Government Unemployment Watch: USPS To Close Up To 3,700 Post Offices
The problem with bloated central planning is that when austerity hits, the bloat goes away, and millions of government employees suddenly find themselves trying to enter the private sector, realizing they have absolutely no real competitive and marketable skills (more or less like investment bankers and hedge fund managers). And while America has yet to even remotely sniff austerity, the unemployment rate is already set to spike, after the USPS just announced it was preparing to close 3,653 out of its 32,000 total post office sites. Per UPI: "The U.S. Postal Service is expected to announce a plan to close 3,653 post offices, mostly in small communities, in a cost-cutting measure, officials said. A USPS spokeswoman said the post offices were chosen because they get the "least amount of foot traffic and retail sales," The Wall Street Journal reported Monday." Trust the bureaucrats to try spinning this bad news as good: "They also were selected because there may be local businesses that could provide some postal services to the community, spokeswoman Sue Brennan said." Well by that logic there are private businesses that cover every aspect of the government's "job" much better, and much more efficiently, up to and including that of the Fed (sorry, that already is private). Does that mean we should outsource every aspect of the bloated centrally planned economy that America has become? Of course the answer is yes, but that just does not jive with the current iteration of kleptofascist socialism.
More:
The list of the closures, amounting to about 11 percent of the USPS' post offices nationwide, will be made public Tuesday by Postmaster General Patrick Donahoe,
The Postal Regulatory Commission would have to approve the widespread closings, as the USPS prepares to file a request for a "national change of service," Brennan said.
Donahoe also will announce "a replacement strategy" involving third-party retailers, she said.
"If you're a community and there is a local convenience store, for example, we might be reaching out to these organizations to see if they would be interested in providing limited postal service for the community that might be affected," Brennan said.
So between corporate and now public sector layoffs, expect the unemployment rate to resume climbing steadily to double digits, hitting it some time in Q4, at which point QE3 will be inevitable, as Goldman predicted yesterday.
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ironic
iconic
Long lines and paying twice to send a package. No thx.
And this is with a net loss of $8.5 billion in 2010. Insanity.
ionic
Why don't we cut the postal service in half and save even more? Half of addresses get delivery on Mon-Wed-Fri, the other half on Tues-Thurs-Sat.
It should be cut by.... 40%
Fuck the USPS, Third most horrible service of any of the major delivery services around here. Not as bad as UPS and FedEx but pretty damn close. I would say this is bullish UPS and FedEx but those companies are too horrible ever to be bullish.
Yea that makes a lot of sense, FedEx and UPS ranking below the USPS. Nice try commie.
Well hell, there goes Slapout and Bugtussle, Alabama . . . not to mention Lizard Thicket and Yampertown. Damn!
At least USPS doesn't mangle my packages. Everything that UPS brings to my house looks like it has been kicked down a flight of stairs and then stomped on by a pack of hyperactive gorillas.
Not that USPS doesn't have its own annoying traits. But at least they get the items where they are going without destroying them.
double post
Perhaps this is why the O'bamabot could not guarantee that Social Security checks would go out?
While sitting stoned in The Pit last night we got talking about the PO and the elimination of Sat. delivery. If they did that what would stop them from saving real money and going only to a Mon./Wed./Fri. delivery protocol?
It's mostly junk mail anyway....
Just get my bills there on time, that is, the ones I don't pay online.
If FedEx or UPS sold stamps the USPS would die in a year.
USPS has a monopoly on postage stamps, that keeps them alive.
Try buying a sheet of paper stamps from FedEx or UPS, account credits or individual postage sure, but no sheets.
Postal clause in constitution interpreted to ban others from selling stamps.
Could fire half them 'cause they don't work anyhow... you know, all the folk sittin' in rooms with nothin' to do and bein' paid for it. USPS's idea of saving money. In fact fire 'em all and still'll be no change 'cept the junk mail don't get delivered.
how much time will it take before people realise that technology is making people redundant?
We will have to work 3/4 days a week( instead of 5/6) take a pay cut maybe, to allow others to get jobs.
But this is what technology was supposed to do anyways..to help people relax more. But we dont have a social structure to manage the proceeds of technology.
Amen to that.
The Postal Service can actually be reformed I think. Cut service to five days. Get rid of Saturday for example. Close offices that get little traffic to save money. Current workers need to take a pay cut and current pensioners need to take a reduction in benefits. The alternative is layoffs and pension checks not going out.
Raising prices isn't going to work because the USPS is easily avoidable for most things at this point.
