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Good question. (lemmy.world)
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[-] reddig33@lemmy.world 73 points 11 months ago

Meanwhile people are concerned that the post office isn’t turning a profit.

[-] Dettweiler42@lemmy.world 67 points 11 months ago

Which has never made sense to me. It's a government service. It's not supposed to be profitable. It just needs to be affordable and reliable.

[-] stringere@reddthat.com 37 points 11 months ago

And yet they used to turn a profit. Until Republicans passed a law requiring them to prefund retirements for 75 years out with the USPS Fairness Act. Fairness Act, which imposes this burden on the USPS while no other federal agency (or private business) is required to prefund retirement benefits...quite fair.

[-] BigDaddySlim@lemmy.world 16 points 11 months ago

This has been revoked recently, we no longer are required to prefund the plan. One good thing DeJoy has actually done.

It hasn't been beneficial in terms of us getting a raise or anything since there hasn't been a contract with the NALC in almost 2 years now but I'm sure it shows in the now 66¢ cost of a stamp (price may be more by the time I press send on this message).

[-] tigeruppercut@lemmy.zip 11 points 11 months ago

a law requiring them to prefund retirements for 75 years out with the USPS Fairness Act

If I'm reading this article (or this one) correctly the USPS Fairness Act was the thing that stopped the need to prefund retirements. The one you're thinking of is apparently called the Postal Accountability and Enhancement Act.

[-] 11181514@lemm.ee 35 points 11 months ago

"People" aren't. It's regressives that are trying to disenfranchise mail in voters. Then they put a regressive in charge of the USPS who is trying to run it into the ground so they can be like "oh gosh look how bad it is!"

[-] UnknownHandsome@lemmy.world 10 points 11 months ago

Republicans want to privatize every public work. USPS isn't supposed to turn a profit. It's supposed to be a public good that is sold at cost so we all benefit. It used to be subsidized.

Republicans want to turn it into a new industry a la UPS, FedEx, etc, so it'd cost way more to send a letter. The love of money is the root of all evil. It's also the root of the Republican party.

[-] theluddite@lemmy.ml 3 points 11 months ago

For anyone interested in the history of that ideology and its consequences, Naomi Klein's Shock Doctrine is great.

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[-] theluddite@lemmy.ml 68 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago)

This might seem like a minor quibble, but that money doesn't really come from taxpayers, and understanding what seems like a very technical financial thing is really important if you want to understand geopolitics in general. Here's an except from the beginning of David Graeber's Debt: the First 5,000 years, easily one of the single most interesting and enlightening books I've ever read:

Starting in the 1980s, the United States, which insisted on strict terms for the re- payment of Third World debt, itself accrued debts that easily dwarfed those of the entire Third World combined — mainly fueled by military spending. The U.S. foreign debt, though, takes the form of treasury bonds held by institutional investors in countries (Germany, Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, Thailand, the Gulf States) that are in most cases, effectively, U.S. military protectorates, most covered in U.S. bases full of arms and equipment paid for with that very deficit spending. This has changed a little now that China has gotten in on the game (China is a special case, for reasons that will be explained later), but not very much — even China finds that the fact it holds so many U.S. treasury bonds makes it to some degree beholden to U.S. interests, rather than the other way around.

So what is the status of all this money continually being funneled into the U.S. treasury? Are these loans? Or is it tribute? In the past, military powers that maintained hundreds of military bases outside their own home territory were ordinarily referred to as "empires," and empires regularly demanded tribute from subject peoples. The U.S. government, of course, insists that it is not an empire — but one could easily make a case that the only reason it insists on treating these pay- ments as "loans" and not as "tribute" is precisely to deny the reality of what's going on.

[-] JayDee@lemmy.ml 43 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago)

So it's not coming from US tax payers, this is saying? It comes from Japanese taxpayers, German taxpayers, South Korean tax payers, etc. on top of US tax payers.

That really does not change the situation. It still is a massive amount of money out of US pockets, and the rest is out of US allies' citizen pockets. It also doesn't change the failing to pass audits. It also doesn't change their massive collection of known BS actions done in the past.

[-] driving_crooner@lemmy.eco.br 20 points 11 months ago

Also dosen't change the fact that they could pay for universal everything with that money.

[-] Rootiest@lemmy.world 10 points 11 months ago

I think the point is that the money wouldn't exist if it wasn't meant for military spending

[-] Telodzrum@lemmy.world 2 points 11 months ago

That’s the one.

[-] theluddite@lemmy.ml 12 points 11 months ago

What it does change is that the availability of the money and the military machine are linked. It's not just that American taxpayers are footing the bill; it's that our military machine is funded by tribute, which we pretend is "debt" that we're totally going to pay back one day. It's one system.

To be clear, it's bad. I hate it. I just think it's important to understand how the thing we oppose works.

[-] Primarily0617@kbin.social 22 points 11 months ago

arguably the entire worth of the dollar as a currency comes from it being what taxpayers pay in, so yeah it kind of does come from taxpayers

also, money is fungible with other money, so "this stream of money doesn't come from there" doesn't make sense

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[-] Assman@sh.itjust.works 9 points 11 months ago

Damn, you really changed my perspective there. Thanks for sharing.

[-] theluddite@lemmy.ml 7 points 11 months ago

Read the book! It's so good. It's a tome about debt but it's extremely readable and so, so interesting!

