US Announces Plans To Withdraw From 144-Year-Old Postal Treaty (thehill.com) 415
JoeyRox writes: The Trump Administration announced today that it's intending to withdraw from the Universal Postal Union, an international postage rate system overseen by the United Nations. "The decision was borne out of frustration with discounts imposed by the Universal Postal Union (UPU) that allow China and some other nations to ship products into the U.S. at cheaper rates than American companies receive to ship domestically," reports The Hill. "The administration argues the system undercuts U.S. manufacturers and allows China to flood the market with cheap goods." The U.S. is hoping to renegotiate the rates, known as terminal dues, but was frustrated with opposition from other nations in the UPU. According to the report, "The withdrawal would not take effect for one year, allowing the U.S. some time to broker a new deal."
"The 144-year-old UPU sets fees that postal services charge to deliver mail and packages from foreign carriers," reports The Hill. "For decades, developing nations have been allowed to pay lower rates than wealthier nations. China has fallen under the developing nation category, a designation the U.S. says it no longer deserves because of its booming economy." The Trump administration wants to move to a system of "self-declared rates" that would allow the U.S. Postal Service to set its own prices for shipping international packages of all sizes. As it stands, the P.O. is only allowed to use self-declared rates on packages exceeding 4.4 pounds.
"The 144-year-old UPU sets fees that postal services charge to deliver mail and packages from foreign carriers," reports The Hill. "For decades, developing nations have been allowed to pay lower rates than wealthier nations. China has fallen under the developing nation category, a designation the U.S. says it no longer deserves because of its booming economy." The Trump administration wants to move to a system of "self-declared rates" that would allow the U.S. Postal Service to set its own prices for shipping international packages of all sizes. As it stands, the P.O. is only allowed to use self-declared rates on packages exceeding 4.4 pounds.
There goes Aliexpress... (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re:There goes Aliexpress... (Score:5, Insightful)
The question for those of us that export goods from the US is "what is this going to do to our shipping costs?"
They will quite likely go down. Under the current system, rates paid by Americans are subsidizing other countries.
An eBay seller in Shenzhen pays less to ship a package to an American than an American pays to ship to his next door neighbor.
If an America company wants to send a lot of small packages to American customers, and is in no particular hurry, it can be cost effective to load them all in a shipping container, ship them to China, and then mail them back to individual addresses in America.
The current system is based on the assumption that there is a similar amount of mail going in each direction, so we pay to send in one direction, and China pays to send in the other direction, and it is a wash. But this is NOT TRUE at all. WAY more stuff comes out of China than goes in. And it is sent from coastal cities and delivered to China Post directly at the airport where it leaves the country. So China Post is bearing NO cost, while USPS is bearing the cost of receiving the package at the destination airport, and then shipping it across the country and delivering the last mile, all for $0.
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I doubt the GP plans to sell to China but rather to, say, Europe. And I highly doubt Europe will honor a deal if you don't.
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Re:There goes Aliexpress... (Score:4, Informative)
Then I hope at least an US - EU deal is made. My impression is that there are plenty of places in the EU that would want out of this skewed treaty: the postal services are overloaded with China shit, most imports aren't declared or declared incorrectly, import fees aren't paid, taxes aren't paid. That means the Chinese not only have the advantage of lower wages and worse working conditions but also of bypassing the fees EU companies have to pay. Another example is that electronics in the EU have to be taken care of at end-of-life and manufacturers are required to handle this - which the Chinese avoids. There have been cases where the Chinese products contain dangerous constructions, dangerous substances or other problems like not caring about radio interference. More costs that EU consumers, companies and countries have to take care of.
So let's stop this bullshit.
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You haven't explained why that would make the cost go down for US exporters though.
If the US wants to charge other countries to deliver to it, then other countries will want to charge the US for the same. So costs will go up for everyone, except perhaps domestic shippers who might have to subsidise imports less. Or maybe the postal service will just pocket the extra cash rather than pass the saving on.
