LETTERS

Letters to the editor for July 30, 2019

Staff Writer
Ocala Star-Banner

Postal solutions

Concerning the relationship between the U.S. deficit and the U.S. Postal Service (USPS), USPS receives no tax dollars; it operates exclusively through selling postage.

In fact, in 2006 Congress passed a bill which required USPS to deposit $5.6 billion into an account to pay for future health benefits of retirees. As written, this means money is being paid for retirees not even born yet.

There is now slightly less than $50 billion in this account and is used to make the deficit appear smaller.

I am kind of old fashioned in that I receive a weekly magazine in the mail on Saturday. Many elderly citizens receive their medicine any given day of the week, so some could possibly go without for two days.

Without the onerous requirement to start each fiscal year $5.6 billion in the hole, USPS would have turned a profit in 10 of the last 12 years. Operationally there’s nothing wrong with USPS. The solution is to remove a requirement no other agency or company in the country has.

Fred Hassen, Ocala 

Trash and treasure

"Trash and treasure" has always been the basis of trade. That is, a person exchanges something they don’t need for something they want. It has been that way ever since Homo sapiens left the cave. However, since that time we have ever been collecting baggage and now have come to the point of arguing, even making war, over the value of the baggage. As if that were not enough, we have also become victims of our own religious and socio/political creations, likewise again representing differing versions of the basis of trade.

We always seem to take an allotment of things, both political and domestic, existing outside our realm of direct influence and test them against the yardstick of capitalism. We misconstrue, mostly to political advantage, and hardly ever consider the commonalities to be found between us and all the other political systems that have ascended during the past couple of centuries — read communism, fascism, socialism — and that includes even religious fervor that predominates in most of the world.

That is to say, all have a bread-and-butter commonality of existence, a concept we should be concerned about as we fulfill necessities of trade agreements with formal entities all over the world. We should shun getting into the political methods used by others that satiate and/or manage their populace. Coercion is a vicious two-edged sword that should be avoided.

We should also recognize the driving force behind all forms of governance. Politics is an entrenched system dating back to variable social and religious influence. Even the present countries living under the influences of Leninist, Stalinist communist doctrine have latent influences of religious dogma that at one time greatly influenced political policy.

That, coupled with mankind’s inherent individualistic drive for wealth and power, presents a couplet that is at the seat of every conflict in which civilization has ever been engaged.

Furthermore, since the invention and institution of the means of instant communication, the world has become effectively much smaller and now may be the time to accept the fact that acting alone is not in our best interest. To the dismay of some, we have become increasingly mutually dependent within this virtually smaller world. However, this fact just might put us one and all on the same page thence on to possible gainful societal exchanges, including the prevention of deadly conflicts, and proceed naturally to negotiations of mutually benefitting trade and cultural interactions.

As “they” say, one man’s trash is another man’s treasure, and that also cuts both ways in the socio/economic world.

Harold T. Sansing, Dunnellon

Promises, promises

Some comments made to me by Trump supporters include that he has kept his campaign promises. I pondered that and find that Mexico has not paid for a wall, Hillary Clinton is not in jail and Obamacare is still in place.

Still waiting.

Doug Pritchard, On-Top-Of-The-World