While that is certainly true (even I have a patent), no amount of IP protection is going to keep knockoffs at bay when the process is literally a miniaturization using a contract manufacturer - probably in China.

Yeah, good luck with "same thing, only smaller".

He needs to sell as many of these as he can in as short a period as possible - there will be no repeat customers because it will take almost no time at all for other companies to copy this thing and undercut his price. There is not much IP here - just a slick miniaturization.

Your personal inconvenience is only one part of what I would use to judge "competence". The airline-hired companies had a lot more incentive to provide customer service, since that is where their bread was buttered. Effectiveness at detecting explosives or firearms would be a very important thing to measure.

I don't think Storm Trooper blasters can actually hit anything, judging by the movies.

No question that this happens with private companies. Back to the internet, look at the current state of telecommunications in places with a private telephone monopolies... Verizon in my area still only offers copper service. And while it generally "works", it hasn't had any updates since the 90s, yet the rates constantly go one direction - up.

I was just pointing out that handing the responsibility over to the government won't necessarily buy you anything. If they don't have the will to regulate a monopoly provider, they probably aren't going to be very responsive when they own the business. It's practically the same situation.

It depends on your community. Philadelphia owns their water and natural gas infrastructure, but over the years they have taken the profits to plug budget holes rather than reinvest in the infrastructure. The result is something of a crisis - the natural gas pipelines are borderline dangerous and their current capital plan would take 66 years to replace them.

On the other hand, out here in the 'burbs we have privately run water, electric, and gas. Only the sewer is run by the township. And guess which one was under-capitalized? Currently, nearly all development has stopped in the township while we wait up to 25 years for them to finish updating the sewer system. This is not a result of over-development - our suburb is very old and was almost fully developed in the 20s. This is a result of decades of neglect. I'm certain they would have let a communications infrastructure die slowly as well.

Yes, as I said the 10 year catchup time was ridiculous (and probably a ploy in part to make the Post Office look bad). But the law itself is "the right way" to do accounting, and is what has been required of private enterprise for 30 or 40 years. For most of the federal government, I'd say that you can get away with pay as you go - but the post office is shrinking and so their liabilities were going to get out of hand as their revenue declined. The military is in a similar position - most of it's budget will be for veteran benefits as the overall size declines. But veterans have a lot more pull than "former postal workers" politically. If pensions aren't well funded, then the workers will eventually get screwed. There is a special place in hell for union leadership and politicians (and in the old days, business leaders) who trick workers into believing that their future is secure with empty promises.

That is a gross distortion of what is being done, propagated by people with agendas. I suggest you read the actual language of what was required of them.

The pre-funding "misunderstanding" (I'll be generous) is a result of the requirement that the Post Office project future liability. While they are required to calculate it, they only have to pay for current and past employees. In short, they are using industry-standard actuarial tables, and these tables are based on 75-year timeframes. So yes, in raw mathematical terms the actuarial tables are based in part on the lifetimes of people who are not yet born - but that is a far cry from actually funding "future employees". They are simply using good accounting practices now, which is quite a shock to a government organization. When the dust settles, the employees and Post Office will be on far better financial footing.

Most private companies gave up pensions long ago because the government required them to be funded and it became clear how expensive they were. The government can still offer them because they are exempt from those rules and so the money is "free".

I've lost track of the federal rules, but historically the government gets away with a lot more than private industry when it comes to pensions. PA is currently in the middle of a crisis for raising pension promises and not payments. The Post Office is in trouble because congress had the audacity to ask them to actually pay for the benefits they were promising (albeit over a ridiculously short period). There are some high-profile examples of private pension failure, but recently (like, last 20 or 30 years) they were also generally paying insurance.

According to Wikipedia, they employ 47,000 screeners. I don't know what those jobs you linked to are, but the first one is to a cargo company.

You'll need to back that assertion up. They are federal employees with federal benefits.

Until 30 years later when you realize you have to pay pensions...

It was a lot of things to a lot of opportunists, but the main driver in the creation of the TSA was the fear after 9/11. This was an irrational response, since airport security did not "break down" and allow 9/11 to occur - box cutters were allowed on planes because it never occurred to anyone that someone would be able to hijack an airplane with a razor blade.

On the bright side we have another example of how expensive and incompetent the government is at doing a straightforward task. I'm not saying that the private sector would be more competent, but they sure would be cheaper.

I'm hoping for all triangles.