That's Trump's goal here, to make domestic sellers more competitive by raising shipping prices for goods co
Re:There goes Aliexpress... (Score:5, Informative)
>You haven't explained why that would make the cost
>go down for US exporters though.
Currently, the payment for internationally shipping from the US is basically the price plus a subsidy. For example, a $5 fee paid is $4 for the shipping, and $1 for the subsidy.
If a packages is $5 to a developing country, it might be only 50 cents to ship *from* the developing country. The first world receiver pays more to deliver in country than it is paid on that package--and subsidizes this loss from that extra dollar above.
The reason for this is to let Elbonia pull itself up into the the modern world; it is deliberately subsidized.
The problem is that as China left that developing status, it hasn't given up its rates.
I've actually ordered something for eleven cents, delivered . . .
If China has to pay the rates of an economy of its state of development, subsidy of its shipping no longer has to be built into the other international rates. *That* is where the reduction comes from.
Shipment between the US and Europe don't subsidize one another, and their cost could reasonably be expected to go down without the subsidy for China (or at least not increase as much as they would have).
hawk, wearing his econ professor hat for a change
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For this to be in your benefit you need to first have a product that people want to buy. Just like the trade wars all you're doing is again applying a tax on people who can't afford "Made in America".
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An eBay seller in Shenzhen pays less to ship a package to an American than an American pays to ship to his next door neighbor.
If the package from Shenzhen is 1 lb or less, and the buyer doesn't mind waiting 9 to ~21 days to get it.
If an America company wants to send a lot of small packages to American customers, and is in no particular hurry, it can be cost effective to load them all in a shipping container, ship them to China, and then mail them back to individual addresses in America.
If the buyer doesn't mind waiting 42-ish days for delivery instead of 2 to 10 days for regular mail, or 2-3 days for priority.
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Re:There goes Aliexpress... (Score:5, Funny)
Then how will we get our cheap junk?
Amazon will 3D print its own blockchain-based postal system.
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Re:if that's the case... (Score:5, Informative)
This is being blown out of proportions. There is only an advantage for small packages under 1lb. Over 1lb international rates are much higher than domestic. Under 1lb there is about a $1 advantage to foreign shippers. But the USPS is not losing money on delivering these packages, the foreign rates cover the cost of delivery. The argument is over pension contributions and that extra dollar from a price increase for foreign packages will go into postal worker's pensions.
Re:if that's the case... (Score:5, Informative)
This situation in the media is being distorted by comparing Priority Mail rates to international EMS. My Priority Mail packages arrive in 2-3 days. My EMS packages take at a minimum of 9 days and many take closer to 21 days to arrive. These services are not comparable. If I want three day service from China it costs over $50.
Sounds like a good plan (Score:2, Insightful)
Let's just declare China the winner, and end the race to the bottom once and for all.
Hooray! Chinese are the bottom! The lowest on the planet!
Enjoy your stamped plastic trophy with the misspelled plaque
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Oh, China aren't the lowest. When you want to pay your workers even less than in China, and with even laxer safety standards, there's Bangladesh.
He found an Acorn (Score:5, Interesting)
Blind squirrel, acorn.. you all know the retort.
Joking aside, this system has been abused extensively and is really in need of an overhaul.
I used to live in China and used the postal service to ship a lot of my personal stuff back home when we moved back to the US. It was ridiculously cheap to move that way. I couldn't believe how cheap it was. Each box was just shy of the 25kg limit and right on the maximum allowed dimensions. Each one shipped from South China to Alabama for about $20. I couldn't even mail them to another city in Alabama for that price, but here they were circling half the globe.
Re:He found an Acorn (Score:5, Insightful)
It's because all the smaller, lighter packages subsidise the heavier ones. Most of the stuff being shipped is small and not really worth the effort to carefully weigh and measure just to charge some precise amount.
Courier companies in Europe are the same, I'm surprised it's not that way in the US. People complained because they would get a huge box full of space filler and one small item at the bottom, because the courier charges a flat rate up to a certain size/weight and it's cheaper for the warehouse to buy one size of box in bulk.
