Trump: Postal Service must
charge Amazon more, or no loan
Associated Press,
by
Martin Crutsinger
&
Darlene Superville
Original Article
Posted By: Ribicon,
4/25/2020 12:59:56 PM
Washington—President Donald Trump said Friday that he won’t approve a $10 billion loan for the U.S. Postal Service unless the agency raises charges for Amazon and other big shippers to four to five times current rates.
“The Postal Service is a joke because they’re handing out packages for Amazon and other internet companies and every time they bring a package, they lose money on it,” Trump told reporters in the Oval Office. The president was responding to a question about reports his administration plans to force major changes in postal operations as the price for approving a $10 billion loan that was included in the government’s $2 trillion economic rescue package.
Reply 1 - Posted by:
zephyrgirl 4/25/2020 1:06:54 PM (No. 391297)
Trump is right.
54 people like this.
Reply 2 - Posted by:
3XALADY 4/25/2020 1:12:16 PM (No. 391301)
USPS must be losing money on something so it must be Amazon packages. I mailed 2 face masks that probably weighed ounces recently in an envelope, probably 4x6". Postage was $3.90. I told the lady I was glad I wasn't mailing something heavy. I guess the pensions are taking all the $$ off the top.
27 people like this.
Meanwhile, the Postmaster General, aged 50-something, wants to retire, presumably at cushy goobermint benefits. Anyone see anything wrong with this picture? Is anyone even paying attention to her while her organization runs at huge deficits?
26 people like this.
Reply 4 - Posted by:
Catherine 4/25/2020 1:25:47 PM (No. 391319)
We live near a distribution center. Ordered someone one night and got it mid-day the next day. Now, tho, my orders take over a week. This last one will take over two weeks. I remember when the Post Office used to post brag new that they had a surplus left over in their budget for that year. Then the feds took over - I think it was under Clinton.
13 people like this.
Reply 5 - Posted by:
The Remnants 4/25/2020 1:35:53 PM (No. 391329)
#1 Exactly, and then some. Of course, we know how China got back at us for standing up to them. We can only imagine what the Post Office would do if we stood up to them as well.
14 people like this.
Reply 6 - Posted by:
judy 4/25/2020 1:44:18 PM (No. 391340)
Obama gave Amazon a sweet deal. ....the PO is footing the bill.....
25 people like this.
Reply 7 - Posted by:
Mushroom 4/25/2020 2:05:21 PM (No. 391362)
One other item that hobbles the postal service is there is an agreement that local currency/rates must be accepted by the receiving service. SO, this is why China can ship so very cheaply to the US, while it cost us 10's of $ to go from one coast to the other. I believe someone was working to change that, but it fell off the radar around one of the impeachment scams.
15 people like this.
Reply 8 - Posted by:
earlybird 4/25/2020 2:08:21 PM (No. 391365)
I would be taking a good long look at the USPS pension plan. It is likely that the USPS headed downhill with the advent of unionization.
Retirement funding and payment defaults at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Postal_Service
20 people like this.
Reply 9 - Posted by:
Gallo3 4/25/2020 2:09:19 PM (No. 391366)
How about every Mass Transit ride- we lose between $12.50-$20. per. Plus our streets get the heck pounded out of them as the nearly always empty buses roll on and on...
10 people like this.
Reply 10 - Posted by:
Rumblehog 4/25/2020 2:22:54 PM (No. 391379)
Thank you Mr. President!
21 people like this.
Reply 11 - Posted by:
TJ54 4/25/2020 2:29:11 PM (No. 391386)
Hey, Bezos, is paying more patriotic?
17 people like this.
The U.S.P.S. has always had problems because they were, more or less, made a creature of the federal government by the Constitution. Its current problems result from it needing, by federal law, to maintain 75 years funding for its pension program. That is more than is required of any other organization, public or private. The law was passed as an attempt to get the U.S.P.S. to do away from a pension plan in favor of 401K plans, as most businesses have. Pension plans are only viable for businesses which are growing such that future employees generate enough revenue to pay the pensions of retired employees.
10 people like this.
