As IF Times

link Losses are getting steeper for U.S. Postal Service – Nov. 12, 2010.

Of all the sacred cows out there, the Post Office has to be the most holy.  According to this article, 8.5 billion dollars was lost by the operation over the past year despite job cuts and austerity measures.  What this really means is that  US citizens spent 280 dollars per man, woman and child over the past year in order to keep them in business.  In the big scheme of things,  this isn’t a lot of money when you consider the alternative; that would be having all the postal workers unemployed.  The estimated number of actual carriers is about 350,000 as of 2008, but there’s probably another half of that amount in administration.   If they all got laid off, there would be all sorts of unexpected consequences. 

For example, the short pants business would take a huge hit.  It can probably be verified that posties are responsible for 80% of the consumption of short walking pants in the nation.  What about black shoes?  Same thing.  We would see a drastic decline in the use of dog repellent as well as dog snacks.  The incidences of lonely spouses signing on to chat websites will spike as the daily mailperson would no longer make the daily rounds.  At least for 280 dollars per year, the gang are employed and the country gets some kind of service.  Plus, where else would people go to vent their anger?  So a family of 4 would supplement the jobs of posties at just under $1200 per year, not including stamps.  In this day of $5 cups of coffee and million dollar bungalows, I suppose it’s not a big deal. 

But if you think about what usually gets delivered in your mail, I think the conclusion would be the same as  mine.  It’s mainly junk.  Bills are moving more and more to the online payment scheme.  Love notes are sent with pics now on chatrooms.com.  The only things you receive in the mail anymore are flyers for supermarket sales, real estate solicitations and the odd summons for jury duty or legal demands for more child support.   In essence, the  public is subsidizing advertising to their homes.  When we toss flyers directly into the recycle bin, it is the same thing as tossing dollar bills there.

The amusing part of this article is this comment:

“…The Postal Service blamed the deeper losses on the recession and on the continuing growth of e-mail…”

Email huh.  That’s probably a temporary thing.  Looking a  bit closer, we can see one of the main sources of the funding shortfall.  It turns out that the Post Office has a unique constraint:

“…its “unique” requirement to pre-fund its retirement fund — something no other federal agency is required to do…” 

 In the upcoming year, this amount is almost 6 billion dollars and auditors Ernst and Young are doubting the ability to pay.    As  has been previously discussed, the entitlements and promises of many public sector employees will come under increasing pressure to be re-negotiated  as the obligations get bigger and the pay-ins get smaller.  At least in this case, it appears to be somewhat on track. 

This is still small change compared to the potential savings from a genuinely useless apparatus, the TSA.  That costs up to $58 billion  a year… Hmm…

link Chinese workers build 15-story hotel in just six days – Yahoo! Canada News.

 Consider that the area of the World Trade Centre has been a construction site for almost 10 years now and the contrast to China is alarming.    If you were a Chinese construction worker, you wouldn’t have time to go to the bathroom or have a smoke break.   By the time you’re done, 3 floors would have gone up  in your absence. Contrast this with the 6 days it also took to create the world according to The Bible and the hotel may seem trite, but to be fair, at the beginning of time, He didn’t have to deal with unions.

For perspective, I list some of the event times for a few mundane things that I have had first hand experience with recently, none of which are exxagerations:

-2 months and counting to get a muffler for car

-8 days for a book ordered from publisher

-less than 10 seconds to order Kindle book via Amazon

-40 minutes to get through security checkpoint at Ohare airport

-2 months to have paperwork vetted by lawyers

-2 hours to cross the Canadian/US border by car

-17 hours to cross the Pacific from Asia to North America

-3 months for a sofa

-2 weeks for Canadian cheque to clear at a US bank

Out of curiosity, a search was made to determine how long it takes to produce some of the common things we take for granted.  Some facts were quite interesting.  According to the website www.answers.ask.com, it can take only 24 hours to assemble a complete car.  In fact, they claim that some highly efficient factories can produce up to 100 cars per hour!  No wonder sometimes the Nav system doesn’t work.   It apparently takes a little over 3 weeks to build a Boeing 747 airliner. The “average” time it takes to build a one-off 2800 sq ft house is 3 to 4 months.  Oddly, the average time for a reno is the same. 

We hear stories of bespoke suits at Saville Row taking months to make, requiring numerous trials and fittings.  On the other hand, we know that in Hong Kong, you can have a complete suit made in one day, or even in a few hours, from measurement to walking out the door. 

In this part of the world, we are conditioned to long wait times for all kinds of mundane things.  Since expectations are low because of this conditioning, few complain and nothing really improves.  When exposed to the incredible feat performed by these Chinese construction workers, maybe our complacency will be given a long overdue shake.  In the case of the hotel construction, wouldn’t this same feat be possible here  if not for bureaucratic impediments?  My guess is that long wait times for most things has more to do with bureaucracy and wasted time than logistic restrictions.  For instance, anything involving due process of law is doomed for indeterminable wait times.   Someone should set up an effective free trade program to bring the Chinese economy more in line with Western economies.  The use of currency differentials is a losing strategy.   We should get to import Chinese workers and in turn, we get to export lawyers.  In a very short time, the efficiency rates will swing noticeably and much of the trade imbalances can be resolved.  Sadly, I think the Chinese would prefer a plague of locusts.