Visit NBCNews.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy
Last night I was thinking about writing a post about this (As I have in the past), but then I saw Ed Schultz essentially explode on the air and realized that nothing I could write would match his passion and justified outrage, so I decided that you needed to hear it from him instead.I often find Schultz a little bombastic for my tastes, but on this issue I am with him 100 percent.
He can get loud and abrasive sometimes but I urge you to listen to what he says, because the Republican's plan to privatize government services is certainly not limited to just the post office of even our public school system, they want to make EVERYTHING to be for profit only.
And this makes me livid. I own a small business and I live in rural Central Oregon. If a supplier only ships FedEx, I find a new supplier. FedEx only comes here ONE time a week! UPS comes every day, Monday-Friday, and our driver is great, but rural America NEEDS the post office. I still do invoicing via snail mail. My customers prefer a paper invoice. Write your representatives...America NEEDS the post office!!!
ReplyDeleteYou CHOOSE to do invoicing via snail mail. Bad business decision. Bad environmental decision. If YOUR CUSTOMERS prefer it, then they need a surcharge for such a service.
DeleteTOTES disagree with you on this one, Gryphen. Once upon a time, mail was delivered twice a day. Bet their was the same hue and cry when they went to once, with he advent of the telephone.
DeleteI cannot remember the last time I received a hand signed (let alone handwritten) personal piece of mail, which I pick up a few times per week at my secure P.O. box. I do not feel compelled to subsidize the wasteful bulk mail advertising industry.
@11:38 - Just because you don't get snail mail doesn't mean it's the same for all of us. Many of us DO get snail letters, cards, notes, postcards. And bulk mail is only one part of the equation - that's a rather reductive, narrow look at the totality of the issues. Did you play the clip from Ed?
Delete11:38 - did you watch the video? we do not subsidize the postal service. their revenue is generated by package delivery and stamp fees. The USPS receives NO TAX DOLLARS at all.
Delete@11:34 - I CHOOSE to keep my customers happy. And, frankly, I do what is customary and expected in my business area. I want to keep their business since it's how I make my living.
DeleteI called my Congress person yesterday and Wrote
DeletePOTUS via WhiteHouse!
I am so fucking sick at these fucking bastards fucking up something that has been working since the Wild West days! Poney express=USPS!
The mail person does much more than "deliver the mail" Where I live he looks and checks in if someone he knows is elderly hasn't picked up their mail...I'm fucking outraged and tweeted this out yesterday!
Hardly any comments.
But if G said "Sarah Palin says..." no mail on Sat this would be full of comments.
Like Ed says Where's the fucking outrage?
Soon it will be only mail 3 days a week then
Oh Fed Ex bringing the mail. Do YOU KNOW HOW FUCKED UP FED EX IS?
THEY PAY THEIR WORKERS BY THE PIECE!
UNLESS YOU TAKE THEM TO LABOR COURT ITS LEGAL. EXCEPT FOR THE EXPRESS FEDEX WHO HAVE A UNION.
Anonymous11:34 AM
DeleteYou CHOOSE to do invoicing via snail mail. Bad business decision. Bad environmental decision. If YOUR CUSTOMERS prefer it, then they need a surcharge for such a service.
******
Not everyone has a computer! Especially the elderly! And yes, I remember when we use to get mail twice a day also!
Seems like a dream, I was just a child.
Anonymous11:38 AM
DeleteI can remember the last time I got a package from a friend, this week via USPS.
I think G can say the same too :)
I'm fucking OUTRAGED at this Republican Bullshit!
So sorry you don't have friends to send you things in the mail.
Having been a victim of the largest(membership wise)union busting scheme in history,(the breakup of AT&T)I can say this has been an ongoing crusade since the 1980's.This would probably eclipse that and set labor back 80 years......just where some want it.
ReplyDeleteTHANK YOU, Gryphen! I saw this yesterday. I called my congressman and 2 senators. When I phoned, I asked their assistance if they wanted to hear all my reasons. Much to my surprise, they did! The only thing not covered in this rant exactly is the delivery of vote-by-mail or absentee ballots: do you really want FedEx in charge of delivering your vote?
