If chutzpah is killing your parents then throwing yourself on the mercy of the court because you're an orphan then Peter Orszag is the poster child for chutzpah. In his recent article in Bloomberg News he insists the best fix for the post office is to take it private. Where does the chutzpah come from? Orszag was Director of the Office of Management Budget (OMB), an agency that played a key role in crippling the USPS with a manufactured financial crisis.
Here's the back-story. In 1970, after almost two centuries, the Post Office was transformed from a Cabinet agency to the quasi-independent U.S. Postal Service (USPS). In keeping with its new status, Congress eventually moved its finances off budget. Yet, as I've discussed before, the OMB and the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) ignored Congress and continued to include the USPS in the unified budget, the budget they use for "scoring" legislation to estimate its impact on the deficit.
Fast forward to 2001. The Government Accountability Office put the Postal Service on its list of "high-risk" programs because of rising financial pressures resulting from exploding demand from both the residential and commercial sectors. Then in 2002 the anxiety level fell dramatically when the Office of Personnel Management found the Postal Service had been significantly overpaying into its retirement fund.
It seemed a simple matter to reduce future payments and tap into the existing surplus to pay for current expenses. And would have been if the OMB and the CBO did not insist on adhering to their make-believe accounting system.
Several times between 2002 and 2005 Congress overwhelmingly approved tapping into the existing surplus. Each time the White House nixed the idea because it would increase the deficit.
Finally, in 2006 the Post Office and Congress agreed to literally buy off the CBO and OMB. Budget neutrality over a ten-year period was achieved by requiring the USPS to make ten annual payments of $5.4-5.8 billion. The level of the annual payments was not based on any actuarial determination. They were produced by the CBO to equal the amounts necessary to offset the loss of the escrow payments. Under the Postal Accountability and Enhancement Act of 2006 the USPS was forced to prefund its future health care benefit payments to retirees for the next 75 years in ten years, something no other government agency or private corporation is required to do.
The Postal Regulatory Commission noted that those payments "transformed what would have been considerable profits into significant losses." Indeed, 90 percent or more of the current deficit is a result of these artificially created debts.
The Post Office is indeed in a financial crisis, but not one of its own making.
Enter Peter Orszag who still subscribes to the make-believe world created by his old agency. His article lists three problems the USPS faces. The artificial debt is not among them. He lists three counterarguments people might use to oppose privatization. The artificial debt is not among them.
A real world solution to the USPS fiscal crisis would be to remove the artificially generated financial noose from its neck and then build on its two most important assets: its ubiquitous physical infrastructure and the high esteem in which Americans hold it. In combination, these assets offer the post office an enviable platform upon which to generate many new revenue-producing services.
But for Peter Orszag the solution is to ignore the fraudulent financial burden imposed on the USPS and sell off and dismantle its ubiquitous infrastructure. "In addition to its 32,000 post offices, it has 461 processing facilities, monopoly access to residential mailboxes and an overfunded pension plan," he writes. "These assets would attract bidders. Consider, for example, that many processing facilities and post offices sit on valuable real estate, and it may be smarter to sell many of them than to keep them."
Did I forget to mention that Peter Orszag is currently vice chairman of corporate and investment banking at Citigroup? Citigroup would certainly be in the running to oversee the privatization of the post office, a process that would generate tens of millions of dollars in fees and undoubtedly handsomely benefit Mr. Orszag personally.
Now that's chutzpah.
privatizing government
including "privately" earning millions in interest off aggregated unemployment payments was conceived
by the founder ofthe neocon movement and adviser to saint ronnie reagan
"It was the birth of what is now known as "Starve the Beast" – a conscious strategy by conservatives to
FORCE CUTS IN FEDERAL SPENDING by
BANKRUPTING THE COUNTRY.
conceived by the rightwing "intellectual"
irving kristol, bill kristol's father
in1980, the plan called for Republicans
TO CREATE A "FISCAL PROBLEM" BY SLASHING TAXES
andthen foist the pain of reimposing fiscal discipline onto future Democratic administrations who, inKristol's words, wouldbe forced to
"TIDY UP AFTERWARD.""
http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/how-the-gop-became-the-party-of-the-rich-20111109
at the same time he said:
"it is now an interest of the Jews tohave a large and powerful military establishment inthe UnitedStates...
American Jews who care about the survival of the state of Israel have to say,
NO, WE DON'T WANT TO CUT THE MILITARY BUDGET, IT IS IMPORTANT TO KEEP THAT MILITARY BUDGET BIG, SO THAT WE CAN
DEFEND ISRAEL."
How can anybody be surprised by corruption in our systems?
It's groupthink...
9/6/11
"“Make no mistake: fraud is a business model,” said Janet Tavakoli"
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/janet-tavakoli/fraud-as-a-business-model_b_950806.html
"On the same November day that Schapiro spelled out her legislative wish-list to Congress,
U.S. District Judge Jed Rakoff threw out the SEC's proposed $285 million settlement with Citigroup Inc, calling the monetary fine
"pocket change."
He also said investors were being "short-changed."
The SEC had alleged
investors lost $700 MILLION from the bad bets,
while Citigroup had planned to give up $160 million in ILL-GOTTEN PROFIT."
"In a recent SEC settlement cited by the Senators,
former Bear Stears hedge fund managers were forced to pay civil penalties
totaling about $1 million,
after being indicted for defrauding investors out of
$1.6 BILLION."
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/07/22/senate-bill-sec_n_1693791.html
BANKSTER CRIME IS NEVER PUNISHED AND PAYS BIG!!!
it is also the CAUSE OF OUR CURRENT DEPRESSION!