Obama to announce pay freeze for federal workers

[bucs90]

Oh yeah. Right after the elections he cared.

Barack Obama is beginning his 2012 campaign right now. Look for more of this.

Which, btw, I support. Good move Obama. Whether it be political or common sense, you made the right move on this one.

 

[Revere]

Freeze Federal salaries at twice what private sector jobs pay?

Make record numbers of Federal employees earning six figures then call for austerity?

Oh, and they can still get raises, just not for "inflation."

 

[Harry Dresden]

There would still be "snail mail". It would just be delivered by FedEx, DHL, UPS, and whatever other companies form from the buying and selling of the assets of the bankrupt USPS.

Heck, you might have the same mailman just in a different uniform.

AND....FedEx, UPS, et al would raise the rates to high people would eventually stop using snail mail altogether. It would be a win-win-WIN!

Actually no.

Since they are in direct compatition, rates may even go down.

and then they will find as the PO has found....that to deliver mail at an affordable price....you will lose money.....if its privatised those living outside the city will be gauged for delivery......

 

[Ragnar]

There would still be "snail mail". It would just be delivered by FedEx, DHL, UPS, and whatever other companies form from the buying and selling of the assets of the bankrupt USPS.

Heck, you might have the same mailman just in a different uniform.

no you wouldnt....because none of those companies would deliver mail to the rural areas without charging an arm and a leg to do it.....which is one of the big reasons Congress is against privatizing it.......44 cents compared to 3-4 dollars for a letter....im sure those rural people will gladly pay that....and the UPS driver on my route has already told me that in one of their morning meetings that UPS and FED-X do not want any part of it because of the costs it would take to expand into that....and the possibility that it would not be profitable enough....AND if your going to deliver the mail,then their delivery people and installations would be scrutinized by the Postal Inspection Services...more expense....which now means you have someone making sure your doing everything by the rules and regulations Congress has set for delivering First Class Mail....there is a ton of expenses associated with this and a ton of headaches........and im sure the Teamsters will want more money for the people they represent.....and the Fed-X people will im sure will want more to do more work.....basically...easier said than done......

You don't just walk in and start chopping heads off willy nilly. I believe the term "phase out" was used or should have been. You do it bankruptcy style (and bankrupt is what the USPS is!) and start selling off the profitable portions first (or what would be profitable if the USPS pay scale was more in line with the private sector). You break the beast up and portion it out in an orderly manner, as should have been done with GM.

The market can find solutions for the rest be it turning a rural post office into a UPS store, tax breaks for reaching out to the harder to get places, deals with the paperboy or the farking pony express.

 

[Zoom-boing]

Bonuses are ok to get too.

In two years will they just give big-assed raises to make up for this?

 

[The T]

So Obama is now gonna ask for a federal pay freeze for two whole years. He's gonna save $2 billion. I mean, big whoop. (interruption) Twenty-eight billion? Yeah, if it lasts that long, that's my point, $28 billion, big whoop. Twenty-eight billion and he's got a deficit run up of one and a half trillion. Twenty-eight billion, we're supposed to be impressed by this? Sorry, not me. Especially since he's locking in pay raises for people, essentially pay raises for all these new hires. If I were one of these new hires and there's all this attention being paid to how bloated the workforce is getting and all of a sudden the president just announces, in effect, not a pay freeze but a guaranteed salary for whoever knows how many years I'd be celebrating. Obama's just hired all these new people and locked 'em in and now he's out there presenting this as some kind of great economic savings day with a two-year pay freeze.

SOURCE

____________________

Whoopie. We still have a monsterous deficit. I'd be more impressed with LAYOFFS.

 

[Harry Dresden]

AND....FedEx, UPS, et al would raise the rates to high people would eventually stop using snail mail altogether. It would be a win-win-WIN!

Actually no.

Since they are in direct compatition, rates may even go down.

True that, and they are far from the only players. DHL, CF, hell the Airlines would get more involved than they are now to stuff any free cargo space with paying customers. That's how capitalism spells "win".

Leaving aside that defending USPS (where the government has a monopoly on making the rules that the other team has to play by) in an era where despite that the privates are winning with one hand tied behind their backs and the USPS is bankrupt is crazy bone-headed.

yea DHL is great....before they ended their domestic deliveries....guess who was delivering their residential parcels because it wasnt cost effective for them to do it......and i love all you morons who are on the outside looking in,but yet you have it all figured out.....most of you people have no idea what goes on to move the US Mail....you guys think its so simple....that anyone can do it.....i sit here laughing at some of these posts....