ReplyDeletePeople, THE TIME IS NOW to let your voices be heard on this. What the PMG is doing is ILLEGAL (Congress is the only one to change delivery skeds) but if we don't speak up, it will just slide on by!
Yes, we can modernize the post office for the 21st century but slow death to ensure privatization isn't the answer. TAKE AWAY THE 75-YEAR PAY IN ADVANCE 2006 poison pill put on there by Congress!!!!! We need more jobs, not less, at this time!!!!
re: Anonymous 11:24 am " People, THE TIME IS NOW to let your voices be heard on this. What the PMG is doing is ILLEGAL (Congress is the only one to change delivery skeds) but if we don't speak up, it will just slide on by!"
DeleteThe lame duck 2006 Republican-controlled Congress passed legislation designed to destroy the Postal Workers Union and to try to move mail delivery toward privatize mail delivery. By forcing the Postal Service to pre-fund 75 years of health care and pension obligations in 10 years was an effort to destroy the unions.
P.S. The Postmaster DOES NOT MAKE CHANGES without the approval of Congress. So direct your outrage where it belongs.
P.S. The Postmaster DOES NOT MAKE CHANGES without the approval of Congress. So direct your outrage where it belongs.
Delete******
Yes! Its the "Do Nothing Congress" has nothing to do with the post office itself.
It is amazing to me how they are selling this issue to the American people when Congress was the culprit. Corrupt bastards - beginning w/Issa! They want to privatize - nothing more and nothing less. Cost jobs and increase costs to the people across the nation.
ReplyDeleteThey need to be fired in D.C. and responsible people put in place that actually represent us!
If the USPS is indeed a "private" entity, what right does Congress have to "command" them to prepay their pensions ANY number of years in advance? Since when does Congress get to tell private businesses how to run their business?
ReplyDeleteLetter writing is an art. My son, who studied under a Nobel Peace Prize winner in Chemistry, got me interested in fountain pens. No pressure while you write. It´s like painting words on the paper.
ReplyDeleteEd Schultz may be bombastic, but I love this rant.
And this, my fellow Americans, is just another GOP attack on an American National Treasure.
It will backfire.
One does not fuck with Mayberry, RFD!
And this, my fellow Americans, is just another GOP attack on an American National Treasure.
DeleteIt will backfire.
One does not fuck with Mayberry, RFD!
****
Love it, especially the last sentence!
A big part of the problem is that Mayberry, RFD keeps voting for the people who have no interest in their well being.
DeleteEverything Ed said is 100% correct. The post office does not receive tax money. Privatization of our postal service will not help to further the economic interests of the middle class. We need to unshackle the postal system and let it be modernized for the future by eliminating the ridiculous 75 year pension rule. I thought the gop was all about "free markets."
ReplyDeleteWant to save taxpayers money?
ReplyDeleteHow about having political parties and political candidates nominate people who are electable and not ones whose career has been based on scams and deceits.
How much money, resources and time was used to promote and deceive the American public that Sarah Palin is qualified to be an old man's ailing heartbeat away from the most powerful post in our country?
Taking away 8 hours from a postal workers is the least of America's problem. Nominating unqualified con artists to be vice president of the United States of America is our greatest concern and that is why John McCain should be made to answer to the American people why he picked Sarah Palin to be his vp running mate.
John McCain feels that being governor of the smallest populated state of the union for a little bit over a year is more than enough for a small town beauty pageant winner to be vice president of the most powerful country in the world.
DeleteBoy, Ed is behind the curve on this one! This is old news. It was made public months ago, maybe more than a year ago, that the post office was the only institution being made to pre-fund their retirement.
ReplyDeleteSorry Ed, you're all wet on this.
ReplyDeleteThe PO's business model is to waste our forests and fill up our landfills by encouraging the distribution of junk mail. Come on, when did you throw out less than 90% of the mail you get in any given week? Do you really care if that junk mail doesn't come til Monday, so you can throw it out then? Times are changing, and so must the PO. Ed and others kept harping on how people will be SO upset they can't get their Netflix deliveries on Saturday ... really? Breaking news: Netflix wants OUT of the DVD-by-mail business. Soc Sec checks that would come on Saturday can't be deposited until Monday anyway. And more breaking news: SS payments are almost all direct-deposit now.