Of course such cheap shipping takes a long time to come from China, which saves more money because they can often buy cheap space on flights/boats that would otherwise be unused by more time sensitive packages. If they have to send an aircraft today to meet the deadline on 3 day packets it's more economical to fill it up with cheap slow ones than to let it go half full.
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Some Chinese sellers offer insurance against this now. For a small fee you can buy customs charge insurance at the checkout and if you get charged you simply submit a receipt and they refund you.
Obviously your parents probably won't be offering this service.
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Customs Duty (Score:5, Insightful)
In Belgium I used to get packages all the time that ended up costing me money.
The same thing happens in Canada and elsewhere. This is the reason why only the US is seeing this problem. Most other countries have a value limit on what can be shipped without taxes (import duties, VAT/sales tax etc.) being charged. While the taxes themselves might not be particularly high the agent costs to collect and process that parcel through customs are often significantly higher.
The problem is that for a long time the US used to be the cheapest place to produce goods and so they had no need to worry about charging duties and taxes on imported goods. However, the world has changed and this is no longer the case. If they applied a low-value limit for tax-free retail shipping the problem would solve itself without the need to lose all the political capital that this treaty withdrawal will cause.
I think that's one of the biggest problems with Trump. Even when he is right about a problem he always seems to pick the most damaging and disruptive method to address it.
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It's because all the smaller, lighter packages subsidise the heavier ones. Most of the stuff being shipped is small and not really worth the effort to carefully weigh and measure just to charge some precise amount.
Shipping small packages from China to the US are similarly cheap. Like a 300g padded envelope, via air mail, for around 7 RMB (about $1.00). And then, if you're a business, you can get it subsidized where you can receive a 40% discount on the marked postage level - meaning you can send that 300g package for around $0.60.
Re:He found an Acorn (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:He found an Acorn (Score:5, Insightful)
If you up-end the shipping rates from third world countries (because if you mess with just the shipping rate from China then they'll just find some other third world country to funnel products through so you have to mess with all of them) the average American consumer who is already struggling is the one that's going to end up footing the bill for substantially more expensive products. Eventually some manufacturing jobs may move back inside US borders as the higher price of goods makes setting up a heavily automated factory worth the investment, but that'll take years in transition and the number of jobs created will be insignificant to the impact of the increased cost of living.
It's worth noting that many of those third world countries don't have the kinds of regulations and worker protections that the US has (even though many of our protections have been getting eroded, especially under the current administration though it's been slowly happening for decades). So American consumers are benefiting off the back of often horrible labor practices and even child labor in the third world for decades.
If Americans were actually getting paid relative to their productivity then they'd have the wherewithal to afford locally sourced products, even at double or triple the price of imports. Effectively cutting off the US from the global market right now however will have devastating consequences for American consumers in the short term, the same way that the tariffs that have already been implemented have had devastating consequences on mid-western farmers and the auto industry. We need to fix the income inequality in our country first, and I don't see threatening postal rates on imports and setting up tariffs as having any meaningful impact on that problem. Granted, in order to fix the income inequality in our country we need to stop our corporations from buying off most of our politicians and reverse their decimation of organized labor.
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I think this issue may be a bit more complicated than you might think. On the face, it certainly doesn't make any sense whatsoever for goods from China and other third world countries to ship so cheaply into the US. But, American consumers have benefited significantly from this, though it came at the expense of American factory workers whose jobs are long long gone.
I'd say that American consumers have so far successfully kicked the can down the road until the day of reckoning has come. It couldn't stay this way forever. The longer we wait, the more painful the correction.
If Americans were actually getting paid relative to their productivity then they'd have the wherewithal to afford locally sourced products, even at double or triple the price of imports. Effectively cutting off the US from the global market right now however will have devastating consequences for American consumers in the short term, the same way that the tariffs that have already been implemented have had devastating consequences on mid-western farmers and the auto industry.
