Live data from Hacker News

US Announces Withdraw From Postal Treaty

bbc.com

211–220 of 380 posts

Re: US Announces Withdraw From Postal Treaty

#211

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is the theory. I might be pessimistic, but it looks to me that everyone claims that one want that even playing field and at the same time, hides as much subsidies as possible to be able to protect ones own industries. Europe is heavily subsidizing its agriculture. The US are heavily subsidizing anything that has a link to anything military and oil. And others are doing the same. True, a few markets have been fre…

I don't think anyone sensible would fault China for taking advantage of something that is advantageous for their businesses, nor for them to advocate for it. It would be irrational for them not to, the subsidies exist so obviously any reasonable business would use them. Nonetheless, it's clearly not in the interest of US businesses. The US is not obligated to provide subsidies that, due to the scale of trade using th…

[deleted]

Re: US Announces Withdraw From Postal Treaty

#212
post #203

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's what I've been gathering too. Trump signed a few bills recently, and while they weren't his administration's bill in the first place, that hasn't stopped the media (and definitely social media) from trash talking Trump constantly. It's almost as if people that hate Trump with the ferocity that they do are incapable of reporting anything positive and just saying "Ok, this was a good thing."

>It's almost as if people that hate Trump with the ferocity that they do are incapable of reporting anything positive and just saying "Ok, this was a good thing." Have a look at places like r/politics on Reddit. People were seriously arguing with me that his nasty tweets were more serious than the possibility of North Korean nuclear disarmament.

The possibility of North Korean nuclear disarmament is pretty close to zero - especially after Bolton started spouting off about a Libya-style ending for Kim Jong-Un.

The chances of Trump tweets ramping up tension to the point where a mistake gets made and North Korea shells some South Koreans seems higher. It's not like they've needed much provocation to do that in the past.

Re: US Announces Withdraw From Postal Treaty

#213
post #203

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>It's almost as if people that hate Trump with the ferocity that they do are incapable of reporting anything positive and just saying "Ok, this was a good thing." Have a look at places like r/politics on Reddit. People were seriously arguing with me that his nasty tweets were more serious than the possibility of North Korean nuclear disarmament.

The possibility of North Korean nuclear disarmament is pretty close to zero - especially after Bolton started spouting off about a Libya-style ending for Kim Jong-Un. The chances of Trump tweets ramping up tension to the point where a mistake gets made and North Korea shells some South Koreans seems higher. It's not like they've needed much provocation to do that in the past.

Trump derangement syndrome here as well. I thought this place was a bit more grown up.

Re: US Announces Withdraw From Postal Treaty

#214
post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Those areas made far more than they invested, and China needed that huge investment because those three areas had already spent a century exploiting it for profit.

[flagged]

For a start, things before 1950 still happened. Even during the decades you admit happened, those areas refused to acknowledge the existence of China, making trade impossible.

Early Maoist policy hadn't helped matters, but it's pretty hard to argue American, Japanese, and European policy hadn't already left them in an incredibly shitty position.

Re: US Announces Withdraw From Postal Treaty

#215

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Generally speaking, continuing to kick the crutches out from under the lower classes is a bad idea especially when there are no better solutions being implemented. You need to keep in mind that the postal treaty wasn't JUST for China either, almost every single nation was part of the postal treaty. Withdrawing from this treaty would likely result in increased postage for all international shipments.

Luckily there is a very easy way for people to avoid paying for shipping... although maybe things have changed since I was young. Shop at local stores if shipping costs make buying by mail too expensive. Like it was forever prior to Amazon. Prior to 2005 it was consistently less expensive to shop at the local CVS, book store, or radio shack than to order online. If my business model requires public subsidies for ship…

The only thing I do want to bring up about shopping locally, for electronic components specifically, is that stores like Radioshack are essentially extinct, at least where I am in the Midwest. There are no local electronic stores of any variation except for Best Buy.

Re: US Announces Withdraw From Postal Treaty

#216

China still has developing nation status? This seems more than reasonable to renegotiate.

In Shanghai and Beijing the average household income is $7,000 a year. If it isn't a developing economy, what would you call it?

How does that compare to the average income of a Chinese Communist party leader?

Re: US Announces Withdraw From Postal Treaty

#217
post #77

Do people in this thread realize the USPS is almost entirely self funded? I see a lot of talk about tax dollars etc. The USPS doesn't work that way.

i can tell you we're not self funded...thats such a ridiculous argument i hear all the time...ITS SO NOT TRUE HAHA i can do nothing but laugh when isee this crap. I've been here over 10 years lol nothing is self funded about this place

Re: US Announces Withdraw From Postal Treaty

#218

Why does the US have to withdraw instead of negotiating? The US are not the only country that is unhappy about the shipping rates with China. The postal treaty however is hugely important for smaller countries. I don’t want a world where the US destroy the entire postal system for the rest of us.

>> I don’t want a world where the US destroy the entire postal system for the rest of us.

Just a point of order, you live in a world where the US can destroy just about anything for the rest of the world order. If the US throws a hissy fit on economics or goes to war, it tends to have global ramifications. Cost of doing business.

That said, this move seems to simply be Trump pulling a move out of "Art of the Deal" and doing some hardball negotiating. Or it could be him trying to show his isolationist base that he's still fighting Globalization. Guess we'll all find out.

Re: US Announces Withdraw From Postal Treaty

#219

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Generally speaking, continuing to kick the crutches out from under the lower classes is a bad idea especially when there are no better solutions being implemented. You need to keep in mind that the postal treaty wasn't JUST for China either, almost every single nation was part of the postal treaty. Withdrawing from this treaty would likely result in increased postage for all international shipments.

Luckily there is a very easy way for people to avoid paying for shipping... although maybe things have changed since I was young. Shop at local stores if shipping costs make buying by mail too expensive. Like it was forever prior to Amazon. Prior to 2005 it was consistently less expensive to shop at the local CVS, book store, or radio shack than to order online. If my business model requires public subsidies for ship…

As a person who ran a local store 'back when', the cost of shipping was factored into the wholesale price which then was used by the store to calculate the retail price. The end result was that shipping was included in the mark up percentage, typically 60 to 100%.

If a middle man was used, like an importer/warehouser, that middle man added their markup on shipping as well, typically 20 to 40%.

Re: US Announces Withdraw From Postal Treaty

#220
post #57

if China loses its status as a developing country, all that's likely to happen is the items will end up being shipped from a neighbouring country that still has the status. When you buy items from AliExpress often they have the option of being sent by Singapore Post. I'm not exactly sure how that works (Singapore isn't that close to China), but although the item comes from China, to the postal service it doesn't.

I had a chat about this with one of the sellers on AliBaba. He claimed that the items are still being shipped from China, and that he is just witing Singapore / Czechoslovakia / any other developing country on the package (he said it is part of the tracking code), and he gets the benefit of the country whose code he used. He said the main reason they do that is that the laws differ as to what can be shipped from each…

> and that he is just witing Singapore / Czechoslovakia / any other developing country on the package

That's impressive both because Czechoslovakia does not exist anymore, but also because Czechia is developed these days, I'm pretty sure :)

Post reply on HN