"USPS is easily avoidable for most things at this point."
Then why have the USPS in the first place? Tradition? They are not making enough revenue to support themselves.
Junk mail is the only thing that keeps it remotely justifiable to go to every house every day. And most people just throw it away. Per my post above, they should hack the whole organization in half, go to a 3-day per week delivery schedule and alternate delivery days. Then raise rates on the junk mail. If companies want to stuff mailboxes with marketing it doesn't need to be subsidized by US taxpayers, they can hire someone to do it or pay a market rate to the postal service.
Physical SPAM Bitchez! It's in your mailbox.
Such practical, common-sense solutions. "If companies want to stuff mailboxes with marketing it doesn't need to be subsidized by US taxpayers" YES! I would immediately put you in charge of the task force for post office reform, if I, you know, had any power or authority
Bingo. 99% of the crap in my mailbox is subsidized junk mail. Most of the CC offers, I shred, then mail back in the PPD envelope....to stimulate the economy.
ha... that's great. I now have a new hobby.
Tape the PPD enveloped to an apporpriately sized scrap of 2x4 ... or a brick if its JP Morgan Chase. :-)
Regards,
Cooter
The USPS isn't subsidized, so going private doesn't save taxpayer money
Sure, have FedEx and UPS take over. I'm sure they will come up with a 2-3 day service (similar to the average USPS delivery rate). Oh, looky here: they already do that for only $19.44.
Great idea, moron. I just saved no taxes, laid off that nice lady who works in our post office, increased my mail costs by 2,000 per cent and now you want to have my mail delivered by the 7/11 clerk? I am quite certain he will love the attention he'll be getting now that he is the town gossip, but the rest of us, not so much.
How are they funding themselves? Maybe Federal Reserve loans?
While I agree with you on the cost cutting measures (particularly on dropping Saturday delivery and office consolidation...there are four offices in my town serving a population of 130k), I disagree with you about raising prices.
Yes, with email, online bill pay, etc. postal services are easily avoidable. However, there is still a large amount of mail that needs to be sent the old fashion way, and charging someone a whopping $0.44 to come to you, pick up a letter, and hand deliver it anywhere in the country is just plain stupid. I challenge you to come up with another service offering that kind of value (excluding Zero Hedge and free internet porn). If Congress would let the USPS charge market rates for their services, the business model would stand on much firmer ground.
Like what? I haven't opened our mailbox for years. I think my wife goes about once a week to collect the junk mail to shred for animal bedding.
The list goes on and on...
Those can all be done by email or UPS/Fedex except for the bedding. You have free local rags at the grocery stores for that
First class letters are the province of the USPS and the USPS only! Read the US Constitution.
Something about a baby and bath water come to mind ...
Folks having the ability to mail a DOCUMENT to ANY citizen in the country is valuable. What kind of documents? Checks? Check. Legal? Check. Bills? Check. Cash? Check. Letter? Check. Yes, the USPS has probably larded up, but that does not mean the underlying service is not valuable.
And in case it wasn't mentioned, at least the USPS is constitutional, unlike most other government bloat ...
I am ok with cuts, but *think* before you say the whole USPS system should get the plug pulled.
If the USPS was killed by Bohner, Reid, and Obammy to save the US spending habits, it would really suck. I am a web programmer by profession and I went kicking and screaming into online banking. I still REFUSE to do online bill pay. Only moving to Alaksa pushed me over the banking cliff and I am very lucky to have USAA. I don't think I would do it with any other bank (and trust me I know how to take a pay check to the issuing bank - I lived without banks for years). I prefer to pay CASH for all my purchases. I prefer to write a CHECK for all my bills. I prefer to use my CREDIT CARD for emergencies, Amazon.com (not exactly the shopping mecca of the world up here), and pay-at-the-pump (paying cash is very annoying for a fill up).
Yes, I have seen great comments regarding junk mail. Yes, there are unions involved and things need to be brought inline. Yes there is fat to cut. Yes improvements can be made. But if the USPS goes, private companies will only want the profitable volume centers and the lower volume areas will get screwed.
Regards,
Cooter
The problem at the Postal Service is too many offices in rural areas (jobs programs for small states) and the fact that Congress won't let them charge more than 15 cents an ounce for advertising mail like credit card solitications and so on. Take care of those two issues and the system makes a profit and delivers better more comprehensive service than any private carrier.
Too much lobbying power by the physical spammers.