First, the reason we aren't getting paid relative to our productivity is because of crap like the postal system above that allows cheap 3rd world child labor to produce and ship things overseas for less than just shipping the item locally costs. I'd say that's ridiculous and needs to be fixed. Will it
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First, the reason we aren't getting paid relative to our productivity is because of crap like the postal system above that allows cheap 3rd world child labor to produce and ship things overseas for less than just shipping the item locally costs
You think shipping costing $1 instead of $3 is sufficient to have stopped all productivity-based wage increases since 1978?
We make double the stuff per hour that we did in the 1970s. We use 1/3rd the workers of the 1970s to do it. If productivity and wages scaled like they did up until
about 1978, then inflation-adjusted US wages should have gone up about 6x (1/3rd the workers, making 2x the stuff). Instead, inflation-adjusted wages are flat or negative.
It isn't shipping that's the problem.
Those tariffs were applied precisely to have the greatest effect on Trump supporters, since Trump instituted the tariffs
They also happe
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Stuff's also cheaper than it was in the 70s.
You are literally arguing that inflation has not occurred since the 1970s.
Also, there's more things in GDP than computers.
To get back on track - when a Chinese company can make and ship you a product from China for less than an American company can ship the same product within a town, there's definitely a problem.
You're not on track. The US makes twice as much stuff as it did in the 1970s. Goods from China does not change that statistic, because it's only measuring domestically-produced stuff. Bringing in China is like saying you weigh 180 lbs when we're measuring height.
Re:He found an Acorn (Score:5, Insightful)
The stats lie by omission. Most of the 1% make their billions on passive and unreported income, sheltered in corporations or other vehicles so they don't have to say they earned 10-100M that year. We found out in 2012 that Mitt Romney has a $100M 401k. No normal person gets to even 1/10 of that value without a LOT of tax-deferred income (457 plan). That isn't reported as income.
I support a micro-cent financial transaction tax that would could rake in billions and virtually eliminate HFT and front-running. Now that'd be a tax that actually taxes the rich.
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My daughter was born bent out of shape, you insensitive clod!
Re:Nice slur against the disabled you leftist jerk (Score:5, Funny)
My great-grandmother was born insensitive, you person of generic attributes!
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Proof right here that the right is full of retards, I guess.
Proof that the left doesn't care about retards! Um.
Children, please!
NPR Planet Money Podcast on this Topic (Score:4, Informative)
The Planet Money podcast did a good story relating to this topic on August 1st, 2018. The episode was titled "The Postal Illuminati".
Link (Score:5, Interesting)
Came here to post this :) Here's the link:
https://www.npr.org/sections/m... [npr.org]
TL;DR version - Yes there is a postal "illuminati." The treaty states that, when sending things via international mail, the sending country handles the cost to get the package to the country being delivered to, and the country being delivered to covers the cost of delivery from the point of entry to the final destination. As you can imagine, sending something from China on an enormous container ship to a port in Los Angeles is relatively cheap, especially when most of the manufacturing and shipping is done near sea ports. Shipping that thing from Los Angeles to Miami is pretty expensive. The cost of the last part is covered by the US post office.
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Sounds like it could be mitigated by having the stuff arrive at a port in Miami. There is canal for just that purpose. A bit of cooperation could sort it out.
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The way to get China to do that is to make the sender pay the freight. They minimize their costs, not anybody else's.
Cooperation (Score:2)
Problem is, maybe a fraction of the stuff on the giant container ship is going to go to Miami, or all of Florida for that matter. So you'd have to load a ship with *just* stuff going to Florida, which kind of defeats the purpose of the giant container ship.
Also, due to laws protecting US shipping companies, you can't pull into a port from a foreign country, unload some of your cargo, then sail to another US port. All your cargo has to be transferred to a US-owned ship, at which point you might as well throw
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Sure, but it would be better if all the stuff going to the east coast was shipped to the east coast, right? It costs less to ship stuff over sea than over land, even with the longer sea route.
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So if they sent it from China to to Guam then the US postal service would take it the rest of the way?
