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United States Postal Ponzi Scheme

Postmaster General Patrick Donahoe appeared before The Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs committee on Tuesday to inform the current wizards of Congress that the U.S. Postal Service is drowning in red ink. They will not be able to avoid a total default by the end of September if structural changes are not made immediately. I refer to the wizards of Congress as such, simply because it is none other than the U.S. Government that has caused this most recent “crisis” that threatens to shut down the USPS. In the words of the Postmaster General himself, we see glimpses of the big government intervention causing the collapse of  what was once a proud, viable U.S. Mail delivery system:

“The Postal Service is in a crisis today because it operates within a restrictive business model and has limited flexibility to respond to a changing marketplace,” To which he added, “We need the ability to operate more as a business does. This applies to the way we provide products and services, allocate resources, configure our retail, delivery and mail processing networks and manage our workforce.” (emphasis added)

Welcome to the world of big government regulations, over-bearing restrictions, forced race-based social engineering in hiring practices, and Government-sanctioned Union pension plans too big too fail, Mr. Donahoe. The wizards of Congress worked hard to bankrupt a U.S. Institution that has been a source of pride in the United States of America since Benjamin Franklin was named the first postmaster general in 1775.  It is also commonly referred to as “an independent agency of the United States Government.” So just what happened to this independent agency to put it on the brink of insolvency ? Big government overreach and meddling is what has happened here once again, proving the dangers of a too powerful government full of a corrupt, misguided bunch of misfits in Congress and their never ending pursuit to “fix things.” Once again the power-hungry bureaucracy of Washington D.C. has created a major crisis that they themselves are currently holding hearings in Congress in order to “fix” the USPS. This is the direct result of uniformed voters electing fake lawyers and assorted con men/women into positions of power within our government(s) that have never faced the reality of  actually working for a living in the private sector.

While it is true that the volume of mail the USPS handles due to the current recession and the evolution of the Internet email system resulted in decreases in profits, there are two recent revelations that pushed this situation into the government favored major serious crisis mode:

Again, I refer to P.G. Donohoe’s statements to congress on Tuesday:

“Without legislative change this year, the Postal Service faces default, as available liquidity at the end of this month will be insufficient to meet our financial obligations. Even our unavoidable default on the required (by Congress) $5.5 billion RHB, ( pre-paying retirement health benefits to Union members) pre-payment and the suspension of our employer contribution to the defined benefit portion of the Federal Employees’ Retirement System (FERS) will not stave off financial disaster,” Donahoe said. “After reimbursing the Department of Labor (DOL) $1.3 billion for workers’ compensation payments in October 2011, we will have liquidity equal to approximately one week’s operating expenses. Foregoing the RHB pre-payment this year, without fundamental changes in the funding schedule, will likely only forestall insolvency until this time next year.” ( emphasis added)

Mr. Donahoe is not asking for a direct taxpayer bailout here, like the Union vote-buying, pay for play schemes that have become standard operational procedures in DC today. Instead, Mr. Donahoe would like the return of 6.9 billion USPS dollars in overpayment to the the Federal Employees Retirement System the government has collected from them this year alone. Billions in over payments? Where is this money going? While researching the current USPS Collective Bargaining Agreement that was signed in May of this year, these huge over-payments seems to be a pattern. From the USPS CBA announcement page linked in previous sentence we see some astounding truths:

“Independent actuarial studies have concluded that as a result of improper funding formulas, the USPS has overpaid the Civil Service Retirement System (CSRS) by $50 billion to $75 billion. Overpayments to the Federal Employees Retirement System (FERS) are estimated at $6.9 billion.” ( emphasis added)

Wouldn’t the repayment of all those billions of dollars in over-payments avoid the crisis at USPS is currently facing immediately? A better question would be, “ is the United States Government trying to bankrupt the USPS to facilitate a complete takeover ?”  The evidence above detailing the government’s involvement in pushing the USPS to the point of default certainly points in that direction.

This brings us to the reason for the title of this article containing the words Ponzi Scheme.By definition, a ponzi scheme, according to Answers.com  is defined as : A fraud disguised as an investment opportunity, in which initial investors and the perpetrators of the fraud are paid out of funds of later investors who lose all funds invested.

There are many forms of investments that can result in Ponzi schemes enriching the original investors at the expense of the later investors. In the case of the USPS bankruptcy, we see the workers investing decades of work,( paying into the scheme) for a promised payment ( retirement) that may or may not be there for them when they retire. Exploding Union pension and health-care costs for millions of retirees will, in effect result in the latest investors having their initial investment, (a pension paid for with decades of work) stolen from them. There simply will not be enough money to pay the USPS pensions that thousands of workers have paid into and invested their hard work into.  Without reforms in labor practices and innovative initiatives in how they do business to increase revenue, the ponzi scheme of the big government regulators and mathematically challenged legislators that have railroaded the USPS into bankruptcy will eventually collapse like a house of cards. Unless of course, Congress uses YOUR money to bail out and completely take over the USPS.

To pay for the USPS crisis that the wizards of Congress have created, somehow, some way, they will eventually have to TAX the people more. Every major money-making entity in America today has been undermined and attacked by the big government nanny-state worshipers, from the Auto companies, to big banks, to the housing mortgage sector, to the energy sector, to the water rights, to stealing Social Security funding for other Congressional ponzi schemes, right up to the point that they actually want to charge us for the air we breathe through fake climate change/ cap and trade schemes.  Big government has put the once proud USPS on the brink of insolvency, and with just one more bailout they intend to finish it off. Due directly to government regulation and incompetence the once reliable USPS mail delivery system has now become the butt of more government failure jokes.  In the end the nasty joke is on the people who willingly pay for big government  ponzi schemes where people are taxed and robbed at an ever-increased rate, and that will result in the now prevalent reduction in the freedom from tyranny that made America the land of the free for over 200 years. Wake up people.

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One Comment

  1. Very good article. This statement made by the Post Master General echos the point I have made all along on similar threads… “The Postal Service is in a crisis today because it operates within a restrictive business model and has limited flexibility to respond to a changing marketplace,” To which he added, “We need the ability to operate more as a business does.”

    That discredits the sorry excuse by many who seek to blame the internet for USPS revenue declines, when in fact they have been unable to keep up with advancing technology, for one reason or another.

    Something they could have done long ago was set up and operate a MoTo system designed for consumer use. Why they haven’t is now clear.

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