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Mail delays hit Philadelphia residents, short staffed USPS struggles to keep up

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Re: Mail delays hit Philadelphia residents, short staffed USPS struggles to keep up

#211

Post by mschuster91 »

js2 wrote: post #202
alextheparrot wrote: post #26

This is problematic to voting in the same way closing polling sites is, framed as cost cutting or inefficiency reduction with the intention of reducing access to a subset of the population. This is just frustration, but the fact that we could pass a massive defense bill (again, I know), but are unable to fund basic services shows the integrity of our government. Moreover, it shows the culpability of most of the elect…

I don't like to leave political comments here, but this gets my goad: > it shows the culpability of most of the elected officials, from both parties. The "both parties" remark drives me crazy, as if they are equally culpable in how we got to today, or equally culpable in their current leadership of America, so let's just back up for a moment. No Democratic president has won a majority of the white vote since 1964. Th…

> And then, Cass thinks, Republicans will face a choice: to return to a “pre-Trump” consensus, or to build a “post-Trump future” — one that, he hopes, will prevent more Trump-like politicians from rising.

There's also a third option: double down on Trumpism / Tea Party politics and voter suppression/manipulation. Even with the current crisis and Trump being essentially a proto-fascist, he has a 41% approval rating. More than many Western conservative or outright alt-right/fascist parties enjoy.

Re: Mail delays hit Philadelphia residents, short staffed USPS struggles to keep up

#212

Post by minerjoe »

mike_h wrote: post #31

This is a critical threat to democracy given the circumstances of the upcoming election.

What democracy? The USA? You must be pulling my leg, no?

A "democracy" would somehow have policies that align with the needs of their constituents, and by "constituents" I'm not referring to the so called "elite".

Re: Mail delays hit Philadelphia residents, short staffed USPS struggles to keep up

#213

Post by Simulacra »

chillwaves wrote: post #205
jb775 wrote: post #190

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> by preventing members of the other party from voting This is so absurdly dramatic. Just about everything is back open and ppl agree that wearing a mask basically removes all risk. If ppl want to vote, they can get off their ass and go vote. And from a security standpoint, how can you say this with a straight face? Some of the hardest modern struggles in the tech industry revolve around security...and you're over he…

You will need to find some evidence of voter fraud for mail in ballots. Many states have it as an option and it hasn't happened. The military regularly votes by mail and it hasn't happened. It's funny you open your reply about "absurdly dramatic" then lay an equally absurd claim about vote-by-mail having a problem with fraud. Your reply also conveniently ignores the historical pattern of voter suppression coming from…

But the military I think we can trust more than the Postal Service, every time we hear of a postal employee destroying or throwing away mail should be a significant enough reason that the agency is simply not ready to take this on. Maybe at the next election, maybe with a significantly more funding, transparency, and security, but not now. Mail in voting would be great, but not now. It’s far too dangerous.

Re: Mail delays hit Philadelphia residents, short staffed USPS struggles to keep up

#214

Post by dane-pgp »

minerjoe wrote: post #188
graeme wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This would be more credible if US in person voting didn’t often involve electronic voting machines with closed source software, no paper trail, and proven exploits. That’s what mail in voting compares to.

I voted in the first election in the US to ever use the Dibold [1] [2] machines, in Atlanta Georgia. It was obvious to anyone with a single honest neuron that there was no way to trust these machines. I've never voted since. There is no point in pretending like the system has credibility or accountability. [1] https://columbusfreepress.com/article/diebold-indicted-its-s... [2] https://whowhatwhy.org/2020/05/27/touchs…

I didn't downvote you, but I suspect that some people reacted negatively to your strategy of "don't vote, then the people with power will feel so embarrassed at the lack of credibility of the system that they will work to regain people's trust".

Also, if the comment above is your "toned down" wording, I'm glad I didn't read the original version, or I probably would have downvoted you.

Re: Mail delays hit Philadelphia residents, short staffed USPS struggles to keep up

#215

Post by Simulacra »

sixstringtheory wrote: post #144
missedthecue wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The simplest argument against government run services is that eventually, the people you don't like will be in charge of them

The simplest counterpoint to this is that government allows accountability. You will have those same people you don’t like running private enterprise, but CEOs have much longer terms than postmasters general.

I disagree that government allows accountability, exhibit one: TSA.