I wondered how long it was going to take the (Score:2, Troll)
Great One to catch onto this. When he started complaining that Amazon.com was bankrupting the PO, I wondered why he wasn't complaining about the free delivery of goods from China. He's probably pissed off because he found out he could be shipping his neckties from the factories in China for free instead of packing them onto ships and paying whatever duties and delivery costs might be.
And? (Score:5, Insightful)
China has fallen under the developing nation category, a designation the U.S. says it no longer deserves because of its booming economy.
That seems ... reasonable?
Re:And? (Score:4, Insightful)
No matter what Trump does, someone will complain. He could achieve permanent world peace, and half the US would complain he's decimating the defense industry and costing jobs.
Re:And? (Score:5, Insightful)
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Can you back that up by pointing out some examples of where he has done something that someone is in favour of and they've criticised him for it? He gets criticism from people for just about everything he does because they think just about everything he does is incompetent, malicious, or immoral.
Re:And? (Score:5, Funny)
He could achieve permanent world peace, and half the US would complain he's decimating the defense industry and costing jobs.
Frankly, he couldn't. He has neither the competence nor the desire to try.
Whoosh.
Re:And? (Score:5, Insightful)
He could achieve permanent world peace
Frankly, he couldn't. He has neither the competence nor the desire to try.
And there you go, proving the original poster's point that some people wont' be satisfied no mater what he does... Way to go Jeremi...
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he's so far started less wars than Obama did.
More fool him. Do you know what a good war can for gdp?
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China is still in the development phase. Far from everyone has been brought up to a first world standard of living there, in fact the majority have not.
The developing nation status helps those people by making it easier for small businesses and even individuals to sell to relatively wealthy consumers in the west.
I'm sure someone will ask why they should care about people in China or helping China develop. I'll assume that humanitarian arguments won't work so I'll use an economic one. As China develops it op
Re: And? (Score:2)
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Developing economy != 3rd world
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'European' and 'Japanese' cars that are made in China (by minimum 50% Chinese owned companies) as the tariffs are so high they are unaffordable when imported? Those cars?
China has been at 'Trade war' with America and Europe for 20+ years, America is starting to fight.
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The EU shipped â16.3 billion worth of vehicles to China last year.
https://www.acea.be/statistics... [www.acea.be]
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China sells 2 million cars/month. 1 car in 24 in China is not European (your cite claims .5 million cars/year, but growing fast in last year). They are clearly counting parts imports or playing another statistical game.
Re:And? (Score:5, Insightful)
I agree that just as in the US, not every Chinese citizen has benefited from the changes in China. However, once a country starts its own export import bank and starts trying to buy influence in other poorer countries (African operations come to mind), it is arguable that the developing category is no longer appropriate.
China can't have it both ways. It can't make a case for moving the world reserve currency away from the dollar and make massive investments in the rest of the world buying a presence in many countries and then whine that they are still developing. That time is long past.
The fact that much of the country hasn't benefited isn't really the world's problem. It is China's.
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1000 times this. Wish I had mod points.
I've been to China and they certainly have subsistence farmers who live in mud huts. They also have a huge population that lives in modern cities. When their population is 3x that of the USA, they have a much broader economic spread.
But as a nation, they left "developing" a long time ago.
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This problem would resolve itself if China was not a developing nation, as China wouldn't be making stuff much cheaper than the US and people living there wouldn't be able to survive on the kind of wages they have to pay to hit those prices. If the Chinese economy was as developed as westerners they would be importing just as much from us.
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China is a major global player now, even opening up military bases in Africa to protect regional interests.
As someone that does not agree with much of Trump and his administration, how he's dealing with China is something I do agree with. Level the playing field. Now of course all China needs to do is give Trump or his family some sweet real estate deals and we know he'll back off his rhetoric.
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I'm not saying that the relationship with China shouldn't keep evolving and changing, but blunt tactics like this and starting a trade war is not the best way to go about it.
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The entire population of the USA does not have a "first world" standard of living. Are we developing too?
