Can anyone explain to me exactly WHY the insolvent US Postal Service was sponsoring a cyicling team in the first place?

The USPS is not taxpayer supported. So their sponsoring a team is for the same reason as any other company, advertising.

what's the answer? wrote:

Whose decision was it? Why did they think this was a justifiable expenditure of taxpayer monies?

The USPS was not insolvent when it started sponsoring Armstrongs team. They were doing quite well in fact.

Unfortunately Republicans in Congress decided to screw with the USPS and passed a law requiring the service to prefund retirement health benefits 75 years into the future -- and to complete the funding in less than 10 years. Thats right the USPS is required to fully fund health benefits for employees who haven't even been born yet. A requirement that no other government organization and no private company in the US has to satisfy.

If you think this does not make any sense remember the real purpose of the legislation -- to break the postal service union.

(1) it will be taxpayer when we bail it out in the near future. it's bankrupt and racking up more and more debt every day.

(2) with that being said, it's not "any other company." it has a monopoly that every person has to use. back in the 90s, that monopoly was even better because most people didn't use the internet so people still actually wrote letters and subscribed to magazines. advertising this monopoly in the 90s was a waste of money.

quick draw mcgraw wrote:

(1) it will be taxpayer when we bail it out in the near future. it's bankrupt and racking up more and more debt every day.

(2) with that being said, it's not "any other company." it has a monopoly that every person has to use. back in the 90s, that monopoly was even better because most people didn't use the internet so people still actually wrote letters and subscribed to magazines. advertising this monopoly in the 90s was a waste of money.

You have no clue what you're talking about. The budget problems are due to the health benefit retirement prefunding mentioned in my previous post. The problem has a trivial fix that won't cost the taxpayers a dime. Just let the service spread it out over a longer time frame.

The postal service is not a monopoly either. There are plenty of other options to deliver packages and mail. Private companies aren't interested in regions of the country where costs would be higher though (e.g. rural areas) but the postal service is required by law to serve those areas.

As a 3rd-party reading this debate, I've got to say Rich Liberal has won me over so far. If the accounting change he mentions is true, and I don't doubt it, that explains a lot.

quick draw mcgraw wrote:

(1) it will be taxpayer when we bail it out in the near future. it's bankrupt and racking up more and more debt every day.

(2) with that being said, it's not "any other company." it has a monopoly that every person has to use. back in the 90s, that monopoly was even better because most people didn't use the internet so people still actually wrote letters and subscribed to magazines. advertising this monopoly in the 90s was a waste of money.

Your points have nothing to do with the original question.

Because it takes both of them 21 days to travel 2000 miles.

The sponsorship for USPS was profitable. They didn't lose any money on the deal.

(1) it's laughable that you think that the USPS is not a monopoly. it is without question a monopoly as it is illegal for anyone else to deliver first class mail in the United States (that includes exclusive use of every mailbox). the fact that you either don't know this or are intentionally stating otherwise speaks volumes to your complete lack of knowledge here.

(2) the pre-funding of the retirement benefit is ONE reason why the USPS is losing money but it by no means is the only one. the USPS lost $15.9 billion (yes, with a B) last year. $11.1 billion of it was the prefunding, which means that it lost $4.8 billion elsewhere. so, yes, if you think losing $5 billion for the year is the new killing it and a simple "trivial fix" will address the entire $15.9 billion loss, then our federal government probably has a job for you. also, it should be noted that the $11.1 billion "loss" attributed to the prefunding isn't an actual loss but an accounting one as the money isn't being flushed down the toilet -- the money is being set aside so future massive payments actually are being addressed and paid for today (unlike what nearly every other branch of our government does).

you now can go on your merry way of cluelessness.

USPS is lost money because it is forced to deliver mail at a flat rate to everyplace in the country. If it was allowed to charge more to deliver mail to the middle of nowhere Alsaka as to NYC then things would be different. Also a government run mail service is an enumerated role of the federal government in our Constitution so not much we can do about it.

the USPS is only "forced" to deliver first class mail everywhere in the US at the same price because Congress has decided that. it would take a simple act of Congress to end that ridiculous law and either charge more for rural deliveries or not make them at all. where i come from, there are many little towns and each one has its own post office despite the fact that there are many others within a 15 minute drive. Congress also should shutdown many of these redundant post offices to make the USPS more efficient.

btw, the enumerated power merely is: "To establish post offices and post roads." the federal government already has established the post office so there is nothing in the Constitution that would prevent it from being privatized or from allowing competition. we already have plenty of competition in non first class mail, which is what Fed Ex and UPS mainly work in.

