by Alan Cain » Mon 05 Sep 2011, 19:34:53
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Sixstrings', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', '[')b]Postal Service Is Nearing Default as Losses Mount
The United States Postal Service has long lived on the financial edge, but it has never been as close to the precipice as it is today: the agency is so low on cash that it will not be able to make a $5.5 billion payment due this month and may have to shut down entirely this winter unless Congress takes emergency action to stabilize its finances.
I wonder if that's a misprint, they surely don't have a $9 billion budget deficit every year. If so, just do the math.. in ten years that's a $90 billion debt. If their annual deficit is 9 bil, I wonder what their total debt is?
So anyhow.. looks like they need a bailout.. even after canceling sat delivery and laying off 120,000 employees they're still defaulting. What I don't get is.. why not just raise prices.. they're a darn monopoly, at least on junk mail and bills and letters from grandma. They could raise first class stamp to $1, a dollar to mail a letter sounds reasonable, and voila problem solved.
Increased costs to junk mail (business) and bills (small and large businesses) (consumers) and to family (consumers) equals increased costs of operation for homes and businesses, and thus expenses for government as well, equals inflationary pressure, accelerating QE3 and QE4, more layoffs and the cycle heats up more.
The shutdown of our oldest, most ubiquitous, and most valued employer of veterans (except for the war industry) is rather troubling. What will substitute on day 1 for the post office, as bills go out (or don't), and on day 30 and 120? The internet? It is not universal yet; in rural america it is old and slow, still. In my town we are the exception - a town in the middle of NOwhere, with 6000 people in a 20 mile radius, yet we have fiber to the home, wireless, dsl and dial up (uck, uck, uck) owing to our local public utility district and the tradition of rural electrical associations making a transition to tech to keep our area competitive globally. This is not normal.
The point of that was to accent the contrast between have data and have no data is very real in the USA, and rural folks are the place where the impact would be greatest (again).
Do the republicans and tea-baggers really intend to off (delete from the budget) anything they can that doesn't support the war machine?
Internal communications defines a geopolitical regime. cut the lines, cut the area off from the overlords.
Will the break-up of the postal service begin the break-up of the United States? It is a rather dramatic demonstration of impotence if the government does not support the mail system. And there is always some young stud to jump into the middle of a troubled relationship. It's what DNA does.
Lessee: The old South will rise again (sexual metaphor not deliberately intended, but it can stay), Mexico can HAVE Texas back AFAICare, and Southern California, Arizona, Utah and New Mexico too.
The New England states should consider Canada - join as a province. The middle Atlantic to the Mississippi River - call it New Merka; then the lower midwest - Kansas, Oklahoma, Nebraska - all that central field crop zone east of the 20" rainfall isohyet - what, "Grainland?"; the upper midwest could be New Industryland, or whatever. The pacific northwest would likely schism because of an enormous cultural difference, into the coasties, from San Francisco, CA to Seattle and up to Canada; and as a separate unit the eastern slopes of the Cascades through Montana bound into New Millenialland.
They (New Millenia) would require every citizen to have three guns (a pistol, a light gauge hunting weapon, and a battle rifle) and only militia members get to vote. No taxes on anyone - I think this was the Viking model; raiding quickly becomes necessary for economic intercourse, and an internal purge would occur to get the few remaining liberal pockets moved to the coast. Hmmm. There's a good novel in there. Dibs.
All because we let the post office die. Wasn't the postman the hero of some survivalist movie?
