Ed O’Keefe reports at the Washington Post that the U.S. government’s postal monopoly continues to hemorrhage red ink at an astounding rate as a result of huge and unsustainable, public-employee-union pension schemes:

The U.S. Postal Service reported $2.2 billion in losses during its second quarter, continuing several quarters of historic losses amid declining mail volume and financial obligations to prefund worker retirement benefits.

Postal officials said Tuesday that the mail agency is still on course to lose about $7 billion when its fiscal year ends in September.

Revenue in mail deliveries totaled $14 billion in the second quarter, down about $568 million, or 3.9 percent, from the same time last year. Shipping revenues also dropped to about $2.2 billion, a 5 percent drop from 2010.

Year-to-year, total mail volume dropped 3 percent to 41 billion pieces in the second quarter, led by ongoing drops in first class mail. . . .

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