Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

US Announces Withdraw From Postal Treaty

bbc.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

221–230 of 380 posts

Re: US Announces Withdraw From Postal Treaty

#221

Post by ikeboy »

Spooky23 wrote: post #143
fzeroracer wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Of course you realize that this change will likely disproportionately affect the poor and middle-class (who will see a sharp rise in shipping costs) as well as smaller businesses who rely on thin margins to survive. The cost of $300 million per year as quoted in the article seems like peanuts compared to some of the other actions this administration has burdened tax payers with.

I doubt it. Chinese companies aren’t sending wholesale stock vis epacket. Losing consumer ability to by tiny quantities of fake LEGO or whatever in quantity 1 volume isn’t putting anyone out of business. I would rather subsidize domestic shipping to lower barriers to e-commerce entrants if we feel a burning desire to subsidize something in this area.

Note this news has nothing to do with epacket

Re: US Announces Withdraw From Postal Treaty

#222

Post by prolikewh0a »

onion2k wrote: post #26
nakedrobot2 wrote: post #3

This is absolutely a good idea. Whoever thought it would be advantageous for packages from China to cost less to ship than equivalent packages within the USA, is beyond me. I hope there are positive economic and environmental results from this move. What will be the unintended consequences I wonder?

What will be the unintended consequences I wonder? Small businesses who use dropshipping direct from Chinese companies will stop being able to compete with big businesses who buy in bulk and ship from US warehouses. This will benefit the likes of Amazon more than anyone else. Not sure if that's an unintended consequence though.

I'm low income for where I live and buy a lot of basic $1-$5 clothes from China that would be $20-$30 equivalent in USA. This is going to hurt me directly. It's not like I'm buying food, housing, electricity from China, but having good quality fashionable clothes for very cheap when I can't afford anything except Goodwill here is beneficial for professionalism at my job, and overall satisfaction about myself.

Trump should focus on putting more money in our pockets rather than making things more expensive and hoping the pipe dream of any manufacturing is coming back to US is a reality.

Re: US Announces Withdraw From Postal Treaty

#223

Post by ceejayoz »

collyw wrote: post #213
ceejayoz wrote: post #212

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

"My political opponents are all deranged babies" doesn't strike me as being interested in any sort of "grown up" discussion.

Re: US Announces Withdraw From Postal Treaty

#224

Post by jjoonathan »

neltnerb wrote: post #190
GlobalFrog wrote: post #184

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…

> I don't think anyone sensible would fault China for taking advantage

But everyone faults the US for taking advantage. /petpeeve

Re: US Announces Withdraw From Postal Treaty

#225

Post by collyw »

ceejayoz wrote: post #223
collyw wrote: post #213

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

"My political opponents are all deranged babies" doesn't strike me as being interested in any sort of "grown up" discussion.

I have no idea what that is even supposed to mean? Is it related to my comment in any way whatsoever?

Re: US Announces Withdraw From Postal Treaty

#226

Post by SilasX »

atomi wrote: post #188
godzillabrennus wrote: post #2

A friend helped the Wall Street Journal expose the damage this treaty was doing to his small business in the United States as it tried to fend off counterfeiters. https://www.wsj.com/articles/this-subsidy-for-china-is-dumb-... Seems like a win for American innovation if you care about that thing. Seems like China is going to get hurt by this change which is bad for globalization if you are into that thing.

This is a nice anecdote. But what about the mass of consumers who will now have to pay a markup for the exact same product from an importer?

It is 100% reasonable to have to pay more for shipping when a good has to travel a farther, less convenient voyage and go through customs. Anything else viciously incentivizes overuse of transportation and puts an uncompensated load on border protection.

Re: US Announces Withdraw From Postal Treaty

#227

Post by AtlasBarfed »

IF From what I've heard of the postal treaty is true, this is an unreasonable subsidy for imports and offshoring.

And it's not without environmental consequences: it offloads the carbon impacts of shipping and further enables arbitrage and cherrypicking of lax environmental regulations for production undermining the global common good.

While I don't like most aspects of the Trump administration and it's pandering policies, this one is probably good for the world, even if the people trying to do it care nothing for our environmental future.

Re: US Announces Withdraw From Postal Treaty

#228

Post by PeanutNore »

AtlasBarfed wrote: post #227

IF From what I've heard of the postal treaty is true, this is an unreasonable subsidy for imports and offshoring. And it's not without environmental consequences: it offloads the carbon impacts of shipping and further enables arbitrage and cherrypicking of lax environmental regulations for production undermining the global common good. While I don't like most aspects of the Trump administration and it's pandering pol…

"Even a broken clock..." and all that.

Re: US Announces Withdraw From Postal Treaty

#229

Post by zolthrowaway »

datavirtue wrote: post #175
zolthrowaway wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even if you have a source for this data, how many of these jobs are going to be lost to automation and process improvements in the next 5-10 years? My father recently retired form a steel mill. He wasn't replaced. My city's entire economy used to be based around steel manufacturing. There's still plants here, but the number of people who work in the steel industry has steadily declined. Here is a cited source to say…

You are missing the forest. When mundane tasks are automated people MO e on to better things. Every. Single. Time.

OP was arguing that manufacturing jobs are coming back. I cited a couple examples showing automation is going to make this very hard to be sustainable. I am not arguing that this is a bad thing or that people won't find productive ways to spend their time. I am arguing that bringing manufacturing back is not a long term sustainable plan.

Re: US Announces Withdraw From Postal Treaty

#230

Post by api »

godzillabrennus wrote: post #2

A friend helped the Wall Street Journal expose the damage this treaty was doing to his small business in the United States as it tried to fend off counterfeiters. https://www.wsj.com/articles/this-subsidy-for-china-is-dumb-... Seems like a win for American innovation if you care about that thing. Seems like China is going to get hurt by this change which is bad for globalization if you are into that thing.

The Chinese are nationalists. Xi Jinpeng is more nationalistic than Trump. They're not globalists. They've been pretending to play the globalist game to build their economy. You can't really blame them for it, but the rest of the world (not just the USA) is waking up to it.

(Fairer trade is literally the one thing I agree with Trump on...)

Post reply on HN