Reply 13 - Posted by:
earlybird 4/25/2020 2:36:48 PM (No. 391394)
From April 13, 2018:
Amazon is giving the Postal Service a lifeline
The USPS is in rough shape.
Last year, it reported a net loss of $2.7 billion on $69.6 billion in revenue. The agency also has enormous costs for pensions and healthcare, as it is required to pre-fund retirees — a $6.9 billion payment it did not make at the end of last year.
The USPS has a monopoly on letter delivery, which it has long used to subsidize its parcel-delivery business. Now, those roles could reverse as the number of parcels shipped skyrockets and the number of letters sent plummets in the age of email and social media.
https://www.businessinsider.com/trump-amazon-post-office-deal-2018-4
The USPS had a lock on First Class mail, but that has been replaced by email. Still they keep raising the price. The USPS has competition for parcel mail. The USPS, since unionization, has picked up a huge pension debt that was considered to be a serious problem two years ago - and probably before that. The USPS was in trouble before Amazon. One has to wonder what they’d be doing if it weren’t for Amazon’s volume, price consideration or not.
Something to think about.
5 people like this.
Reply 14 - Posted by:
worried 4/25/2020 2:40:14 PM (No. 391396)
#8, what pension plan? My son works for the P.O. and he will only collect Social Security, plus what he puts in his 401K plan. They don't have a separate government pension.
Wikipedia is not a source to be trusted for information on many subjects.
12 people like this.
Reply 15 - Posted by:
Grounded 4/25/2020 2:40:24 PM (No. 391397)
I don't know how much "mail" is transported by FedEx, but it is a lot. Maybe the whole operation should be turned over to FedEx. At the least it would cease to be a financial black hole
8 people like this.
Reply 16 - Posted by:
MissGrits 4/25/2020 2:56:11 PM (No. 391409)
If it wasn’t for the first class letter monopoly the PO would have gone under a long time ago. Private business (UPS, FedEx and others) took packages away from the PO with faster, cheaper service. Privatize ALL the USPS! It will save the taxpayer a LOT of $$$ !
9 people like this.
Reply 17 - Posted by:
MISteve 4/25/2020 3:10:28 PM (No. 391415)
Four to five times the current rate is an opening offer. Amazon won't go for that. But they will agree to something more than they pay, now, since the optics are so bad ("Amazon responsible for Post Office's demise"). Amazon's shipping costs must be eating them alive. Combine this with an anti-China sentiment and Amazon doesn't look so good. Buy American! (You can tell which Amazon-listed products are from Red Chinese sellers - horrible English descriptions), LOL!
10 people like this.
Reply 18 - Posted by:
earlybird 4/25/2020 3:10:46 PM (No. 391416)
Re #14, from the USPS about employee benefits. See also the link at #13 and do a Search for USPS pension problems….
Retirement
The Postal Service participates in the federal retirement program, which provides a defined benefit (pension), as well as disability coverage. Eligibility is determined by your age and number of years of creditable service.
https://about.usps.com/careers/working-usps/benefits.htm
I don’t post junk.
11 people like this.
Reply 19 - Posted by:
earlybird 4/25/2020 3:14:22 PM (No. 391418)
Also re #14, here is the source link for the USPS pension information found at Wikipedia. Not everything at Wikipedia is questionable. Some is clearly sourced. Few may even know that let along follow the footnote links.
https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/PLAW-108publ18/pdf/PLAW-108publ18.pdf
7 people like this.
Reply 20 - Posted by:
DVC 4/25/2020 3:22:12 PM (No. 391423)
NO way that the taxpayers need to underwrite multibillionaire leftist Bezos' making even more money. If they don't make a profit on delivering Amazon packages....stop taking them or raise prices. Why is that so darned hard to grasp?
The PO is NOT a charity.
17 people like this.