What percentage of a country should be "first world" before they are no longer "developing"? China has a space program, aircraft carriers, huge modern cities, and also rice farmers living in mud huts. The population living at first world levels is probably as large or larger than the population of the USA. And that first-world population is actively competing with/against the USA. Why should the USA give
Re:And? (Score:5, Insightful)
Trying to get China reclassified out of developing nation status sounds fine. Trying to get to unilaterally set rates sounds tantamount to pulling out of the agreement, and so makes no sense. This seems like typical Trump administration strategy. Complain about one part of something then try to pull out of the whole thing. Maybe that works in underhanded real estate negotiations, but in international agreements it tends to just piss off the people who are trying to agree with you.
The deeper issue is that the Trump administration doesn't understand the importance of economics in national security. It is in our interest that truly developing nations do have things a bit easier, since they are less likely to become unstable and/or terrorist breeding grounds threatening global shipping lanes. This lack of understanding of the role of economics in world stability is, in fact, the source of Tillerson's comment that Trump is an idiot. Trump is willing to risk putting a major trading partner in a large-scale armed conflict if it saves the US a modest sum in international aid. It is tough to call that anything but stupid from a policy perspective.
No Insight at all (Score:2, Insightful)
RTFS, maybe even RTFA. There's not a chance of getting the UN to apply pressure to China. The only options are to unilaterally withdraw or to straight up nuke the treaty. Trump made the saner choice.
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Of course that strategy works. Nearly every other nation in the world NEEDS some combination of US trade or US military protection, either directly or indirectly (through shit like the UN). Most other nations in the world can't even feed themselves on their own.
Trump isn't winning because he's some genius. He's winning because he has the balls to say "fuck you" and walk away from a bad deal.
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Trump isn't winning because he's some genius. He's winning because he has the balls to say "fuck you" and walk away from a bad deal.
Sometimes, genius is just recognizing the obvious and ignoring the nay-sayers. Like Einstein and his answer to the letter from 100 scientists saying he was wrong.
Re: And? (Score:2)
Not to worry (Score:2, Interesting)
I buy a lot of that "cheap junk" off of ebay, that comes directly from China. I've noticed that over the last year a lot of it no longer being sent using China mail (i.e. the official government mail that is part of the postal union and is at issue here). Most has moved to "private carriers" - who, from all the appearances, ship things in bulk to the US and then separate and ship packages internally as domestic first class mail.
Some of it started coming from Malaysia (likely based on their advantageous mail
Re: Not to worry (Score:2)
Only means US citizens will pay more (Score:2)
Because most of the stuff you order from China is actually only made there. So US citizens will have the choice to order for higher shipping fees or pay a lot more for exactly the same goods from an US vendor that imported them from China.
Re: Only means US citizens will pay more (Score:2)
Re:Only means US citizens will pay more (Score:5, Insightful)
Right: the point is to make American manufacturing more competitive with jobs going to China. This is one of a hundred way the government has been subsidizing corporations to offshore jobs. Each one down is a good thing.
The US government is for the benefit of US citizens, not global megacorporations with giant bribery budgets. Any little but we can claw back democracy from the megacorps is a good bit.
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If the US thinks it can make everything it needs, or currently gets from China and other such countries, I think it's sadly mistaken.
Cisco manufactures in China and Russia. Apple does. Ford just took a huge hit because most of their stuff is outside the US.
You've basically just added a "US jobs tax" on everything you buy, from critical network infrastructure to consumer goods to automobiles. And it'll work. Once. What will happen is that it won't CONTINUE to work, even if you could survive that and bri
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It's not about isolationism, it's about a level playing field. We should not be subsidizing offshoring (nor should we put up with unbalanced tariffs).
If a country can naturally make something cheaper, e.g., it's close to heavy raw materials, making something light, that's different. That's just efficiency, and we all benefit from economic efficiency. But when a government makes something cheaper, though subsidies, or more expensive, through tarriffs, that's inefficiency, and economic inefficiency is a ne
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How does that have anything to do with stopping US government subsidies of Chinese manufacturers? If you think subsidies are OK, subsidize US manufacturers with your tax dollars.
