The US Social Safety Net is not a ponzi scheme and it's not going to go away. If we had listened the Privatization proponents, did away with Social Security and everyone was invested in the Banks and stock market no one would have anything at all right now. The IRA/401k system is a farce for the vast majority of people here.

US Pension system in long time underwater. And it'll end in collapse. Same as Japanese one, btw.

Report on the state of Union Worker participation in the US work force.

http://www.bls.gov/news.release/union2.nr0.htm

Highlights from the 2012 data: --Public-sector workers had a union membership rate (35.9 percent) more than five times higher than that of private-sector workers (6.6 percent). (See table 3.) --Workers in education, training, and library occupations and in protective service occupations had the highest unionization rates, at 35.4 and 34.8 percent, respectively. (See table 3.) --Black workers were more likely to be union members than were white, Asian, or Hispanic workers. (See table 1.) --Among states, New York continued to have the highest union membership rate (23.2 percent), and North Carolina again had the lowest rate (2.9 percent). (See table 5.)

As I said before the Republicans want fewer Union Employees and have been working towards this goal for decades. They've been successful in the private-sector, but the last remaining stronghold is the public-sector and thus the reason they want the USPS to die. The USPS represents a huge portion of Union workers. Republican Governors have passed "Right To Work" laws which weaken Unions and have been highly successful. All of this means workers no longer have the power to fight for better wages or work conditions and as such those standards have fallen and worker salaries have remained flat for years while corporate profits have skyrocketed.

We don't have to kill the USPS in order to make it profitable. If that was the aim of the Republicans they could pass laws allowing the USPS to add new services, since in many rural areas customers would welcome the convenience of being able to take care of more than just getting postage at their local post office. As I said that's not the aim of the Republicans at all.

Another issue is that cutting jobs in the Public-sector has meant higher unemployment rates for Veterans and Blacks since the Government Jobs have been a haven for that segment of the workforce. Due to the fairness of the government hiring practices it has long been the one area that Blacks and Veterans weren't discriminated against and thus they could get good jobs. The same goes for Union Jobs in general. It had been a great equalizer against Private-sector bias.

Honestly, I haven't mailed a letter in probably 5+ years. Everything is online.

And think about it.. The USPS licensed The Simpsons for stamps and actually lost money.. The Simpsons. The most popular show in history and somehow the USPS lost money on the deal.

And pulled themselves up a bit? From -5.7Billion to -5.4Billion? Good job USPS, only 5.4Billion more to go before breaking even..

And the "pension" system is flawed to begin with. You don't pay anything into it but expect to get money out of it. The flaw is the same as any "Ponzi" or "Pyramid" scheme, that you need a continuous influx of new money in order for the previous investors to make any money. As the bulk amount of income shifts from being "new" money to paying retirees as the bulk of your workforce retires and your new workforce must downsize due to the service being rendered obsolete, then you stop getting new money to pay for the old retirees. So where does the money come from when you have no more revenue?

The government saw this coming a long time ago, that's why there is the IRA/401K system and even tax breaks for these systems. Because in these systems you invest your OWN money for retirement, not count on some future profit of the company to pay for you.

So making the USPS, who IS NOT funded by taxpayers but receives billions in continued bailouts and subsidies and still can't seem to make ends meet, pay for their own retirees ridiculous benefits is a "piece of shit?" UPS and FEDEX can make a PROFIT shipping packages, have some of the highest ratings by employees, pay some of the best wages and benefits for private companies and still offer retirement benefits, but the USPS can't seem to stop suckling the government teat and it's the fault of the "republicans" (nevermind that congress is a conglomeration of various political views and thus the "democrats" would have also needed to sign off on this measure..)? I actually think that forcing the USPS through FEHB shows everyone that it's incapable of making a balanced budget, especially for the future. FEHB makes the USPS pre-pay health care for pre-retirees. How is that a bad thing for the retirees? With an aging work force, and less and less revenue, where are these retirees going to get this money, if not from a pre-paid system? Are they just going to keep borrowing more and more forever? The post office is running a DEFICIT and has massive DEBT. You can't get blood from a stone and retirees won't get jack shit in the future if there is NO MONEY. Our government is BROKE. Our birth rate is going down. Our main group of taxpayers are starting to retire. Pretty soon there will be a LOT LESS tax revenue to keep giving to the USPS in return for shitty service and a whole lot of attitude.

The main problem is not "republicans" or even "democrats". It's that the service that the USPS provides is not important anymore but instead of scaling back or adapting like any real company would have done, they act like it's business as usual and keep handing out ridiculous pensions, benefits and pay for minimal useful work and they don't feel any pain because the government keeps handing them money without any real ramifications for not adapting to the times. If they were a true private company, they would have died a long time ago. Unfortunately for the taxpayer, there is still some kind of silly nostalgia over the postal service that keeps us from just letting it go.

I know it's North America but it really got the ball rolling for us to import cheap crap and export nothing.

If you look back to statistics it happened long time before NAFTA.

NAFTA is North American Free Trade Agreement, has no relation to Chinese products :-)

@vicharris

And? This bill is not cause of issues. Otherwise US goverment will pay all this money (read - print our of air).

Huge issues with retirement benefits are common for all companies.

@Aria

Fun thing is that both R & D have same owners. And all issues happening are just systematic issues.

The Republicans pushed that Health Care and Pension piece of shit through years ago and now scream and yell that it can't stay above water. Funny and sad at the same time.

Republicans have nothing to do here.