Reply 21 - Posted by:
Mushroom 4/25/2020 3:39:03 PM (No. 391432)
And while the valley girl lectures us... USPS has from day one lost money on Amazon. The idea was to make it up in volume (only the government...) Local Postmaster was telling me this years ago, they were looking for an increase then, Amazon pulled a Walmart. Threatened to pull it all if the rates didn't go down or they got better service...Before that, had you EVER seen a USPS delivery on *Sunday*? Then the real knife. They built their own infrastructure and are trying to learn last mile. Kudos for doing it, but they sure stepped on a lot of toes on the way up.
Oh and FedEx handles all the airport to airport first class service and Priority mail. USPS drops it off at a FedEx serviced airport, and FedEx does the back bone. Don't forget USPS also handles some last mile for both FedEx and UPS.
10 people like this.
Reply 22 - Posted by:
2assume 4/25/2020 4:28:12 PM (No. 391454)
The only thing I know about the Post Office is that we must have it sooooo. There are private businesses doing the same job and making a profit. Let them do bulk of work. keep only
P. O. that are necessary. Let people rent mail boxes at P.O. or pick up their mail at P.O. Everything else can be automated. I am kinda stupid on the subject but I bet there are a lot of smart people who have really good ideas on how to update the obsolete and antiquated post offices
4 people like this.
Reply 23 - Posted by:
dolphin 4/25/2020 4:46:28 PM (No. 391465)
My letter carrier puts my mail in my mailbox sometimes as late as 8:30 p.m. When I quizzed him, he said that nobody will take the job and everybody was working double shifts (what does THAT cost?) and that morale was in the basement. The service continues to slide as the prices go up. Yes. Trump is what we need. I just hope he holds up through this crisis.
12 people like this.
Reply 24 - Posted by:
Bur Oak 4/25/2020 5:00:36 PM (No. 391473)
My letter carriers have always been nice people. If you go to the post office though, they act like they are doing you a favor by waiting on you. I've never understood why the PO charges rent for boxes in the PO. It cost a lot less to stick mail into a box in the PO than to home deliver it.
13 people like this.
Reply 25 - Posted by:
kdsils60 4/25/2020 6:15:52 PM (No. 391523)
OK... most of you don't know how this works, but I am an independent seller with Amazon. There are 1000's and 1000's of small businesses, part-time businesses on Amazon that operate in the order of a 3rd party, using Amazon software and following Amazon very strict selling rules. It used to be and still is... when you purchase something from Amazon, especially something used, it goes through a small seller like me who has to pay regular shipping prices or freight... Amazon merely assigns us a specific rate to a product, unless you are a professional or "big" seller and by paying monthly fees, you can set your own. For example, say I sell a toaster... the buyer pays the Amazon shipping rate (say $5.49)... but, they are buying my toaster and it may cost me $13.48 to ship it to Washington state - that is my tough luck... but the Post Office is getting $13.48, not Amazons shipping price of $5.49... in other words, I just lost 8 dollars in shipping... the Post Office didn't... I did! Those of us who have sold long know this and price things accordingly.
Now, I admit... not all Amazon businesses are like that, some can state their own shipping rates and, also know Amazon is loosing it's 3rd party sellers rapidly - this may be one reason for it. It is a mistake to think all Amazon is Bezos... it's millions of small and part time businesses across the country, like mine. Let me tell you, if you have a chance to buy from a small independent Amazon seller... those are the best!
8 people like this.
The post office has been losing money for years. No other operation will be allowed to do the same. I rent a post office box and the price keeps going up and up every year. They are saving money by not delivering my mail.
1 person likes this.
Reply 27 - Posted by:
Muguy 4/26/2020 9:57:01 AM (No. 392048)
Bezos and Musk have gotten rich in large part to the government help that has subsidized their enterprises over the years as they were picked to be the "winners" using YOUR tax dollars.
With the impending sale of 59 Post Offices that are in prime real estate locations with DiFi's husband's firm to rake in over $1 billion, the corruption continues...
0 people like this.
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Having ordinary postal customers underwrite Amazon’s shipping costs is very pro-business and patriotic, according to Jeff Bezos, who just expanded his mega-condo in NYC because he has more money than anyone could imagine. Never mind that the zombie Postal Service cannot possibly fulfill its pension obligations, and will soon come begging for a massive taxpayer bailout.