“PMG Pat Donahoe appeared recently on “The Kudlow Report,” to represent the Postal Service’s position on the need for congressional action to address the USPS requirement to pre-fund retiree health benefits, frequency of delivery and allow the Postal Service to access overpayments to the Civil Service Retirement System and Federal Employees Retirement System. Donahoe explains to CNBC host Larry Kudlow that legislative changes are “not a bailout.”
Partial excerpts from the interview:
this is not personal. and the post offices have treated me well down through the years. this is a financial issue. your postage stamps, first-rate postage has gone up twice the consumer price index in addition to these heavy losses. look, why don’t you just surrender and end the monopoly, see what happens with some private players coming in? why not give google a chance? why not give fedex a chance? i don’t see how, with all respect, snail mail can compete with e-mail or social media. i don’t see it, sir. all right.
here’s the thing. there’s going to be 168 billion pieces of snail mail, we’re not going away. let me talk about fedex. it’s our fifth largest customer. and we’re fedex’s largest customer. we will spend this year about $1.2 billion with fedex to transport our mail. they do a great job.
Larry: so patrick, look, i love fedex, fred smith is my favorite ceo. why don’t you let him asobsorb you? and he’ll make a deal with google and you all can live happily ever after without a government bailout.
PMG: why don’t we flip it and we’ll absorb them.
we deliver — they’re making money hand over fist. you’re losing money hand over fist, they’re making money hand over fist.
larry, larry — if congress acts and resolves $5.5 billion prepayment of health payments through retirees, fedex doesn’t pay that, u.p.s. doesn’t pay that. we’re paying that, we deliver on saturday, we don’t have enough mail to deliver saturday. fedex and u.p.s. never delivered on saturday. let us go to five-day. guess what? we make $100 million in profit. just like fedex and u.p.s.
i don’t know where those numbers come from, but whatever. i’m not here to badger you but here to speak the truth. no, no, no — your union workforce according to reports, all in wages and compensation, you’re $100,000 a year on average, this is something else. why don’t you sell off — you’ve got big real estate holdings. in some sense, you’re a real estate holding company. why don’t you make use of that and start selling off the real estate left and right?
we are, as a matter of fact, we sold the gpo, general post office in new york a couple of years ago for $232 million. as a matter of fact, we’ve cleared that and we’re waiting for people to move in and start building in that property that we sold to them. we sold properties all across the u.s.
UPS, FED X, do not waste money on Sat. delivery that a premium is not paid;
Sat, street address delivery is a total waste.. Sat. nationwide street address delivery should be history as it was no longer needed once the advance in technology communications such as INTERNET, CELL PHONE, TEXTING, SATILLITE NEWS AND NEW APPS BECOMMING AVAILABLE. CHILDREN ARE COMPUTER SAVVY BY 4-5 YRS. OF AGE. Wriiten communication business and personal has become history. The written word via mail is a thing of the past comparable to need for Model T Fords;HISTORY.
UPS, FED X, do not waste money on Sat. delivery that a premium is not paid;
Sat, street address delivery is a total waste.. Sat. nationwide street address delivery should be history as it was no longer needed once the advance in technology communications such as INTERNET, CELL PHONE, TEXTING, SATILLITE NEWS AND NEW APPS BECOMMING AVAILABLE. CHILDREN ARE COMPUTER SAVVY BY 4-5 YRS. OF AGE. Wriiten communication business and personal has become history. The written word via mail is a thing of the past comparable to need for Model T Fords;HISTORY.
Webb, you Repuke Scab, UPS would be king on nothing. Who the hell would deliver most of their sh*t?
Donahoe has to walk fine line as he is also supposed to suck up to Wall Street in order to get Republican congress douches on his side.
What reports and sources did Kudlow get his figures from? Why didn’t Donahoe mention about fedex and U.P.S. rate increases and the fuel surcharges that are added on when fuel costs go up?