Interesting. I generally don't associate shrinking operations, limiting availability and service and paycuts as a healthy enterprise. These are death nails for it. People will just continue to use their alternatives and their truly good employees who aren't government pension slaves will just leave.
How about implementing a plan to significantly raise tarriffs on China and others thereby forcing jobs back into this country? Protectionism has not worked for the good of the middle class and I see no good reason to continue it any further. Believe me I'm no Karl Marx either.
Implementing increased tariffs would be a form of protectionism....
Well, duh. It's hard to compete with forced and child labor, no enviromental restrictions and zero safety net.
If wages aren't increased in conjunction with productivity, money accelerates to the top. Wealth inequality explodes and the rest of society gets to share a big sh*t sandwich.
Not to disagree with your very valid point....but the much more disturbing and destructive trend is that of the low-cost Asian worker making the high-cost American worker redundant. This is the primary factor that is collapsing the current system.
T.E.I.N. everyone!
Massive headwind for the US -- US has priced itself out of the world market (but we have had a big debt financed consumption party for the last 30+ years that should provide nice memories). For years the costs of higher US wages and government regulations were offset by higher productivity. That is all changing now.
The productivity of the rest of the world is going to rise dramatically the next 10+ years which will significantly reduce US productivity margin. US wages are too high for a world that will happily work for $5 per day and who do not insist government solve every problem known to man.
We do have a social structure D&B, it is called the top 0.001%.
I have argued your point with many. Why is it that if technology has made us so more productive we are still working this long?
The answer I have come up with is that it is to keep ahead of the expanding interest. We have to grow faster than the interest. And compounding growth is tough.
Take away interest on debt money and things get easier. Of course, then people would have more time to think, and we cant have that!
pods
Most are working so long because throughout their life they decided ever expanding consumption and standard of living was a necessity.
No one thought a very small house or one car (used) or no eating out or two movies per year or vacations less than 100 miles from home or etc etc was a good idea. All the money spent on over-consumption did not go into saving for retirement so they wouldn't have to work so long.
Can't spend more than every dollar earned (via debt) and have a long comfortable retirement. It is called bad choices -- which have consequences.
Well on an individual basis, yes your argument holds. But systemwide, you have to have expansion or it fails.
If everyone did as you say, and lived within their means, did not buy on credit, etc. We would already have collapsed by now, as production expansion cannot keep up with interest compounding. So slowly you would run out of money in society, halting production, slowing money, etc.
That is how the system works. I could not believe it when mako first stated that here (haven't seen mako in some time). I was dumbfounded how someone was stating that by all of us behaving in a manner which seemed prudent would actually collapse the system that we are in. The longer I thought about it, the more I realized that that is how the system works.
So unless you can have compounding growth that is ahead of the compounding interest, you are dead. And to have zero growth in this system defeats it. Which is why I behave in the way that you speak.
I actually do go on vacations, etc, but do it all out of pocket. I do not have credit lines anywhere. Zero access to credit. I have a mortgage and that is it. Used cars that i fix myself, etc.
So I am doing what you say, but not to have a happy future. I am doing it to crash this system so my kids may have that future.
pods
"If everyone did as you say, and lived within their means, did not buy on credit, etc. We would already have collapsed by now, as production expansion cannot keep up with interest compounding."
If everyone lived within their means, there would be no debt (or interest) that would require ever increasing production. How we got into this mess and how it could have been avoided is directly related to the original sin of debt financed consumption (no borrowers, no debt). Greedy people could not refrain from borrowing in order to consume more.
Understand what you are saying about where the US is now - post greedy, debt-financed consumption binge. The US will be in a long period of decline - particularly relative to much of the emerging world.
I would love to go back there Bob, I really would. But since the introduction of debt money, we cannot have that now. Well, until it crashes. After it crashes we can go back to real money, do away with fractional reserves, and learn to live with little to no growth due to pulled forward demand.
I would love to not have to "chase return" and only see the value of my savings go up slowly due to the slow deflation from technological advancement.
pods
My slant is, at the end of the day, the banking system's introduction of debt money is necessary, but not sufficient to create the problem. The borrower is the one who ultimately decides whether to avail one's self of the debt money (at least I don't think many loans have been originated at gun point). If folks just could of had the discipline to say no, to walk by the candy dish, we would not have many of these problems. Understand the flip side is the bank shouldn't make loans that can't be easily repaid. But I am inclined to put more responsibility on me (the borrower) and not someone else (the lender).
