THE POSTMAN MAY NOT RING ONCE -- Just A Minute for 11-13-08

            Howdy…

 

            Will Rogers is reported to have said: “I don’t make jokes. I just watch the government and report the facts.”

 

            Today’s JUST A MINUTE is reporting on some of those facts. Since my Dad was a career postal worker – I know there are dedicated people in that service. And I commend them for it. Dad had to put up with a lot of seemingly needless bureaucracy – which is the way in which government agencies grow without a market place to give them needed correction.

 

            Can you believe out of every ten dollars that comes into the USPS via payment for postage and other fees… eighty percent of income goes for payroll? By comparison FedEX spends about five dollars of income – and somewhat less for UPS – and DHL is having a hard time keeping up. All of them are heavily unionized… but the private ones have the advantage of market correction of their practices. If they lose too much money somebody else gets to eat their lunch. Well… I’ll hold off on my rant about somebody getting between me and my employer – it makes for awkward situations – but in the private sector they can usually be resolved.

 

            In any case… I ran across this story in just one major paper. Where’s everybody else?  Asleep at the computer keyboard? It’s the public getting gouged – what’s happened to our ‘watchdog’ media – Been converted into lap dogs?  This is one of the major factors why the big three automakers want cheap money – they’ve been snookered.  Big Steel was in the same fix a few years back. They had been content to sit back and tell customers how much steel would cost – until the Japanese started swiping their barbed wire customers and the howls were heard in Washington – but the fight was on – and BIG STEEL LOST… that’s why Gary, Indiana and Bethlehem PA and other cities in the “rust belt” don’t do any more what they used to do so proficiently.

 

            There are a lot of stories out there that our ‘sweeheart’ BIG media people just don’t choose to cover. I don’t know why. We’ll talk about it more tomorrow.

 

            Cordially, IN HIM

 

            Jack

 

http://www.jebcovoice.net/audio/jama11-13-08.mp3

 

http://www.jebcovoice.net/scripts/jamt11-13-08.doc

 

 

“JUST A MINUTE”

THE POSTMAN MAY BE LAID OFF

          JUST A MINUTE: Ben Franklin – the first Postmaster General -- thought surely the government could run the Post Office at a profit; but even after 233 years as a government monopoly, the Federal Times reports: "Postmaster General John Potter told union leaders as many as 16,000 employees" [could be laid off]. Not right away of course due to union contracts.  Current losses are up to two billion.

          The problem is the Internet, UPS, FEDEX, and DHL. All of them spend much less on payroll. The Postal Service burns through the first eight out of every ten incoming dollars on salaries and benefits. With 685 thousand employees that’s a big problem -- one more on the plate of President-elect Obama. All but the lowest 16 thousand on the seniority list are covered by a no-layoff clause.

          Similar problems are faced by GM, Ford and Chrysler who have spent decades tied to foolish UAW contracts – that threaten their survival. The Investor’s Business Daily characterizes the US Postal Service as a “charity operated for the benefit of its employees.”

¨     I’m Jack Buttram

 (END)

 

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