Ailing U.S. Postal Service Strives to Avoid Twinkie Fate

[jeninflorida]

While the Hostess Twinkie may not be as central to the U.S. economy as the mail, Postmaster General Patrick Donahoe sees uncomfortable parallels of iconic products within unworkable organizational structures.

“Companies and industries have gone over their own fiscal cliff because they can’t sit down and work out their differences,” Donahoe said in an interview last week. “Like Hostess.”

Like Hostess Brands Inc., where a labor impasse prompted the snack-food maker’s liquidation, the Postal Service, with 28 times Hostess’s workforce of 18,000, has been squeezed by labor costs and changing consumer tastes to the brink of extinction. The post office’s insolvency is less imminent while no less ominous, with Donahoe projecting that the service expects to run out of cash in October without intervention from Congress.

Yes, I realize the bulk of you liberal nuts will say the issue is pure taxes. When will government people pay their fair share?

 

[mercury14]

Yes, I realize the bulk of you liberal nuts will say the issue is pure taxes. When will government people pay their fair share?

The post office can't change without a congressional reform bill. Which congress can't produce.

 

[jeninflorida]

The post office can't change without a congressional reform bill. Which congress can't produce.

And that goes to my other point. Congress needs term limits as they are clearly unwilling to do what is necessary and as the past 12 years has demonstrated those in congress only want to kick the can down the road while getting super fat off the Tax Payer

 

[mercury14]

And that goes to my other point. Congress needs term limits as they are clearly unwilling to do what is necessary and as the past 12 years has demonstrated those in congress only want to kick the can down the road while getting super fat off the Tax Payer

This isn't even kicking the can down the road. The USPS is losing money right now. It's not like congress is being asked to prevent a problem that's going to occur in 2022.

 

[jeninflorida]

This isn't even kicking the can down the road. The USPS is losing money right now. It's not like congress is being asked to prevent a problem that's going to occur in 2022.

Right, I'm with you there. I just don't think that they have the will or desire to address or correct the issue or any issue for that matter.

 

[mercury14]

Right, I'm with you there. I just don't think that they have the will or desire to address or correct the issue or any issue for that matter.

Congress can't even pass a farm bill or highway bill right now. These things have been bipartisan no-brainers forever...

 

[jeninflorida]

Congress can't even pass a farm bill or highway bill right now. These things have been bipartisan no-brainers forever...

it looks like the xmass retail season was good (no research just the Today show morning blurbs) so Congress needs to create drama and push America over the "cliff"

 

[blobfish]

Term limits won't do anything, because Congress is an oligarchy. Even if they were limited to only one term, they would not want to pass any meaningful reforms, because doing so might make election difficult for their hand-picked successors.