Everyone has known for years that the US Postal System was screwed up, but no one seems to want to do anything about it. Talk is cheap, but where is the action? I remember when DHL started from scratch. No government money went into the company. David built the company on his own. He could deliver packages cheaper than the Post Office. It was as simple as that. Now how could this kid from Fresno, Ca do what the Post Office could not? The fact is our government can not do anything cheaper than the average high school kid can. I do have a simple plan to solve our Post Office problem.
Did you ever notice that in many cities, the Post Office building is one of the most elaborate and expensive buildings in town? That is because the Post Office is spending some one elses money. Happens every time. The Post Office needs to get out of the real estate business and rent all their buildings and trucks. All the maintenance for those buildings and trucks should be contracted out. We don't need high paid janitors with gold plated retirement programs and the same for people who wash and change the oil in their trucks.
My main proposal is to make the Post Office a job training program. Look at it this way. Let's say that an 18 year old kid takes a job in the Post Office as a letter carrier. He then does exactly the same job for 47 years. Every year, he gets a raise even though he is doing exactly the same job after 47 years that he did on his first day. He carries the same leather mail bag and walks the same route, delivery mail to exactly the same number of mail boxes. In most cases, you get paid for what you do. You get a little more if you are one of the very few people who can do that job. That is why pro football players get paid so much. You could not do the job they do so you are not worth as much either. Get that? If there were two applicants for the letter carrier job at the Post Office and one was 18 years old and the other was 50 years old, should they both be paid the same? Yes! What if the Post Office only hired people who were at least 50 years old? By the time they were 65 years old, they would only have gotten 15 annual raises. That is better than the 18 year old kid who got 47 raises. If the retirement program was based on the number of years worked, then the retirement package for the 50 year old guy would cost us tax payers a lot less. What do you think about this idea?
Another idea is to hire high school graduates at age 18 and require that while they work for the Post Office that they take drug tests once a month and keep their weight al healthy levels. Let them work about 30 hours per week and require that they prepare themselves for a "real" job by going to local community colleges. Limit the years that they can work for the Post Office to age 25. At that time they would be layed off and be expected to get a "real" job. During that time, they would contribute to social security and 5% matching to a 401K account that they could not tap into until age 50. This would cut medical cost for the Post Office by at least 75%. It would cut labor cost by at least 50% It would totally eliminate all future retirement cost. Further, it would help to prepare our young people for a responsible future too. Since our kids could not get jobs at the Post Office if they are not high school graduates, it would impact our poor high school graduation rates.
The final point is to get rid of labor unions in the Post Office so that kids who don't perform at some minimum level can be fired without a lot of delay. It would be like getting expelled. We have to recognize that you get paid for what you "do" and let our economic system, thru a natural process enforce that rule. We need to get government and unions out of the "natural" economic process if we ever expect to have a high quality of life here in the USA. Productivity has to be the rule rather than the power of unions or political parties. We have to stop stealing money from the responsible workers and giving it to those who are not productivity. The primary incentive has to be for greater productivity rather than power of the union or the power of your vote.