As you might tell, I think folks are generally pretty greedy and selfish (and these foibles are not completely foreign to me, but I like to see myself more disciplined than most!). These traits show up other related places as too many see themselves as entitled and/or victims - which creates other perverse consequences.
Appreciate your thoughts on this -- while seeming complex at times, it all comes down to some fairly simple concepts.
Guess that means the machines are taking over.
Ned Ludd was right!
Yup. Technology makes people redundant all the time. I remember reading a line a few years ago which said "The database admin overtook the file clerks, and the automatic switchboard overtook the operators". Now, the cloud is overtaking the database admin. I would not be surprised if the bookbinders get wiped out by kindle/nook/etc in the coming years (especially since reading rights are revokable thanks to forms of DRM). The only ones who are safe are garbagemen, and a portion of their job has been taken over by the automated can lifters). Even if times get tougher people will pay to get someone to haul their trash away.
I would not be surprised to see a reemergence of luddites in the future...
Its funny how they could never cut a salary or a pension to make it more competitive..or sustainable....no never
The overlooked item here is that postal workers are union guys and short of "going postal" and actually killing someone, they can't be fired.
No need to worry about those pensions. Timmah just took all that. Don't believe that will be refunded when the limit is raised. They will just leave it full of IOU's like SS.
I suppose the thing to worry about now is all the workers going postal when they are laid off with no pension payments. It sounds like a lot of the layoffs will be rural ex-military gun owners.
I got a call from a postal inspector after I caused a 'disturbance' at the PO demanding my money back on an $18 Express package that was returned to sender. USPS should can his ass too.
I hope you properly described to the shiny badge wielding parasite, the orifice which was desperately in need of inspection.
The Pavlovian postmaster who snitched me out should be rewarded by DHS. I mean, I only go in there every day, spend 10 grand on postage a year at the counter, and never got a refund on postage, ever. Throw me a bone, pretend to me like I'm a valued customer-- and this never would have happened in the first place.
This is the problem with government... at any time it can tell you to go fuck yourself... are you going to lawyer up for $18? Pay a couple hundred dollars for a federal court filing fee?
When the government workers are not incentivized to treat you well or otherwise increase their goodwill, then they most certainly will not... (I suppose they presume the difference will be eaten by taxpayers when you take your business elsewhere?)
Indeed. 100 benny bux from 150 million people. Not enough for the individual to fuss over, but a windfall to the coercive monopoly that extorts it.
A small price to pay for your nanny state.
believe it when we see it.
soooo true...preparing until the congressmen get a deluge of complaints.."NOT in my town!!!"
Yeah, that's what I was going to say. No line post offices are awesome.
You will subsidize my empty post office, because as Uncle Dick taught us, the American Way of Life is not negotiable!
Otherwise, the workers may go... postal. I wonder how many combat vets this will affect?
Kleptofascist socialism?
I love the sarcasm of it, but I think Tyler is way off.....................it's actually Kleptosocialist Fascism!
T.E.I.N. everyone!
DP.
Double penetration? No thanks.
To all those voting me down, I say "aw, why?" I am always wary of empty polysyllabic jargon, and I like to mock it when I come across it, even from sites I enjoy. I do know what the words mean ;)
The US used to have a post office and a post master in most small towns. Think of New Salem and Mr. Lincoln. Which Best Buy should people pick their mail up in?
I like the new api to the back end Sacrilege.
The end of the postage licking era...
NEXT: PRIVATISE THAT SHIT! MAKE THEM PROFITABLE! LET THEM GET CREATIVE!
There's a lot of senators, congressmen and well connected bureaucrats living this scene as we speak ("my empire is crumbling")
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yp22FYXw6Os
BTFD! You need an Iphone to kill time playing angry birds...
Yes, cutting all these jobs will definitely help the economy greatly. You see... people without jobs spend... uh... I guess more.
Does that mean we should outsource every aspect of the bloated centrally planned economy that America has become? Of course the answer is yes,
Yes, yes. the tired old diatribe of the "government is evil" brigade. Because we saved SO much money when we outsourced our Wars to Halliburton, didn't we? Yes... each "contractor" supplied by Halliburton is FAR FAR cheaper to the American than those greedy Soldiers... yes? oh, wait... Halliburton contractors cost up to 5x what a soldier doing the same thing does? well... at least Halliburton is efficiently robbing us blind.
Kleptofacism is alive and well... but I hardly think it was the US postal service that has added much to our current debt, nor Social Security (which has added ZERO to our current debt). let's just crush the parts of our government that actually do work pretty darn well, and give a pass to the true kleptocracy... Big Ag, Big Oil, Big Finance, and Big War.
