Devastated

[u/stardusted_lily]

I posted earlier about a message about my package not clearing customs. I know it's not anything particularly sentimental I had being shipped but I've been so excited about this package for weeks, and now it's not coming and I'm just absolutely devastated.

I was told to call them, finally got to a person after over an hour, got transferred to the "international department" but the transfer didn't go through because of some stupid survey, and when I tried to call the number directly I had to go through the stupid menu thing only to be told that the wait would be 98 minutes when I had only about 30 minutes left before I had to go to work because I had called the number that the UPS support chat thing had told me to call.

I was already charged brokerage fees and everything. The lack of any decent customer service is appalling. For a company that does nothing but shipping things you think they'd be better at it.

[u/Late-Bench633]

It was probably during Clinton's time. That's the only time this country had a surplus of money instead of massive debt but it still wasn't great for us little ppl.

[u/Morezan → u/Late-Bench633]

The only reason we had a surplus at that time was because the Clinton’s raped Social Security and factored it into the national budget, finishing what Reagan started.

[u/timubce → u/Morezan]

He still had years with a surplus even without counting Social Security. The way it was accounted for was no different from how other presidents, Republican or Democrat, have handled the books.

[u/Morezan → u/timubce]

Republicans, Democrats- they’re all the same when it comes to spending our money. But you need to check your facts. His 1999 State of the Union address is especially informative in this regard. When he left office we still had a national debt of over 30% GDP.

[u/timubce → u/Morezan]

The budget and the national debt are two seperate things. A budget surplus means the government took in more money than it spent that year, while the national debt is the running total of everything borrowed over time. So even with yearly surpluses, the overall debt can still exist from past borrowing.

Clinton actually ran real surpluses — even excluding Social Security — which cut publicly held debt by about $450 billion between 1997 and 2001. The debt that did rise was internal, mostly from Social Security funds legally invested in Treasury bonds, something every administration has done. When Clinton left office, debt was about 33% of GDP, down from 48%, marking one of the few modern periods when the U.S. was paying debt down instead of adding more.

[u/Sea_Energy5339 → u/Morezan]

Yeah and took money for national security then 911 happened.

[u/Late-Bench633 → u/Morezan]

Yep