printHow cool: the local awful postal workers, about whom I wrote in “Warning: Postal Worker Coming to A Clinic Near You,” are feeling the heat. Last I visited the enormous, lavish, postal compound nearby, the place felt like a furnace; like the hell hole it is. The air conditioning had been turned off (for budgetary reasons, related a devoted USPS customer).
According to a not-exactly news worthy report from the New York Times (the bankruptcy of the United States Postal Service is old stuff), this inhospitable haven for state workers is living “on the financial edge … 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.”
As is the case with all oink-sector enterprises,
… decades of contractual promises made to unionized workers, including no-layoff clauses, are increasing the post office’s costs. Labor represents 80 percent of the agency’s expenses, compared with 53 percent at United Parcel Service and 32 percent at FedEx, its two biggest private competitors. Postal workers also receive more generous health benefits than most other federal employees.
What do you know? At the same time that one of the many government-run outfits that is built on coercive, state-sponsored, unionized labor finds itself on the verge of financial collapse—the US president renews his vows to such a work force at a Labor-Day rally.
It would be cheaper to pay for Obama to stay on vacation for the rest of his thorougly forgettable term in office.
At what point does it dawn on the man that he’s a failure and needs to resign? But only if he takes Joe Biden with him.
From the President’s speech “We’ll give them a plan, and then we’ll say, do you want to create jobs? Then put our construction workers back to work rebuilding America.” Can anyone spell “CCC” FDR had them build the National Parks. Obama, the nation’s highways are to be the new restoration. Anyone want to guess which states will get the bulk of funding?
The catharsis is nigh.
There is no reason in 2011 America for a monopoly Postal Service run by the US Government. Perhaps there was a reason in 1776 but not now. I have to say, however, that my interactions with the postal service has been wonderful compared to my experiences at American airports by both the TSA and the employees of the airlines. I have not flown Southwest in many years but most of the other airlines appear to have people who were rejected by AEROFLOT (the old Soviet airline) for being too stupid and nasty. But given the “9/11 paranoia” that anyone getting in an argument with these morons is liable to imprisonment, I just try to be stoic about it – hell, if I don’t get to my destination, so be it!
The incestous relationship between the government employee unions and the politicos, specifically the Democrats, is a mutual excercise in back scratching. The unions, by hook or crook, get the politicians elected. The politicians bend over backwards to give the union sweetheart contracts. The unions then respond with huge donations to the Democrats. The taxpayer, with onbody in the equation to represent his interest pays thru the nose. The unions have evolved into a thuggish, arrogant mob because they have been coddled for so long they think they are entitled to drink the blood of the taxpayer. Obama, Biden et al. are right at home with their barbarians of the streets.