Or, you know, level playing field with no subsidies.
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Show me a factory in the US that makes small electronic components. I was in the process of establishing a small business. Some of the key components I need are only made in China. This increase in shipping costs will kill my business before it starts.
Stating the obvious. (Score:5, Insightful)
When you have nuclear weapons and space program you are no longer a developing nation.
Re:Stating the obvious. (Score:5, Insightful)
Does that mean that Switzerland is a developing nation and North Korea is developed then?
The criteria are a bit tougher to define that you suggest.
Re: Stating the obvious. (Score:2)
in SI units (Score:3, Informative)
4.4 lbs == 2kg
(for those people wondering why it wasn't a whole number -- it's a whole number is the rest of the world)
other considerations (Score:2)
It does sound like it needs a re-negotiation but as well as China getting too good a deal out of it...
Does the US benefit from it too, if we withdraw how does that affect our ability to send items abroad
The Chinese get a good deal compared with domestic postal rates in the US. Maybe postal rates in the US are also too high
if the last mile is the costly part then maybe it's time to look for a cheap way to address that. For some items I would not mind waiting 30 days for them to cross the US and having to go
Re: other considerations (Score:2)
Re: other considerations (Score:5, Informative)
1st/2nd world gets nothing out of it.
Those aren't economic tiers.
"First World" is a relic from the cold war. It refers to the non-communist developed nations that were allied with the US. "Second World" is the communist developed nations that were allied with the USSR. "Third World" is everyone else.
Third World nations were poor due to not being developed. They aren't all poor now. And they don't move into "second world" unless they become communist.
About time! (Score:5, Interesting)
Put me out of business before I could start. (Score:5, Interesting)
I've been working to set up a small business. Some of the components I need would have been coming from China as we don't manufacture them here in the US of A. This increase in shipping costs will put me out of business before I can get started.
No, I cannot increase the price of my product to compensate to the increased shipping costs.
His punishment of China killed me.
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If your business was only viable due to the lower costs of China Mail other than the other shipping methods available then I don't think that your business was really that viable in the first place.
I was going to complain, but... (Score:4, Interesting)
It seems like a reasonable thing to do.
A while ago, I decided to clean up some clutter by selling all my extra chargers, cables, and whatnot. But I had to cancel that, since it turned out that I had to pay more for postage than what they sell the same thing for from China. Yes, even if I were to sell the used stuff at $0, a new one from China was cheaper than the USPS package price.
This is not sustainable, and US might bet a fair deal if one year period is used correctly.
Yet another attack on the US consumer (Score:3, Interesting)
During the debate, the president said he was going to add 28 million more jobs. I was confused, because we didn't have 28 million people out of work (unless the unemployment figures are rigged). Add on top of that a rejection of immigrants so it will take generations to expand the labor force. Now I read in the news that there are substantially more job openings than applicants.
Who is going to make our stuff if we can't make it here or import it at a reasonable cost? Mythical robots and AI?
Re:Yet another attack on the US consumer (Score:4, Informative)
>I was confused, because we didn't have 28 million
>people out of work (unless the unemployment figures
>are rigged)
Speaking as a displaced economist . . .
"rigged" is an overstatement, but they sure don't measure what normal people think of as unemployment.
The most commonly reported figure is U-3, which just takes those with no work at all in the "labor force", and divides by the size of that force. The labor force is defined (roughly) as those actively looking for work.
U-3 can, in an economy that isn't changing much, tell you about employment trends.
One problem is that in long poor economies, people give up and stop looking. These are called "discouraged workers" and are not counted as part of the labor force.
Another is that the guy that got two hours of work but needs 40 still counts as unemployed.
U-4 to U-6 take that into account. By the time you get to U-6, the folks that have given up and those that can't get enough work count towards unemployed.