Leaving aside the issues of taxpayer monies, a reason USPS sponsored a cycling team was to gain market share in the overseas shipping market between Europe and US.

People here may find this hard to believe, but a cycling team is funded, in part, by sponsors. The sponsors typically want to get their names out into the public--although most often someone high enough up to sign the checks is a cycling fan.

A question I have never seen answered is: did USPS get a good return on investment? If market share doubled or tripled or whatever and those gains were greater than the marketing expense, then it was worth it. Of course maybe some other advertising campaign that cost less would have been more successful.

A private delivery service can't use a box marked US Mail. BFD. You can put another box alongside it for the private service to use. Corporations can have the private service deliver to the exact same office in a building. There is no monopoly on the delivery of letters or parcels in the US. What you are talking about is differences in the mechanism of delivery. Sure the private carrier operates under a different set of regulations. They are not under a Universal Service Obligation as is the USPS but they have price restrictions. So what? It's still not a monopoly.

As for the prefunding I'm sure you're aware that year to year fluctuations in profit and loss happen to every company depending on economic conditions. And guess what the economy is weak right now. Again BFD. The postal service needs to make adjustments as any business does but not only are they restricted by Congress in what adjustments they can make they are the only business or government organization that has to prefund retirement benefits 75 years in advance. If you think it's fair that the postal service has to do it then why not require it for private companies as well?

(1) would you please go away because you have NO idea what you are talking about and each additional post of yours makes you look more and more silly. repeat after me: THE USPS HAS A MONOPOLY ON FIRST CLASS MAIL. end of story. just to ram this one home where the sun doesn't shine:

The United States Congress originally passed the PES in 1792, under powers granted it in the United States Constitution to "establish Post Offices and Post Roads". The PES created a governmental monopoly on the carriage and delivery of letter mail, and ensured that this monopoly can be enforced. Today the USPS is empowered to suspend the PES, if it believes such a private postal service would be in the interests of the general public.

The PES consists of 18 U.S.C. §§ 1693–1696 and 39 U.S.C. §§ 601–606, implemented under 39 Code of Federal Regulations Parts 310 and 320. These forbid all carriage and delivery of letter mail by private organizations, except as described in the next section. The PES only cover "letters" and not other mailable items such as parcels or periodicals.

why don't you do us all a favor and erect another mailbox next to your and report back to us how your local police handle you?

you also don't have the slightest clue about how "every company" operates if you think that the USPC is like a typical company and just going through a rough patch. its annual losses have been:

2011 - $15.9 billion

2010 - $8.5 billion

2009 - $3.8 billion

2008 - $2.8 billion

2007 - $5.1 billion

if it were a private company, it would be bankrupt and go under.

regarding your silly question about prefunding, ALL government pensions should be prefunded with current dollars. the shell game of people not putting a cent towards their pensions and future health care and having the taxpayers footing the entire bill has to end at some point. thankfully, congress has ended it with the USPS. regardless, you have shown all that you have next to no idea about how the post office works. can you please post again that it doesn't have a monopoly on first class mail? it makes me feel good knowing that there are people as stupid as you out there.

The postal 'industry' was getting much more competitive and the cost structure was such that the average cost was higher than the marginal cost. Thus, increases in volume were profitable and would help them avoid larger deficits and forestall rate increases.

I suspect that a key reason that DOJ stopped the investigation is that they might have not been able to prove that there were any damages. If they went through a whole new court case and had that outcome after the two earlier failures, it would have been disastrous for that unit.

I am not sure how the law works in this regard, but given that the testimony for 'guilt' was going to come from people who had repeatedly lied, written books about why they were innocent, and then, when they were caught ratted out the 'big guy. Not the best witnesses. The likelihood of a hung jury was probably quite high.

