The USPS has lost money over the last decade even if you discount the mandated pension fund payments. Pension costs haven't helped, but the USPS would be in the red anyways due to declining mail volume.

So, you're saying you don't think it's possible that the substantial sums of money that had been forcibly funneled away from them couldn't have been spent over the past 10 years to improve their operations and change the prognosis of your simple arithmetic?

What money? Like I said, the USPS has been losing money even before it makes the pension payments. To cover it's pension costs the USPS has been taking on debt from the treasury.

Debt has both monetary and opportunity costs. My point is that because of those costs and that I don't think that it's fair to say things would have turned out exactly the same minus the pension money, it's unfair to say they would still be red or by how much.

If they can’t fund the annual net increase in pension obligations they are incurring, then they either need to raise their rates or lower their pension benefits. Not actually funding the net annual increase in the Net Present Value of their Accrued Pension Benefits should not be an option.

> If they can’t fund the annual net increase in pension obligations they are incurring, then they either need to raise their rates or lower their pension benefits.

I believe this requires Congress. Hence why USPS is kneecapped. They’re legally obligated to fund them and also prohibited from taking the steps necessary to fully fund them.

they are restricted from lowing their rates per the same 2006 bill cited above. in addition, they have to pre-fund their pension benefits well into the future in ways that other privatized companies would never do. the obligation is overwhelmingly crippling. i don't remember the exact figures, but in 2006 USPS profited somewhere around ~$10M, and in 2009—three years after the law was enacted—they lost close to ~4B. i believe it was estimated that ~3/4 of those losses were directly associated with that law.