 

[Revere]

Actually no.

Since they are in direct compatition, rates may even go down.

True that, and they are far from the only players. DHL, CF, hell the Airlines would get more involved than they are now to stuff any free cargo space with paying customers. That's how capitalism spells "win".

Leaving aside that defending USPS (where the government has a monopoly on making the rules that the other team has to play by) in an era where despite that the privates are winning with one hand tied behind their backs and the USPS is bankrupt is crazy bone-headed.

yea DHL is great....before they ended their domestic deliveries....guess who was delivering their residential parcels because it wasnt cost effective for them to do it......and i love all you morons who are on the outside looking in,but yet you have it all figured out.....most of you people have no idea what goes on to move the US Mail....you guys think its so simple....that anyone can do it.....i sit here laughing at some of these posts....

It's not simple, but if it's bleeding to death, what's it worth?

 

[txlonghorn]

Hope the GOP starts slicing and dicing in the Fed employee ranks.


Hell. They could get rid of half the Fed employees and who the hell would notice they were gone??

I have a queestion.....the USPS proposed saving billions every year by cancelling mail delivery service on Saturday. SOME Americans went ape shit. I personally could care less if they only delivered mail twice a week. Who's with me?

you might not care because you might only get a small amount of mail per week....but the businesses of this Country would care....80% of the mail coming off the OCR's are for the businesses of the Country.....many of those letters are either checks or info that the Company needs now...not twice a week...also there are medicines that are not supposed to be delayed....

OK...so business routes continue as scheduled. Many of them don't run on Saturday. But they could cut to a 3 day delivery of residential mail and that would make a big difference I would think.

 

[PixieStix]

The democrats are like spoiled rich kids with credit cards that doesn't care where the money comes from until mommy and daddy is tapped out, now they are looking anywhere they can to find pennies. How cool is that?

rightwingnuts can't make up their mind...

what are "democrats", spoiled rich kids, or lazy slugs living on the dole.

can't have it both ways.

nice troll though.

I made a few posts in this thread, and I am talking about congress and the administration. Nice troll dahling

 

[Harry Dresden]

The USPS worker is "overpaid" because the USPS is bankrupt and only exist in the 21st century because the government can lose money for decades off the sweat of the US taxpayer who is doing the same job with less security, benefits and sometimes pay in order to keep his federal brother on the payroll.

overpaid?....id love to see you put up a route and go out in a heavy rain with a good wind in cold weather and deliver it in the time they give ya.....and the only US tax payers doing my job is me and all the other carriers in the land......

 

[Harry Dresden]

they're not low paid, avg Fed worker now makes about 70 percent more than avg private sector worker, under Bush Fed employment and pay increased at a higher rate than private sector pay

70% more?.....where is this job at? .....

 

[Ragnar]

True that, and they are far from the only players. DHL, CF, hell the Airlines would get more involved than they are now to stuff any free cargo space with paying customers. That's how capitalism spells "win".

Leaving aside that defending USPS (where the government has a monopoly on making the rules that the other team has to play by) in an era where despite that the privates are winning with one hand tied behind their backs and the USPS is bankrupt is crazy bone-headed.

yea DHL is great....before they ended their domestic deliveries....guess who was delivering their residential parcels because it wasnt cost effective for them to do it......and i love all you morons who are on the outside looking in,but yet you have it all figured out.....most of you people have no idea what goes on to move the US Mail....you guys think its so simple....that anyone can do it.....i sit here laughing at some of these posts....

It's not simple, but if it's bleeding to death, what's it worth?

Yeah, well if Burger King was funded at the taxpayer trough and got to make all the rules about what is and is not a first class burger, told every other fast food outlet where they can build, who they can hire, what they can pay, what hours they can operate, how much they can charge, (and on and on) the fast food world would be a whole different beast.

Free enterprise will fill in the gaps wherever there is market demand for the good or service. But it can only do so if it is FREE. If there are still holes after that... let the USPS be a stop gap. It can do so, eventually at a tiny fraction of it's current bloated wasteful size.

 

[Ragnar]

The USPS worker is "overpaid" because the USPS is bankrupt and only exist in the 21st century because the government can lose money for decades off the sweat of the US taxpayer who is doing the same job with less security, benefits and sometimes pay in order to keep his federal brother on the payroll.

overpaid?....id love to see you put up a route and go out in a heavy rain with a good wind in cold weather and deliver it in the time they give ya.....and the only US tax payers doing my job is me and all the other carriers in the land......

