIVE YEARS INTO THE FUTURE. This shit would be laughed out the door at any corporation... or any entity that isn't literally trying to be destroyed for no reason.

Look at the actual balance sheet; most of the payments revolve around having to pay for retirement benefits, see labeled "ITEM 1. FINANCIAL STATEMENTS" for yourself: https://about.usps.com/what/financials/financial-conditions-.... The difference is is astonishing close to their loses.. I wonder why... Oh yeah, from the first link I posted:

> If the costs of this retiree health care mandate were removed from the USPS financial statements, the Post Office would have reported operating profits in each of the last six years.

This bullshit privatization push needs to end. Postal workers seem unhappy? No shit, they work somewhere that's being bankrupted for no reason. They're having to make budget cuts because of a manufactured problem. The public makes zero effort to be informed and then listens to shit like this...

Yeah, be stoked they don't hot shit on you porch everyday that's what we probably deserve leaving 'em high and dry like this.

If you like people, and don't think manufacture crisis are cool, call your senators and push this thing through: https://defazio.house.gov/media-center/press-releases/defazi...

It'd _literally_ fix the post office's solvency problem. Oh, also firing the asshole running it would be another stellar move.

> It'd _literally_ fix the post office's solvency problem. Oh, also firing the asshole running it would be another stellar move.

Exactly, and I'm also scared at how open the current administration is about trying to break the postal service right before a record mail-in election. Call it absentee voting fraud, then appoint a partisan postmaster to mix up the organization as much as possible and make changes intended to cause mail delays. Plus the comments about delaying the election. I thought that the election and literally the basics of our democracy are where this craziness would stop, but now it feels like the news I'm getting is from some third world dictatorship, not America. I don't know what will happen if (and hopefully when) he loses, but it won't be pretty.

Why do you think the USPS shouldn’t be pre-funding pensions? The fact that other organizations don’t do it is not much more than what-about-ism. Type any city or state into your favorite search engine, and follow it with “pension crisis.”

Maybe Congress rightfully saw that the USPS pension fund would be insolvent if they weren’t forced, by law, to properly fund it? Most public pensions in the US are insolvent.

People don’t seem to like it when we kick the financial can down the road. And people don’t seem to like it when we prepare.

> Why do you think the USPS shouldn’t be pre-funding pensions?

Cleat me be clear, I never said that; nor, did I say, that this is some sort of black and white dichotomy between prepaying and not-prepaying for pensions. I said this instance is undo burden for ANY organization. What workforce in the world retires, and then lives for 75 years? That's the only way that would be reasonable. So people are retiring at 40 and living to be 115 so often it's a financial burden on the post office? Or wait they're retiring at 93 and then living to be 168 by the millions?

> Maybe Congress rightfully saw that the USPS pension fund would be insolvent if they weren’t forced, by law, to properly fund it? Most public pensions in the US are insolvent.

No. What you're doing is making up some shit; posing it as a relevant or equal when it fact you have no idea. Don't do that. Either go look up the fucking facts and post them here and pwn me with reality like an adult or keep it to yourself. Do not play devil's advocate for asinine shit.

It is like you interjecting into a conversation on science to say, "well, maybe Newtown only gravity upside-down? Some photons are yellow."

> People don’t seem to like it when we kick the financial can down the road. And people don’t seem to like it when we prepare.

And concluding with "People don't seem to like it when science is right. And they don't seem to like when its wrong."

I'm not trying to be rude, but it almost feels like your post was made by GPT3.

I’m not going to continue to engage with a child that has an obvious anger problem. You should be banned from HN for this comment.

If you’re going to rage on the internet you should at least understand the topic. 75 years of medical expenses doesn’t mean 75 years for individual people.

> What workforce in the world retires, and then lives for 75 years?

It's clear you don't understand how the accounting works.

I checked the reference but I don't see the numbers.

For the 9 months ending in August 2020, $62 billion in operating expenses. Of which $3.495 billion is allocated to retiree health benefits. Overall net loss is $(7.374 billion)...even without the pre-funding requirements, we have a problemo?

We indeed do friend; they misled you too... gotta love deception through clever accounting, BOTH of those retiree health rows are going to the same fucking thing:

> Additionally, the PAEA established the Postal Service Retiree Health Benefits Fund ("PSRHBF") and mandated certain obligations for paying normal costs, the present value of the estimated retiree health benefits attributable to active employees' current year of service, and amortization payments for full prefunding of retiree health benefits. These prefunding obligations, described in greater detail below and in Note 10 - Health Benefits Plans, are unlike expenses imposed on most other federal entities or private-sector businesses that offer such benefits

If you combine the two rows you 5,143 (mil) + 3,495 (mil) for a total of... $8.6 billion; which, would be a profit for the year. And that's during COVID while inefficiencies are being introduced to try and worsen their service and abilities (like pointless budget cuts).

Pensions are something they will have to pay. You can't just not pay into it and say you're now making a profit. That's how you end up with the situation in Illinois or California

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