R U serious KUDLOW get an idea. The regular working stiff, doesn’t even come close to ur numbers. You couldn’t walk a day in most of our shoes. All u want to do is S–T on us. I work overtime as a LETTERCARRIER and I certainly don’t come close 2 a hundred thousand. The American People would go nuts without The 90 PLUS Percent of the hard working POSTAL EMPLOYEES that bring there mail,and also keep eyes on there routes 2 be helpful in the neighborhoods. GET UR FACTS RIGHT B 4 U SPEAK!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Screw fedex scabville. At least ups guys work their asses off. USPS carriers earn their $100k the other crafts don’t even come close. I was a carrier and a clerk before. Now I am a mail handler and turn trays for $90+k a year. I am not giving one inch on wagews but carriers earn their pay and more. Nothing like driving an llv through a New England blizzard to get those Sun Chronicle advisers out. Time for a Wall Street collapse of mega proportions and put CNBC off the air haha.
Just think what would happen to FEDEX if it was absorbed by USPS! You would have 2 “Titanic’s” sinking simultaneously! And UPS would be the King of the World! USPS management, the NALC, and the APWU would drive FEDEX into the ground!!!
this is typical of these cable “news” blowhards. never know what they are talking about. just put out a bunch of sh*t usually in favor of whatever harms the typical worker the most. they are all millionaire talking heads taking care of their own.
ET’s (ET-10 and there are a few ET-11’s) are among the higher base wage craft employees in the USPS. I’m topped out. With everything included (benefits, etc.) my highest number was about $94k. I’m not sure where he got his average from unless he includes the over abundant dead weight management salaries in his computations.
Crudlow was a coke head who got busted for coke and could no longer trade on wall street….wound up on cable TV…sounds like he is still high in my correct opinion!
want to save the PO get rid of the 110,000 mismanagers…..do we really need 95 PO Vice-Presidents?
Can you believe Kudlow when into this meeting with no knowledge of the Post Office
and that we are not looking for a bailout? What a twit. No since asking him or Congress what the Postal Service is about. We serve everyoone not the select few like UPS and FedEx. Maybe they will learn that we don’t use tax dollars but the income we produce for sales. That we are paying on employees retirement and Health benifits thatt don’t even work for us yet,and might never work for us.
postal employees should make no more than $20,000 per year. supervisors and postmasters should make about $200,000 per year
Management is absolutely horrible, line supervisors dont even know the definition of “budget”, as a matter of fact i dont think the post office has a budget. The just keep on mandating and mandating overtime, its the only way they know how to run the place, i am not complaining, they threw money at me when i worked there. Having worked for United Parcel Service for many years then going to the post office was quite a shock, and that was 26 years ago. UPS always talked about their budget to their employees, when i got on at the post office the first thing i noticed was that they just through money out the window. Managers and line supervisors are promoted by “who they know” or, you know what rhymes with “know”……not by their skills.
He is way off on my wages. I don’t come close to making $100,000 a year. My Postmaster makes that, but we the working people don’t come close. Much more like $50,000 per year. Check your facts before spewing out lies. So far I haven’t read anything with an ounce of truth to it. They keep blaming the problem on this pre-paid retirement fund. Yes, maybe part of it, but the rest is plain and simple bad management. Calling OT on Sunday? Get real, it’s not going anywhere on Sunday yet they will have mailhandlers and clerks stay 2-4 hours over to run the flat sorter. I’m sure if you look at the other P& DCs you will find similar bad management. I sure am glad they don’t have control over my checkbook!
This guy is another Tool. We deliver half of FEDEX AND USP’s sh*t. F you, moron.
Just another example of a millionaires on TV putting out the propaganda against the average working stiff in favor of his rich pals. F**k these TV a&&holes.
Wall street blow job, love it!!!
Time for Congress to regurgitate !
Kudlow is a Wall Street Blow Job with an agenda….he shills for them and makes big bucks for doing it….
his ideas are mostly horse shit and when he’s REALLY WRONG BIG TIME he just sloughs it off….no one critiques his horse shit ideas….but they should.
He’s as much an “EXPERT ADVISER” as Kramer….another AGENDA SHILL trying to move the market in HIS DIRECTION ALL THE TIME….