Usdk wrote:
1: I understand that soldiers are gov't employees. As much as you want me to be, I'm not a simpleton. Good friend of mine is an ex marine. He did the math, and when he was working 10-14 hour days he was only making a little over minimum wage. AND getting shot at.
I'd like to see that math.
Most soldiers (and others who somehow make money off the military budget) never get shot at. You can sit your ass in Korea or Poland or on a carrier or fly a cargo plane around or patrol around some base in some godforsaken Midwestern crossroad and get paid all the same. And even if you are getting shot at, that's a different question than whether the war is appropriate or necessary - whether taxpayers are getting their money's worth.
You can ferry papers around the Pentagon or build rockets that don't work or do some other sort of lame contract work and get paid an insane amount for it because God forbid anyone question touch the military budget.
There are many civil professions that don't pay well - driving a truck down I-80, mining coal, even farming or driving a taxi - that are very dangerous, and you don't get a medal when you fall from a bridge or get a chemical burn or die in a gas explosion or get cut in half by a machine.
My point is, the reason our budget is bloated is that Americans aren't willing to slaughter the sacred cows, whether it's entitlement programs or the military. So instead we get this BS that does nothing.
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3: If by comparable hours you mean getting every holiday on the calendar off, then sure. Not to mention that for the most part they make more money than private sector jobs, and in this economy likely have better benefits.
4: The POST OFFICE delivers those letters across country. Then, because its a shitty business model for charging so little, the gov't dumps money into the post office so that it can stay afloat. Which means WE dump money into it. FedEX and UPS don't need that help, and are just as good, if not better.
FedEx and UPS are both more expensive due to profit margin and they don't do letter delivery. They are also less idiot proof. I'm not an idiot, but USPS materials are WAY more user friendly.
The "govt dumps money into USPS bit" is a myth. They're financially independent. They don't get handouts from the government; revenues pay expenses year after year.
But really, who can complain about the details? It's a good system and they are more reliable than Verizon or American Airlines or pretty much any private company I can think of.