Social Security (which has added ZERO to our current debt)
Splain yoself.
Are you kidding? Do you even understand what Social Security is and was?
Social Security is 100% funded and has always been 100% funded by tax receipts. It is still FULLY funded for decades to come. (based on its huge asset base). Just look at your check if you have a job... every 2 weeks you'll see something called "FICA" withdrawn. That has and does pay for Social Security, AND THEN SOME (until recently)
HOWEVER: the Congress/Prez of the past have BORROWED Social Security funds to pay for other areas of goverment.
This does not meant that Social Security is insolvent. It means the USG owes SS money. There is a HUGE SS trust fund sitting there. (although again, it has been borrowed by past politicians).
Just because past politicians borrowed the money doesn't mean that SS doesn't have a claim to it.
Going forward (a few decades) if changes are not made THEN Social Security will have cash management issues. But these are decades away.
Thus: Social Security has not added one red cent to our current debt. IN FACT: it has been used to plug holes in our operating budget for years.
Now that the bill for SS is about to come due, the congress/prez don't wan to pay for it. thus: instead they want to STEAL SOCIAL SECURITY FUNDS THAT WERE BORROWED, and claim it's all to "save" SS.
This is a totally semantic argument, a "trust" funded only with liabilities of an insolvent government isn't really worth much. Social security will become a subordinated creditor of the USA and will not see any of the money it's owed. Any other result would require politicians to be held accountable to their promises and for the rich to basically give back a otn of the money they've received over the past 30 years, so don't hold your breath
That argument that SS sustainable going forward is pure mental masturbation and nothing else. Hope it was pleasureable
Actually, the two arguments above your comment pretty much sum up SS. The money was paid, but it was used (stolen?) for other things over time. Now, it will be pushed down to 'subordinate' so we can do things like extending the Bush tax cuts.
"This does not meant that Social Security is insolvent. It means the USG owes SS money. There is a HUGE SS trust fund sitting there. (although again, it has been borrowed by past politicians).
Just because past politicians borrowed the money doesn't mean that SS doesn't have a claim to it. "
Do you have any idea how delusional this statement is? Honor amongst criminals no doubt.
"Thus: Social Security has not added one red cent to our current debt. IN FACT: it has been used to plug holes in our operating budget for years."
And but for those SS "borrowings", to whom would the Treasury have sold that incremental issuance? At what rate of interest? Positive SS cash flow was nothing more than a compulsory government debt purchase program, applying downward pressure on yields and enabling profligate spending as you noted. Trust fund? LOL, try inter company asset/liability, eliminated for consolidated financials.
SS is and always was a ponzi scheme, an intergenerational transfer payment. You didn't pay into a fund, you payed for the old bag next door to replant her petunias.
Also I would like to kick you in the shrived little nut sack for the FICA lesson.
Also I would like to kick you in the shrived little nut sack for the FICA lesson.
well, when you ask retarded questions...
anyway... I don't disagree with you that SS will never get the money it lent back. That still does not mean it CAUSED the CURRENT debt.
And but for those SS "borrowings", to whom would the Treasury have sold that incremental issuance? At what rate of interest?
I will answer your question with a question, since you are obtuse.
Who has lent to the United States of America the last 3 years? At HISTORIC low interest rates? When you figure out that question, then you will perhaps understand the qnswer to your question
On a side note: I am anti-Krugman, anti-Keynsian. I am anti-Fed. I am anti-Big Government. I am not a Socialist either. I own Gold and Silver (Gasp!) Boo hoo... I don't fit into your little square. Maybe you'll have to lick my twat?
Unfortunately, I really have to go... thus I'll check back in a few hours to see if you can figure out the answer to your so-silly questions.
"Who has lent to the United States of America the last 3 years? At HISTORIC low interest rates? When you figure out that question, then you will perhaps understand the qnswer to your question"
You are building your castle on a semantic outcrop, while completely ignoring the economic substance of the matter and incentives (which isn't surprising I suppose given your profession). If you are suggesting that QEx has been running since the day FICA was first collected then I can't help you. If you simply refuse to acknowledge that any revenue stream will be instantaneously spent two-fold, then you are Pollyanna. You should however acknowledge two things 1) Now that the transition to wretched democracy is complete, .gov spending is completely inelastic 2) Politicians will always choose the path of least resistance. Historically so long as SS was cash flow positive redirecting FICA to the community was easier than raising taxes or issuing debt. Given #1 spending could not and did not correct downward with SS cash flow.