You manage to combine stupidity and arrogance in a truly remarkable way. Where to start? Well how about the extra mailbox which not only I but vast numbers of people in the US have. Here is a picture of one.

Try doing a google image search for "newspaper delivery box" and you can find pictures of plenty more. And nope I've never had the local police complain about my newspaper delivery box. In fact the policeman who lives down the road has one too.

Now that we've demonstrated your stupidity on that point lets move on to the next. Yes the postal service is the only one who can use the term first class mail. Again BFD. Microsoft is the only one who can use the term Windows to refer to a computer operating system but I can buy a computer running IOS or Android if I wish and get the same (or some people would claim better) functionality. So your argument falls flat.

Now you also mention the PES which I have heard of. Again BFD. As I said other carriers are subject to a different regulatory regime than the USPS but they can still deliver letters they just can't call them first class mail and if you would get out of your mothers basement little boy you would find that in fact do so.

Finally you recite multi year losses for the USPS but you only start in 2007 after the prefunding requirement was initiated. Before that the USPS was running a budget surplus and without that requirement over the 2007 to 20011 time frame they would again have a surplus.

You also don't know anything about business. The USPS would be the third largest company in the US if it were private. Lets take a look at the largest annual losses some private companies have experienced?

The USPS doesn't even make the list.

what's the answer? wrote:

Whose decision was it? Why did they think this was a justifiable expenditure of taxpayer monies?

I believe they, by their own documents, made a 4x return. 100m on 25m.

The also need to advertise or lose to Fedex and UPS.

you truly are one stupid person. i even spoon fed you the info in all caps last post and it didn't register. i'll do it again for you: THE USPS HAS A MONOPOLY ON FIRST CLASS MAIL.

you pointing out that newspapers can have separate boxes doesn't change the fact that the USPS has a monopoly on first class mail or that newspapers AREN'T first class mail. your strawman example of MSFT (did you have fun thinking up an analogy that has absolutely zero relevance here?) is irrelevant. you can call all of those bills whatever you want but they are still first class mail that only the USPS delivers. while you are erecting your new alternative first class mailbox, why don't you also try delivering some first class mail but call it something else? report back to us how the food is in the jail cell that you will be occupying.

would you care to raise anymore completely irrelevant points to continue showing us how truly stupid you are? with that being said, i think that congress should change this law and allow other private companies to deliver mail. since you don't understand what this law involves (or what first class mail is for that matter), i don't expect an intelligent response from you (although at some point you have to realize that you have no idea what you are talking about).

the USPS wouldn't not have a "surplus" (the fact that you are using this term and not the correct term tells me that you truly have no experience int he business world. for your edification, you might might want to use the term "profit" or "net income" in the future to look less silly) over the past year if it weren't prefunding its pension. i already showed you that it lost $5 BILLION last year excluding the prefunding costs.

the USPS would NOT be the 3rd largest private company in the US unless you are measuring it in terms of number of employees, which nobody does when referencing size. it had revenue (you probably have to look the term up so go ahead) last year of $66 billion. to give you some idea of where that stacks up, GM had revenue of $150 billion last year, Apple had revenue of $156 billion last year and even AT&T had revenue of $127 billion last year. the USPS isn't even remotely close to being the 3rd biggest company.

lastly, i think you reached a new low of pure comedy with your list of private companies that have lost more money than the USPS. since you clearly don't know anything about the real world, let me let you in on a dirty little secret: 6 of the top listed were bailed out by the government to prevent them from going bankrupt (GM, citi, fanny, freddie, AIG and RBS). of the 4 others, 2 are telcos, which have used massive amounts of debt to fund their losses, and 1 was involved in the worst merger in history (AOL) which basically used TW's cash to plug the $100 billion hole. what would have been more appropriate of you would have been to list the 1000s of companies that have rung up massive losses and gone bankrupt. that's what happens in the private sector when you run your business into the ground (unless the government bails you out, which it will with the USPS). it's a poorly run organization with a monopoly and massive employee costs in a sector that has gotten killed by technology.

keep up the good work of posting comical information. like i wrote earlier, it makes me feel better knowing that there are utter and complete imbeciles out there.

It was to give them a legitimate front for the drug smuggling side of their business