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USPS loses millions each year on local delivery of mail from abroad (2014)

washingtonpost.com

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Re: USPS loses millions each year on local delivery of mail from abroad (2014)

#161

Post by oicu812 »

dustinblake wrote: post #157
treebeard901 wrote: post #145

> “But when people buy direct from China that’s adding nothing to the American economy.” Wait a minute... This argument doesn't make any sense. The post office is delivering to a US citizen that supports said postal services through paying taxes. If they choose to purchase from China, Amazon, or eBay that is their choice. Maybe people who are not citizens and have not paid any taxes benefit from this but I suspect th…

The postal service is not taxpayer funded! Yes, they are indicated in the Constitution, and they must service each and every little town, and they must go to Congress to gain approval for rate increases, but they are not supported by any tax revenue. https://about.usps.com/who-we-are/postal-facts/top-10-things...

This is not true, but a common debunked claim from the postal union. The postal service gets $18 billion per year in tax benefits including exemption from property taxes and vehicle registrations as well as below-market borrowing costs.

http://fortune.com/2015/03/27/us-postal-service/

http://www.politifact.com/georgia/statements/2013/jul/24/ame...

Re: USPS loses millions each year on local delivery of mail from abroad (2014)

#162

Post by oicu812 »

josinalvo wrote: post #138
c0nducktr wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The Postal Service receives NO tax dollars for operating expenses and relies on the sale of postage, products and services to fund its operations. https://about.usps.com/who-we-are/postal-facts/top-10-things...

> for operating expenses that raises some eyebrows :P Why this qualifier? What do they receive tax dollars for?

They receive $100 million in tax dollars per year to subsidize blind and overseas citizens. They also get $18 billion per year in tax benefits.

http://www.politifact.com/georgia/statements/2013/jul/24/ame...

http://fortune.com/2015/03/27/us-postal-service/

Re: USPS loses millions each year on local delivery of mail from abroad (2014)

#163

Post by new299 »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #81
sixothree wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When I buy components from china it is often the case that the price plus shipping is less than the shipping alone from a US supplier.

Components are actually one of the three categories of things I order from China. The other two being cheap trinkets and casual clothes. China-ordered components come from the same factories anyway, trinkets are binary (they either work or don't, not much space for quality difference), and regular clothes are crappy throwaway items regardless of where you buy them. Anything else I consider too risky. In particular, I…

It depends what you're ordering. In many cases they very much don't come from the same factories. Panasonic, Rubycon capacitors on eBay are generally fake. From digikey, generally not fake (though I've heard stories of them making their way into the supply-chain there too).

Re: USPS loses millions each year on local delivery of mail from abroad (2014)

#164

Post by devoply »

pc86 wrote: post #68
devoply wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They also control the currency and as a result eat up a few percentage of global gdp via signorage.

You mean seigniorage, and no they don't "eat up a few percentage of global gdp."

From Wikipedia:

"Economists regard seigniorage as a form of inflation tax, redistributing real resources to the currency issuer. Issuing new currency, rather than collecting taxes paid out of the existing money stock, is then considered in effect a tax that falls on those who hold the existing currency.[4] Inflation of the money supply in the long run may cause—and, all other things being equal, will cause—a general rise in prices due to the reduced purchasing power of the currency."

Re: USPS loses millions each year on local delivery of mail from abroad (2014)

#165

Post by hellbanner »

Sebguer wrote: post #115
hellbanner wrote: post #113

Wow, if they charged foregin deliveries as much as domestic deliveries, then maybe they could stop spam in mailboxes. Does anyone know how to stop junkmail? Postal workers have told me they can't not deliver it - even if you pay for a PO Box.

https://dmachoice.thedma.org/register.php Is recommended by the FTC.

News to me, thanks.

Re: USPS loses millions each year on local delivery of mail from abroad (2014)

#166

Post by mistermann »

woliveirajr wrote: post #156
mistermann wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In theory it is not unidirectional, in practice it is. When it was written, all they really had to go on was theory.

Hum... put yourself back in the 60's. Imagine you're signing a contract that says "I, the Postal Service of the country NNN, will deliver any letter that comes from any country to any city that I reach, no matter if it'll cost a 3 hours plane flight to deliver a 1 oz envelope". Fast forward to 2017, yes, now the agreement seems unfair because the deliver of goods changed a lot. Perhaps should be reviewed. But I would…

In your first example, I doubt mail would be delivered to literally any remote location in the country, and only if there was some services delivered there sporadically would mail tag along for the ride. Back then they didn't entertain such ludicrous ideas as we do now.

Shipping a container from Shanghai to NY is not the issue, it is that China pays less for shipping along the same route in the US and other western countries. They are paying less than others, on top of the fact that mail is largely unidirectional - so they're kind of cheating twice. If the shoe was on the other foot they'd be on top of it because they have more intelligent leadership than Western nations.

Re: USPS loses millions each year on local delivery of mail from abroad (2014)

#167

Post by Dylan16807 »

jessaustin wrote: post #137
s73ver wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's not a great rebuttal, because most of us who would be opposed to the ownership of things created under Chinese prison labor would also be opposed to the ownership of things under American prison labor. (I'd be fine with the American prison labor if they were paid a fair, living wage).

Some would argue that in prison, room and board is provided, so the 30¢/hr is a "living wage". I don't agree, because there's nothing consensual about the situation...

For a living wage, you'd probably want to follow the rule that housing + food + transportation doesn't go over 2/3 of income. Especially bad is that 30¢/hr doesn't let you put nearly anything into savings. So I think it's easy to counter that argument, even ignoring the issue of imprisonment.

Re: USPS loses millions each year on local delivery of mail from abroad (2014)

#168

Post by phlo »

mistermann wrote: post #149
phlo wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The change to the regime for bulky letters and parcels is not the same as the group mergers. I was referring mostly to the former, which will increase the dues for bulky letters and small parcels to a higher per-kg-rate than the current rate that applies to all mail. The latter change merges some groups but will, to my understanding, not affect China. Groups 1.2 and 2 (countries which joined the terminal dues target…

To keep it simple: will China finally have to pay more (because they are also shipping across the sea) to ship a package to middle America than an American at ? Or will it just be less of a subsidy.

No.

China will have to pay more than today because a lot of their parcels will fall into the (now more expensive) bulky letter category. The US remains highly-developed, so you can expect terminal dues to remain cheaper than the retail rate. Finally, I suppose the Chinese government will continue to subsidize the transport from China to the unloading port in the US.

In essence: When sending from China, you can expect to just about pay the terminal dues; the international transport is subsidized. You can expect this to stay true for as long as the US is significantly more developed than China.

Re: USPS loses millions each year on local delivery of mail from abroad (2014)

#169

Post by Dylan16807 »

devoply wrote: post #164
pc86 wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You mean seigniorage, and no they don't "eat up a few percentage of global gdp."

From Wikipedia: "Economists regard seigniorage as a form of inflation tax, redistributing real resources to the currency issuer. Issuing new currency, rather than collecting taxes paid out of the existing money stock, is then considered in effect a tax that falls on those who hold the existing currency.[4] Inflation of the money supply in the long run may cause—and, all other things being equal, will cause—a general…

Yes, that's the definition.

The problem is the amount. Going by this page[1], there's a net production of less than 30 million dollars per day. Let's round up to 11 billion per year. The M2 estimate[2] of US money supply is 13495 billion dollars. That's a seigniorage tax of less than a tenth of a percent per year. It's also less than a tenth of a percent of US GDP alone.

[1] https://www.factmonster.com/math/money/facts-about-us-money

[2] https://tradingeconomics.com/united-states/money-supply-m2

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