Stuff you just can't make up

gcomeau wrote:

biochem wrote:And one libertarian commentator picked up on something from one of Trumps ubiquitous anti-Amazon tweets. "Now that you mention it, why *does* the Postal Service charge Amazon so little for shipping?"


Trump may have accidentally stumbled on something.

That the postal service is a *service* not a business? And it exists to provide the nation with important mail delivery infrastructure not make money? And that acts as a stimulative factor for the entire national economy?

Yeah, most people "stumbled onto that" a very long time ago.

The money losing part of the post office is supposed to be things like delivering mail to to remote rural areas not subsidizing Fortune 500 corporations.

However little or much Amazon pays the USPS for final delivery, it is a negotiated price by which the USPS makes more than it costs to deliver those packages. They negotiated the price knowing the volume would help them support money losers like mass mailings and especially first class mail. Amazon negotiated so they could deliver many places they hadn't yet had their own contract workers in place. It was and is a good deal for both sides. For the post office to make money they have to completely get rid of congressional franking privileges (some of this went away when the post office became a separate entity from the executive department) and they have to raise first class rates which our beloved congress refuses to allow. While they could try to raise their parcel post rates, that would just lose money that would then go to DHL, UPS, Fed Ex et al who are very cost competitive already. What they are getting from Amazon covers the added costs better than losing all that volume. Similarly UPS and Fed Ex would be glad to get Amazon's business if the USPS thinks their current deal is unprofitable.

Of course, as someone whose companies would have made use of such negotiated volume deals mentioned above, the President should know exactly what is up.

So either he is deliberately attacking Amazon (Which I suspect would be a federal offence given the way he is doing it), he is completely incompetant, or suffering from some mental illness.

biochem wrote:

dscott8 wrote:Trump just fired every member of the Council on HIV/AIDS. He sent the pink slips by FedEx letter.

Do we actually still need a Council on HIV/AIDS? Look, there really isn't much new on the medical front from year to year. A new treatment here or there but nothing the CDC and FDA couldn't brief the executive branch and the public on just like they do for every other major disease. It made sense back when it was a new problem and the science etc was moving fast. But that is no longer true, everything has slowed down to a steady pace.

We have a council for this and a council for that. All formed to address some critical and often short-term need, but which never go away! At some point we really need to start getting rid of the old ones. But in DC old programs never die.

The councils main objectives has more to do with information dissemination than medical research which is one way to prevent new HIV infections.

At the end of 2015 there where an estimated 1.1 million HIV-infected persons (whereof an estimated ~162500 persons not yet diagnosed) in the US and not counting the ones with diagnosed AIDS.

From those statistics you can only draw the conclusion that informing the public about safe sex and risk factors is a good thing.

The council shouldn't actually have been necessary if the US would have had mandated comprehensive sex ed in schools but that is a touchy subject for some people that think anything sex-related is bad and amoral and kids shouldn't be informed about it.

People already know about safe sex and risk factors. The CDC educates regarding that as well as cancer, diabetes and every other major disease. Educating the public is one of the CDC's major jobs. The CDC does a great job but unless you want to live in a totalitarian state, you can't make people listen. People still smoke and get lung cancer and people still engage in risky sexual behavior and get AIDS. We don't need a council to do the CDC's job for it (and for that matter we don't need the zillions of other councils DC seems to spawn either).

To add to the delete list, how about the railroad retirement board? Do we really need a group to administer the retirement of an industry that employs a tiny fraction of American workers. Other industries don't have a retirement board, why does the railroad industry?

Any other ideas for boards, commissions, councils etc that are unnecessary and/or redundant with other government agencies and that we could get rid of to reduce government bloat????

biochem wrote:

gcomeau wrote:
That the postal service is a *service* not a business? And it exists to provide the nation with important mail delivery infrastructure not make money? And that acts as a stimulative factor for the entire national economy?

Yeah, most people "stumbled onto that" a very long time ago.

The money losing part of the post office is supposed to be things like delivering mail to to remote rural areas not subsidizing Fortune 500 corporations.

The money losing part *isn't* shipping Amazon's packages.

It's the requirement the GOP Congress imposed on them years ago to pre fund their retirement benefits for 75 years. Something that is done nowhere else, and was instituted specifically to sabotage the USPS budget so they could then turn around and say "oh look at this government run bureaucracy and how it's shedding money..."

Biochem.

It's is demonstratably incorrect to claim that Americans know about safe sex et al.

Some do, but far to many don't.

biochem wrote:To add to the delete list, how about the railroad retirement board? Do we really need a group to administer the retirement of an industry that employs a tiny fraction of American workers. Other industries don't have a retirement board, why does the railroad industry?

Any other ideas for boards, commissions, councils etc that are unnecessary and/or redundant with other government agencies and that we could get rid of to reduce government bloat????

It may be a small number, but they are administering somewhere north of $20 billion. (Well that number is a few years old)

Essentially it's a government owned Industry super fund.
That appears to be working.

Annachie wrote:Biochem.

It's is demonstratably incorrect to claim that Americans know about safe sex et al.

Some do, but far to many don't.

I remember reading about one American couple who'd been married over a year who went to the doctor because they hadn't managed to have any children. Turned out that due to their (highly religious) upbringing, even though they were married, they slept in separate bedrooms (wearing pajamas) and had never even caught a glimpse of each other naked due to their parents indoctrinating them in "how to avoid sin".

....whatisthisidon'teven...