Re: Mail delays hit Philadelphia residents, short staffed USPS struggles to keep up

#216

Post by throwaway2048 »

scrollbar wrote: post #158
olliej wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You mean the trump appointed anti-usps sycophant? That is significantly invested in private usps competitors right? :-/

Not sure why this comment is downvoted, seems pretty accurate https://www.salon.com/2020/05/07/top-trump-donor-who-gave-mo...

Because any suggestion that its the republicans behind political malfeasance on HN quickly gets down voted, you are only permitted to talk about "congress" or "the administration" in abstract.

Re: Mail delays hit Philadelphia residents, short staffed USPS struggles to keep up

#217

Post by dane-pgp »

refurb wrote: post #83
ethanbond wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Republicans. It is Republicans who think more people voting means they will lose. Now is a time to be absolutely frank and direct with our words and our actions. Our democracy is not invincible. It is not inevitable. It is teetering on the brink and if it falls, there is absolutely no guarantee that it will recover. There is exactly one party who is trying to undermine the most basic principle of our democracy, and t…

Hate to break it to you, but it’s more complicated than that. You may want to do some reading from the other side, you sound like you’re parroting Democratic talking points. NYTimes disagrees with you that higher turnout always helps the Democrats. https://www.nytimes.com/2019/07/15/upshot/2020-election-turn... Typically increased turnout helps the Democrats, but that’s not necessarily true now.

> NYTimes disagrees with you that higher turnout always helps the Democrats.

Well maybe Trump doesn't read the NYTimes:

"Trump says Republicans would ‘never’ be elected again if it was easier to vote"

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/mar/30/trump-republ...

Re: Mail delays hit Philadelphia residents, short staffed USPS struggles to keep up

#218

Post by addicted »

Whatever USPS’s long term issues may be, is the middle of a pandemic the right time to “resolve” it?

Is depriving people of medicines and mail and making them wait weeks so they receive urgent communications and packages the right solution right now?

Wouldn’t it make far more sense to put in the short term Money during an emergency and try and figure out the long term solution afterwards?

Unless, of course, your goal Is a Hail Mary to cause chaos and confusion so you might win an otherwise increasingly unwinnable Election.

Re: Mail delays hit Philadelphia residents, short staffed USPS struggles to keep up

#219

Post by jellicle »

lotsofpulp wrote: post #101
enraged_camel wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> Retirement benefits should be funded as they are accrued. That is not the problem. No, that really is the problem. Prefunding pension liabilities is something that literally no company or federal agency ever does, for obvious reasons.

I don’t know what this “prefunding” word means, but the USPS was only required to save for accrued benefits. Which every non governmental entity is required to do in the US due to ERISA and PPA 2006. https://www.cnbc.com/2011/10/24/the-truth-about-the-post-off... > Although accounting rules require the postal service to calculate future liabilities, including those for projected future employees, the law only require…

The point is that on the day that the USPS hires a 20-year-old employee they immediately need to set aside money for this worker's healthcare at age 90, which is an astronomical sum (as projections of future healthcare costs are inevitably astronomical).

And no, no private entity in the US is required to prefund retiree health benefits.

Re: Mail delays hit Philadelphia residents, short staffed USPS struggles to keep up

#220

Post by callmeal »

isoskeles wrote: post #143
callmeal wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

If we're disregarding "congress" and "administration", I'm not sure how you propose this is a "Republican" problem at all. Republicans where? Republican... citizens? Republican postal workers? Which Republicans have caused USPS to has a history of financial issues? Just from this graph, it looks like since 1960, the only time they ran a surplus was 1994 - 2004: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/49/USPS…

>Which Republicans have caused USPS to has a history of financial issues?

The ones who in 2006 forced the USPS to pre-fund their retirement obligations.

https://about.usps.com/who-we-are/financials/annual-reports/...

>>Unlike any other public or private entity, under a 2006 law, the U.S. Postal Service must pre-fund retiree health benefits. We must pay today for benefits that will not be paid out until some future date. Other federal agencies and most private sector companies use a “pay-as-you-go” system, by which the entity pays premiums as they are billed. Shifting to such a system would equate to an average of $5.65 billion in additional cash flow per year through 2016, and save the Postal Service an estimated $50 billion over the next ten years. With the announcement of our Action Plan in March, we began laying the foundation for change, requesting that Congress restructure this obligation. >> >>The pre-funding requirement, as it currently stands, contributes significantly to postal losses. Under current law, the Postal Service must follow a mandated pre-funding schedule of $5.5 billion to $5.8 billion per year through 2016.

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