Therefore given that FICA is nothing more than a tax and that SS is nothing more than a Ponzi (as I highlighted in the previous post, to which you failed to reply), to the extent the Tax exceed Ponzi payouts it has enabled spending which has resulted in debt issuance.
If SS were set-up as a sovereign wealth fund you would have a point, it is in actuality nothing more than a tax, a lie and a transfer payment. The SS "trust fund" highlights the fatal flaw in representative democracy, the "pie" itself.
As to the licking, send me a picture and we can discuss.
.
Let's say that every two weeks you also put money into a pension account through your employer. Now, let's assume that your employer isn't very good with math and on average spends $3 for every $2 in revenue it takes in. To make up for this shortfall, your employer takes the money you have socked away in your pension account and replaces it with IOUs. Would you describe your pension account as being fully funded?
Let me explain to you why Social Security has added a tremendous amount to our national debt.
(1) Social Security taxes generate a huge pile of confiscated dollars.
(2) These dollars are then looted by FedGov in order to increase the general level of spending on other, useless "goods" and "services"
(3) The spending is now artificially high.
(4) When Social Security tax confiscations then drop due to demographics, Fedgov now owes Social Security a ton of money
(5) It is now obligated to sell Treasuries in order to raise that money
To sum up: while Social Security does not DIRECTLY add to the debt, it does so INDIRECTLY via the above mechanism.
It conforms to the basic axiom: when you make government bigger, the first thing it does is figure out a way to make itself even MORE bigger.
incorrect.
The FedGov does not need, nor has it ever needed, a pile of confiscated dollars in which to spend.
I think the downturn of 2007 would have clarified this for you. All the FedGov need do is go to the Federal Reserve Bank and PRESTO: it can create Trillions of dollars to spend.
The FedGov would and did create tons of debt without Social Security (what is it... like $14Trillion since 2007 or something?), so don't even try to pretend that the debt has ANYTHING to do with SS.
Again: there are FUTURE POTENTIAL liabilities associated with Social Security. But those are only Potential. The rules to SS can be changed at ANY time, and everybody knows this.
thus: TO DATE: SS has contributed not one red penny to our debt.
nice twisted logic though, you should go work for the neocons.
"TO DATE: SS has contributed not one red penny to our debt."
To repeat this statement simply illustrates the requisite, tremendous economic ignorance of socialistas.
"PRESTO trillions of dollars to spend"
The ramblings of Paul Krugman aside, this is not without tremendous cost to the same people paying their Ponzi tax.
By this logic, my monthly housepayment is my only debt, not the remainder on my note... Whenever we erase the oustanding obligations to the trust fund, then we will not owe the debt... until that day, it is absolutely considered a general obligation of the government (despite being off the more illuminated portion of the books).
Although, I might be willing to entertain an alternative view if you could provide me some type of reasonable and realistic projection for economic and demographic changes sufficient to fulfill our present and expected SS obligations... (otherwise, those "future potential liabilities" are presently staring us in the face) [isn't the unfunded portion of this in the tens of trillions?]
well said
Your logic is absurd. OF COURSE the FedGov, via its vile partner the Federal Reserve, can create dollars out of thin air willy-nilly. The point is, why did it wait until a massive crisis erupted to finally do it?
Actions have consequences. Why go out and rob a bank (even if you have the power to do so), when there is a huge pile of dollars sitting out in the open in the middle of your neighbor's living room, and their door is wide open?
And the idea of simply printing money to pay off the seniors' SS is classic Krugmanesque "ignore the fact that actions have consequences" thinking. Printing money means commodities go up. So the seniors still face effective default on their SS benefits because while the monthly check may arrive, the cost of food and energy has doubled. Any CPI adjustments would always lag the effects of inflation.
Argue with this:
http://reason.com/blog/2008/10/24/saving-social-security-episode
Bravo, don't forget the complete and total inelasticity of spending in a degenerate, dependant democracy.
I think you've got it half right. I voted you up. The free market is obviously much more efficient than public enterprise, the results speak for themselves (additionally, I think anectdotally that all the ugliest buildings in most cities are government buildings constructed after 1960).
However where freemarketeers get it wrong is thinking that the efficiency of big business would be a big improvement over government inefficiency. We would all quickly be enslaved if the government were to just drop out of the picture. What we need is to go back to sincere principles of freedom and autonomy, which won't happen as long as those TVs keep glowing all night. So I say: run, save yourself