How to get a free cell phone from the government!

I feel like Ed McMahon sometimes when I read things - "I did not know that!" I'll bet that you don't know this either. You know the "Universal Service Fund" Fee on your cell phone every month? Probably not, I had seen it, but I didn't pay much attention to it. I pay $1.97 every month, so let's round up and call it $24 per year. I pay for 4 phones in my house (yay! Kids eat free!) so let's just say I pay $100 per year. After tax mind you, so it took $150 of my sweat to get the $100. But I digress.

What is this fund for? Let's check out the official gov't explanation:

The USF helps to make phone service affordable and available to all Americans, including consumers with low incomes, those living in areas where the costs of providing telephone service is high, schools and libraries and rural health care providers. Congress has mandated that all telephone companies providing interstate service must contribute to the USF. Although not required to do so by the government, many carriers choose to pass their contribution costs on to their customers in the form of a line item, often called the “Federal Universal Service Fee” or “Universal Connectivity Fee”.

Seems noble enough - but surely the government wouldn't allow people to ABUSE the free phones would they. I mean, since 2008 when a new President got in and all, and the economy went south - surely the President, who is fond of pointing at "loopholes" that benefit the "rich" (like you and me, say the mortgage interest deduction) has made sure that things have been tightened up right?

Let's take a look?

Well that is just awesome - the user base has doubled in the 4 years since Obama took office, and the cost to us has essentially doubled. Investigations by the media - not the gov't - has revealed massive fraud, people with 9 free phones and other abuses that are too horrid to contemplate - such as cushy "provider" deals to cell suppliers that make the right kind of "contributions".

So the next time you want to take your spouse out for that special evening on the town, but just don't have the $100 to justify it, sleep well in the knowledge that a pimp in Detroit is able to get 9 free phones, with your money. Sucker.

Zzzzzzzzz.........

Going Postal

Mommy? What is the difference between capitalism and socialism?

Well, Johnny, let me explain it to you by giving an example. The US post office has been a haven of the union movement for nearly a century, and every year the gov't gives them more and more money from the taxpayers so that they can stay in business and the union workers can vote for the government. Now the government has no more money to give the post office and their failing business model so they government is blaming the internet for hurting the post office.

But Mommy, since union workers and management make so much more than the average person in the street wouldn't they be able to have a better business model, or at the very least come up with a new plan that makes things right?

No Johnny, the manager at the post office cannot make more money, no matter how good she is, so over time the best and brightest people go to work for private enterprise where they know their hard work and spirit and innovation will be rewarded. Why, a lot of the people that would have worked at the post office now work for companies like Google and Amazon and others.

That is why Amazon was able to create better, faster and cheaper services like Amazon Prime. This program gives FREE shipping to Amazon customers who get their goods in a day or two, with a super duper return policy, flawless delivery and friendly associates. Companies like Google are creating even better delivery programs that partner with private delivery companies like UPS to give SAME DAY delivery for many goods and instant delivery of music, books and movies. These companies know that they will make more money, and the smart people that work there know THEY will make more money as well. This is what is called the "free market economy" and it works very, very well. When things get tough - private enterprise, motivated by competition and the prospect of individual wealth creates innovative solutions to vexing problems.

So Mommy - given all of what is happening to the post office, billions of dollars in the red, tough competition, shrinking demand for their services and over 600,000 employees, many of them unionized squeezing out more and more benefits from the system, surely even the dullest of government half-wits can see the writing on the wall and are going to make the changes required to survive?

No Johnny, they have been dulled by the union mentality for too long to become rational now. In fact, given all of the bad things you noted, the post office is responding to competition by LOWERING SERVICE STANDARDS, REDUCING DROP OFF LOCATIONS and INCREASING PRICES - and doing all that with only shedding a few thousand employees. It would seem that there is no hope of saving the post office, and we can only blame bloated unions, political interference and shameless vote pandering.

Mommy, I'm scared.

Why Johnny? Are you scared for the future of the Post Office and it's employees?

No Mommy, I'm scared that 600,000 Cliff Clavins are going to "Go Postal", and I don't mean union rallies......