And yes the PO needs to pre-fund its pension plan. It already has 200,000 fewer workers than it did just 5 years ago, and employment will continue to drop. There won't be enough workers to fund retirees' pensions without front-loaded funding. Do you want to leave those retirees high and dry with unfunded pensions?
Times are changing, and the PO is doing as best it cant to keep up. Just as it got out of ponies and into airmail, the PO needs to get into the email business, Not all-you-can-eat, but spam-free secure email paid per piece. Businesses are crying out for such a service. Unfortunately, present law doesn't allow that, and THAT law needs to be changed.
The PO will have a smaller workforce, but there is no reason it shouldn't remain unionized, with good pay and working conditions. But to maintain an obsolete business for the sake of "jobs" is just wrong-headed.
You really are reductive. There's much more to it than you are acknowledging.
DeleteWhy should ANY business prepay pensions for 75 years? That's ridiculous!!! No business does that!
Modernizing the USPS does NOT involve removing delivery. If anything, they need to improve delivery. They go places that FedEx and USPS refuse to go-- and that's for packages.
You need to re-watch the Ed video so you can fully understand the complexities of the issues. We're going to need MORE postal workers, not less. There are more and more people in this country every year who will need to receive all items, including packages, through the mail.
Yes, they should be able to provide even more services we need - as notaries, making copies, fishing and hunting licenses, as Bernie Saunders advocates. But delivery will always be needed.
It will most effect the elderly, the disabled, the poor who rely on checks in the mail to get by, and goods needed over the weekend (like medicine.)
In another 7 years, we'll have less pharmacies and need more home deliveries. You really want to pay FedEx prices for that? They won't even deliver to some areas.
Anonymous 2:27 PM needs to re-watch the Ed video so but to do so with someone who can explain the issues to him/her(?). Just maybe then Anonymous 2:27 can understand the complexities of the issues.
DeleteBut, probably not.
Dear Concerned troll
Delete"Netflix wants OUT of the DVD-by-mail business. Soc Sec checks that would come on Saturday can't be deposited until Monday anyway. And more breaking news: SS payments are almost all direct-deposit now. "
***
I think YOU'RE all wet!
Netflix doesn't have much on streaming, better to go through Amazon.
Not all payments come by Direct deposit and Banks are open on Sat.
Also medications,misc stuff NOT Everyone has a Guzzling Vehicle so maybe they need to order stuff off the internet?
Or sell stuff on the internet?
And the 75 yr pre-pay is total bullshit.
Oh your "spam free" email is joke! Put your iphone up where the sun don't shine.
Oh yes my junk mail is recycled in my bird cage!
Fool!
I used to live on a rural route (a paper road way out in the middle of nowhere) in a town that had no postal delivery at all. The post office was everyone's first stop of the day before schlepping off to work. We got our packages, mail, medicines, important papers and our ballots that way.
ReplyDeleteWe've always used the USPS as our first choice when we moved to a real city for our personal and business transactions. A lot of elderly and handicapped people depend on mail delivery, especially in the winter months.
Even now, with faxes and voice mail, we use the post office to correspond with our customers. Many people don't have computers, and sending correspondence through the mail reflects well on our customer's perception that we care and value their decision to choose us for our services. A phone call, alone, doesn't always cut it.
Ed's rant was a little over the top, but the man is right, it's the first step in busting the union and attacking the workers.
Walmart, and all big businesses for that matter, should be unionized and forced to pre fund pensions, because, you know, it's working so WELL for the USPS.
Both my elderly mother and I get medications by USPS and many times they come on a Saturday. Without these meds there could be serious complications.
ReplyDeleteIt's fine to say have UPS or FEDEX deliver them but FEDEX usually takes over two weeks to deliver and UPS quite often looses my packages. With medications being shipped by both of their companies would result in more prescription drug theft and people ending up in the hospital (or worse).
Who else can you go to send a letter across the country for 40 something cents and have it arrive in three or four days?