Rand Paul to rural Americans - F you

Initially I agreed with you but then I starting thinking aren’t we supposed to treat each other better? Make it a better board?

The Postal Service may need a bailout. But it's actually making tons of cash
By Chris Isidore, CNN Business
Updated 9:59 AM ET, Sat August 22, 2020

The financial problems have nothing to do with the expected surge in mail-in ballots for the election in November. And they are certainly not because of its contracts to handle delivery of Amazon (AMZN) packages, no matter what President Donald Trump claims about losses on those deliveries. Postal law, and investigations of those contracts, have confirmed that the USPS makes money on the contracts it has with Amazon and other major shippers.

The USPS booked positive cash flow of nearly $2 billion in the nine months ending June 30, up from $1.3 billion in the same period a year ago. It had positive average annual cash flow of $3 billion over the previous three fiscal years.

That positive cash flow came despite a large reported net losses — $7.5 billion the most recent nine months, up from a net loss of $5.9 billion in the year earlier period.
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Cash positive doesn't mean profitable

Cash flow and profits are not the same thing. Profitability factors in the costs of doing business, and in the case of the Postal Service, those costs are significant.

The biggest drag on its finances is a unique rule that requires the USPS to prepay for workers' retirement benefits for decades into the future. In 2006, Congress passed a law to require the the agency to pre-fund 75 years worth of retiree health care benefits in the span of about 10 years.
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It's true that no other unit of government or private company that provides retiree health care coverage has to make such pre-funding payments. And in recent years, the USPS has not made the required payment, citing a lack of available cash.

Taking charges for theoretical payments

Here's where it gets really absurd.

Even though the USPS hasn't been making those payments, it continues to book the theoretical cost as an expense — $16.8 billion since the start of the 2017 fiscal year. That accounts for most of the agency's reported losses.

Retirees are still covered because the USPS made payments in the past. As of September 30, 2019, the balance of the retiree health benefits fund was $92.2 billion, with interest on the holdings covering most of the actual premium costs it made.

The cost of retiree health care coverage is further inflated by the fact that only 74% of the nearly 500,000 retirees and their family members covered by those policies are fully enrolled in Medicare. Instead they use the USPS health care policies as their primary insurance, rather an as supplemental insurance.

Nearly all private sector and government employers that provide retiree health benefits require full participation in Medicare, said Megan Brennan, a former postmaster general, before a House committee last year.

If the USPS would require full Medicare participation, it would eliminate about 90% of the USPS unfunded retiree health care costs — about $33.5 billion — over 10 years, she told lawmakers.
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LOTS more at link:
www.cnn.com/2020/08/22/business/postal-service-losses-bailout/index.html

OH where is Rep Katie Porter.. sure hope she is in the HOUSE on Monday!!

You all have to listen carefully and take notes Monday... I have physical therapy Monday 12:20 - 2:30 (well that is the time I will be gone...including travel time!!)

I pay all but one bill online. I refuse to pay the gas co online at $3 a pop, including auto-pay. A check and stamp on their envelope cost me less then $.55. Who knows how much I paid for my forever stamps! Oh and I have to mail my rent check unless I can get someone to drop it off.

I still pay the trash company and water company via check. They don’t do online billing except with a credit card so I mail a check.

That is incorrect. My DH works for Social Security and very much does issue paper checks. He is also a vet and has received paper checks from the VA for appointments at least within the last year if not sooner.

So many have already. BUT, and this is the big but, due to cognitive dissonance (because they voted Trump in) they blame the Democrats for their financial and health woes.

They buy the crap that Fox News and Breitbart and Qanon feeds them about everything negative happening being the fault of the Dems, because that is psychologically easier to deal with than coming to terms with the fact that they voted into office someone who is destroying our democracy for his own ego and financial interests.