With most of the crap that finds it's way to my box, I'd just as soon you lighten your load and save yourself a few trips. (and save me some trips to the trash)

 

[Harry Dresden]

You do it bankruptcy style (and bankrupt is what the USPS is!) and start selling off the profitable portions first (or what would be profitable if the USPS pay scale was more in line with the private sector).

since UPS drivers make a few dollars more an Hour than Letter Carriers.....whose pay scale is in or out of line?....

 

[Ragnar]

You do it bankruptcy style (and bankrupt is what the USPS is!) and start selling off the profitable portions first (or what would be profitable if the USPS pay scale was more in line with the private sector).

since UPS drivers make a few dollars more an Hour than Letter Carriers.....whose pay scale is in or out of line?....

In line with the free market? Impossible to say since there is no free market in mail delivery. Someone has a heavy thumb on the scale and it's not UPS. Given the above choice though, I'm going to go with the guy who's "company" is not bankrupt.

I think the Burger King analogy is pretty clear cut.

The whole point is finding spending cuts to get us out of our collective mess. The USPS was not my idea for the chopping block but it was a fair idea, so I ran with it.

 

[Harry Dresden]

True that, and they are far from the only players. DHL, CF, hell the Airlines would get more involved than they are now to stuff any free cargo space with paying customers. That's how capitalism spells "win".

Leaving aside that defending USPS (where the government has a monopoly on making the rules that the other team has to play by) in an era where despite that the privates are winning with one hand tied behind their backs and the USPS is bankrupt is crazy bone-headed.

yea DHL is great....before they ended their domestic deliveries....guess who was delivering their residential parcels because it wasnt cost effective for them to do it......and i love all you morons who are on the outside looking in,but yet you have it all figured out.....most of you people have no idea what goes on to move the US Mail....you guys think its so simple....that anyone can do it.....i sit here laughing at some of these posts....

It's not simple, but if it's bleeding to death, what's it worth?

if the post office did not have all those assholes in DC telling them what they can and cant do,guys who have no clue as to what goes on inside the place because they have never seen it up close and personal.....it would be a much better run place.....if the post office wants to do something to streamline their operations they have to go through 2-3 different Congressional Committees,..... than what ever is decided has to go through Congress and get the OK........this can take a few years.....in the meantime.....they bleed.........what kind of business can run like this?....if the PO was allowed to run like a business,and it had good managers.....UPS and Fed-X would be minor competitors and not as big as they are today....

 

[Harry Dresden]

I have a queestion.....the USPS proposed saving billions every year by cancelling mail delivery service on Saturday. SOME Americans went ape shit. I personally could care less if they only delivered mail twice a week. Who's with me?

you might not care because you might only get a small amount of mail per week....but the businesses of this Country would care....80% of the mail coming off the OCR's are for the businesses of the Country.....many of those letters are either checks or info that the Company needs now...not twice a week...also there are medicines that are not supposed to be delayed....

OK...so business routes continue as scheduled. Many of them don't run on Saturday. But they could cut to a 3 day delivery of residential mail and that would make a big difference I would think.

not when all that mail stops at your case (where you put your mail up).....then you would be dealing with 2-3 days worth of mail in one day....and the OT to get it out would nullify any savings....first class mail by federal decree is not supposed to be delayed by the way.....another problem they would have to deal with.........

 

[Meister]

you might not care because you might only get a small amount of mail per week....but the businesses of this Country would care....80% of the mail coming off the OCR's are for the businesses of the Country.....many of those letters are either checks or info that the Company needs now...not twice a week...also there are medicines that are not supposed to be delayed....

OK...so business routes continue as scheduled. Many of them don't run on Saturday. But they could cut to a 3 day delivery of residential mail and that would make a big difference I would think.

not when all that mail stops at your case (where you put your mail up).....then you would be dealing with 2-3 days worth of mail in one day....and the OT to get it out would nullify any savings....first class mail by federal decree is not supposed to be delayed by the way.....another problem they would have to deal with.........

Okay then, how about once a week?

 

[Harry Dresden]

Yeah, well if Burger King was funded at the taxpayer trough and got to make all the rules about what is and is not a first class burger, told every other fast food outlet where they can build, who they can hire, what they can pay, what hours they can operate, how much they can charge, (and on and on) the fast food world would be a whole different beast.

the PO does not set the rules up Rag......your Congress does.....and nobody tells UPS or Fed-X where they can build, who they can hire, what they can pay, what hours they can operate, or how much they can charge.......certaintly not the PO....