[-] Assman@sh.itjust.works 4 points 11 months ago

Already ordered it 😁

[-] bigkahuna1986@lemmy.ml 57 points 11 months ago

Anytime a journalist thinks about covering this they probably die in a tragic accident suddenly.

[-] Underwaterbob@lemm.ee 16 points 11 months ago

Yeah, by shooting themselves twice in the back of the head.

Those crazy journalists.

[-] Reverendender@sh.itjust.works 15 points 11 months ago

“ He fell down an elevator shaft. Onto some bullets.”

[-] RememberTheApollo_@lemmy.world 47 points 11 months ago

But it’s unpatriotic to question spending dropping multi million dollar bombs and using expensive tech to wage war in impoverished countries.

[-] Reverendender@sh.itjust.works 15 points 11 months ago

Yes. Also it’s anti-Semitic to object to genocide.

[-] SirStumps@lemmy.world 28 points 11 months ago

We need the Karen's to combine their might and talk the the Mega Manager.

[-] uis@lemmy.world 9 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago)

I'm scared it might work. Or excited. Can they talk the Mega Manager into using bunker-penetrating bombs to get Putin?

[-] SirStumps@lemmy.world 13 points 11 months ago

The Karen Bunker Buster is a secret weapon only the Elder Karen's can nag enough to summon.

[-] LemmyKnowsBest@lemmy.world 23 points 11 months ago

We're all outraged but theres no customer service complaint phone number for the black hole that all of our taxpayer dollars disappear into

[-] Patches@sh.itjust.works 9 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago)

Just call ~~911~~ 0118 999 881 999 119 725 … 3. I'm sure they'll help get you sorted.

Edit: Forgot the new emergency services number even though it's so easy to remember.

[-] lingh0e@sh.itjust.works 3 points 11 months ago
[-] LemmyKnowsBest@lemmy.world 3 points 11 months ago

Aw you didn't need to write down that phone number for us. Everyone has that memorized. So easy. 😆

[-] EatYouWell@lemmy.world 15 points 11 months ago

It's funny because the audit process for FedRAMP approval businesses is an absolute nightmare.

[-] Reverendender@sh.itjust.works 9 points 11 months ago
[-] EatYouWell@lemmy.world 18 points 11 months ago

It's the authorization a company has to have before their systems can access/store federal government data.

The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) has the 800-53 which is a ~500 page document that's just a list of controls that must be followed, and companies have to get audited once a year to make sure they complied with the controls the previous year.

The fun part is that most of the controls are worded super vaguely, and you're at the mercy of the auditor's interpretation of them.

[-] wintermute_oregon@lemm.ee 16 points 11 months ago

I know one of the people who is an author of 800-53.

It was funny since an auditor was arguing with her. The auditor said I know this better than you do.

She replied back, I wrote it then showed her named in the credits.

[-] EatYouWell@lemmy.world 5 points 11 months ago

That's pretty great. I had to go full Karen on our auditors to speak to their supervisors because apparently the NIST definition of a term doesn't matter if the auditor feels differently. And it was actually an unambiguous definition.

[-] wintermute_oregon@lemm.ee 5 points 11 months ago

The worst part is the auditor still claimed they knew it better than the person who wrote it.

We got them removed as that’s a level of arrogance that can’t be tolerated.

[-] Reverendender@sh.itjust.works 2 points 11 months ago

What does this auditor gig pay?

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[-] Donkter@lemmy.world 13 points 11 months ago

One day the Pentagon will just drop warp drives and energy 2 out of nowhere and the world will be like "what?"

[-] Seasoned_Greetings@lemm.ee 10 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago)

"Drop" is the wrong word. It's going to be more like "hoard for 50 years until they discover energy 3 and mega-warp, then sell the concept rights for energy 2 and warp to a corp"

[-] Patches@sh.itjust.works 4 points 11 months ago

Who will then sell it back to us. As the free market intended.

[-] uis@lemmy.world 6 points 11 months ago

No. They will only rent it to you.

[-] umbrella@lemmy.ml 10 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago)

Probably used to throw million dollar bombs on countries like mine

[-] Mr_Blott@lemmy.world 3 points 11 months ago

I'll have you know they're fifty thousand dollar bombs, inflated to million dollar bombs because the taxpayer is paying

[-] memfree@lemmy.ml 7 points 11 months ago

Been there, done that. It goes to other assets.... and probably to the CIA for funding Regan's Iran/Contra deals.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/post/the-pentagons-435-hammer/2011/05/19/AGoGKHMH_blog.html

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Packard_Commission

[-] thefartographer@lemm.ee 4 points 11 months ago

Shut up, Robert Greenwald! I'm busy shouting at people who believe different things than me!

[-] affiliate@lemmy.world 4 points 11 months ago

the outrage will not be televised

[-] DaCrazyJamez@sh.itjust.works 3 points 11 months ago

Well, the military has a lot of projects and operations the public doesn't, and shouldn't, know about. If you see about a sting in Syria on CNN, so do the hostile insurgents, or whomever are the enemies du jour. But how can you expense the operation on a public budget sheet, if the operation can't, for security reasons, be public? The answer is simple: you spend $10,000 on $10 toilet seats, and the $9,990 now accounted for dollars are paying for equipment, ammunition, transportation, training, payroll, and benefits for something that officially never happened.

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this post was submitted on 17 Nov 2023
1092 points (97.8% liked)

A Boring Dystopia

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