In "normal" times, U-3 and U-6 kind of move together. But as we went about eight years after the last recession (which was really a run of the mill recession, it's just that we hadn't had a "real" one since the early 80s) without a normal expansion, U-3 and U-6 diverged more and more widely.
So once we got back to "normal" economic growth, some discouraged workers resumed working, and some of the underemployed got more hours. This is reflected by U-6 moving *far* more than U-3, with large numbers of people becoming employed with only small changes in the labor rate.
So there are always more people out of work than the common U-3 shows--they've just been redefined as out o the labor force. In normal times, there aren't as many.
Frankly, I'd phase out U-1 to U-5 entirely . . .
hawk, economist at large
Re: (Score:2)
Predictable (Score:2)
I expect there are many things that hamstring the Post Office that the public doesn't know about.
I don't think it's unfair or cynical to point out that it is run in the best tradition of Government operation. When your Board of Directors consists of 486 politicians, the outcome is predictable.
Re:Predictable (Score:5, Interesting)
I expect there are many things that hamstring the Post Office that the public doesn't know about.
One of my best friends has worked for the Post Office since he was 18 as a letter carrier. I can assure you that you are exactly correct.
The economics of the Post Office operations is hamstrung by arcane ancient regulations at all levels. The 6 days a week delivery schedule is among the most stupid and costly ones I can thing of. Then, when you cannot control what you charge without a literal act of congress, it's ridiculous to expect the Post Office to run as a zero cost entity.
In the face of rising employment rates, the Post Office simply cannot hire and train enough carriers to deliver to every address everyday but Sunday so my friend has been working 6 day weeks for almost two years now, getting paid overtime for every hour over 40, which turns out to be about 20 hours a week. He's a senior carrier with 20+ years of seniority so he's maxed out what he gets paid and the ONLY thing that keeps him walking the streets is the generous retirement that keeps accruing. Once he maxes out the retirement payments, in about 18 months, he's going to retire, collect his government pension and take an easier job. I fully understand why the younger carriers are leaving in droves, I'd give a job like that the heave ho too and go work for Amazon or UPS where at least the hours would be better.
Re: It just wasn't fair (Score:3)
I'd argue that a fair reform would be one that slightly raised the amount charged by USPS to deliver packages from a customs point... then made the same rate available to US companies willing to handle their own logistics up to that point. So if USPS charges $1.50 to deliver a package from their facility near JFK to someone in Miami, someone like Amazon or Walmart should be able to get the exact same rate by showing up at the USPS facility near JFK with 40 million packages per day.
Ultimately, it IS kind of
Re: (Score:2)
Not in this case. He is threatening pain, but giving the UPU nations time to broker a new deal before the US withdraws.
The U.S. is hoping to renegotiate the rates, known as terminal dues, but was frustrated with opposition from other nations in the UPU. According to the report, "The withdrawal would not take effect for one year, allowing the U.S. some time to broker a new deal." .
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
It's funny how you managed to make the conclusion that is the opposite of reality. In short term, it's a loss, because during the period of conflict, there's suffering.
After there's a better deal in place, it's a long term win. So losses in sprints, win in the marathon. Trump Derangement Syndrome is a really nasty illness.
Re:Maximize pain then try to negoatate. (Score:4, Insightful)
Yes Negotiations are long and complex, they take take a long time. At the end of the day there are often some smaller changes where no one is happy.
The Trump administration goes threw this process as well. However during the process he kills what is going on currently, thus putting everyone in pain until the process which would had happened would complete anyways.
Without that "pain" you typically get no motion - or glacial, at best, motion. There is no sense of urgency or a push to get things done until there is some "pain" in the system. Note how quickly the trade deals with Canada and Mexico came about, once the Administration declared NAFTA dead.
Re: Sweden has already done this. (Score:2)
Re: Trump pulls out. (Score:3)
IsTrumpdetected = true
Initiate.outrage
Variable set (postal rates)
Run...
Compiling results...
output = "ORANGE MAN BAD. CHINA POSTAGE GOOD"
Restart (IsTrumpDetected)
Scanning input...