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US Announces Withdraw From Postal Treaty

bbc.com

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Re: US Announces Withdraw From Postal Treaty

#271

Post by rc_mob »

PeanutNore wrote: post #228
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.

Still.. Wtf Obama, why couldn't you fix this?

Re: US Announces Withdraw From Postal Treaty

#272

Post by baybal2 »

exabrial wrote: post #216
freddie_mercury wrote: post #198

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

A lot of officials have official salaries lower than median incomes, they just have expense accounts for up to a megabuck for a provincial level position, and more for ones in Beijing.

Re: US Announces Withdraw From Postal Treaty

#273

Post by djrogers »

kmlx wrote: post #64
traek wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Most smaller countries cannot use the same method. Sure, but America can, so why shouldn’t it?

there are a multitude of other ways, ways which are completely oblivious to the current administration as well as its supporters.

There have been efforts and negotiations to get the UPU to reclassify China from developing nation status for quite a while now, to no avail. This is the final gambit in those negotiations.

It’s best if you don’t let your hatred of an administration color your perceptions such that you choose not to look at facts.

Re: US Announces Withdraw From Postal Treaty

#274

Post by joshe »

At most the subsidy reduces prices by 0.1% for goods from China. If all foreign packages only cost the US $300 million a year (from article), China's portion has to be less than that. We buy $462 billion in goods from China.

It's also worth remembering that the subsidy goes to both the American consumer and the Chinese supplier. Eliminating it helps the American supplier and hurts the Chinese supplier and American consumer.

Probably no one bothered to fix it because it's such a minor issue. It's also difficult to change treaty agreements, oddball stuff tends to stick around for awhile just because the cat herding is so difficult.

It's reasonable to remove this subsidy, and probably good to do so before more people take advantage of it.

This is a big emotion story but it's not that important.

Re: US Announces Withdraw From Postal Treaty

#275

Post by djrogers »

gnopgnip wrote: post #54
eksemplar wrote: post #16

The headline made it sound sort of bad, but reading this and the WSJ article, it makes you wonder why it wasn’t done sooner.

Because it will make some goods much more expensive for everyone in the US. This can have unintended consequences.

The US can still choose to subsidize certain types of shipping if it wants to, but if this negotiation tactic works it will no longer be forced to.

Re: US Announces Withdraw From Postal Treaty

#276

Post by chmod775 »

icebraining wrote: post #233
jjoonathan wrote: post #224

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I don't think anyone sensible would fault China for taking advantage But everyone faults the US for taking advantage. /petpeeve

They're not in the same position. China takes advantage of bugs in the rules. The US writes and pushes through the rules, often quite forcefully.

*used to push through rules

Trump seems quite fond of withdrawing the US from one negotiating table after another.

Re: US Announces Withdraw From Postal Treaty

#277

Post by adanto6840 »

robbick wrote: post #209
jarfil wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's not just subsidies, but also how trade routes have been optimized. China, the US and every other country, have non-symmetric mail dispatch systems, optimized for the China->wherever route, with mass dispatch from China branching out to everywhere else. The reverse wherever->China is how much shipments cost over non-optimized routes around the world. Stopping the subsidies won't stop the differences in volume a…

I'm sure I am missing something, but surely every container ship that leaves china with a huge pile of mail has to return again to collect more - can't they just take stuff with them?

Is a good question, and I don't have an informed answer, but I wonder the same. Maybe the ships leave the US full of exports bound for other destinations in a global "round robin" style route or something along those lines? Or perhaps it's just much faster without the added mass? Would love to hear more about this from someone informed on the topic.

Re: US Announces Withdraw From Postal Treaty

#278

Post by eiaoa »

pluma wrote: post #132
dragonwriter wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not a threat of withdrawal, it's an actual withdrawal, which takes time to take effect (like Brexit), with the idea that if negotiation is satisfactory, the withdrawal might be cancelled.

Either the Brexit example is a simple mistake or you're confused about the mechanics behind it, so I'll elaborate to avoid people thinking it's a sound analogy: The Brexit referendum was non-binding, so at that point nothing legally relevant had happened yet. The UK government then decided to honour the will demonstrated by the 37.5% of the population that cast a vote in favour of leaving the EU (51.9% of the result…

> The UK government then decided to honour the will demonstrated by the 37.5% of the population that cast a vote in favour of leaving the EU (51.9% of the result at a 72.2% turnout).

That's how elections work. Your logic only serves to allows one to delegitimize any non-landslide election by selectively setting unreasonably high standards. It's probably more legitimate to say that 27.8% of the electorate indicated that they're indifferent to the outcome by not bothering to vote.

Re: US Announces Withdraw From Postal Treaty

#279

Post by ed_balls »

GlobalFrog wrote: post #184
paulsutter wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Globalization is about an even playing field, not one-sided concessions and subsidies

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…

> Europe is heavily subsidizing its agriculture

USA as well, but there is a good reason for it. It's a strategic. You are 9 meals away from a revolution. Other subsidies are for strategic purposes. There are always a few abuses which you hear in the news, but the logic is sound.

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