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US Announces Withdraw From Postal Treaty

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Re: US Announces Withdraw From Postal Treaty

#291

Post by justinmchase »

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?

They will be incentivized to pay for similar American goods and services which will be better for the economy in general.

Re: US Announces Withdraw From Postal Treaty

#292

Post by peteri »

unfunco wrote: post #135
jamesknelson wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m not sure if Swiss fine machinery is the best example here. What is it about the nature of Switzerland that makes it a more natural place to create fine machinery then anywhere else? Similarly, using American corn as an example of how free trade should work is pretty underhanded. There’s a ridiculous amount of subsidies there, and the US doesn’t have any qualms with dumping the resulting product on international m…

The nature of the place in the context of Swiss watches could mean the établissage system.

This page http://www.vintagewatchstraps.com/blogswissmade.php argues that "swiss made" as a brand was a side effect of British hallmarking laws.

The pages about the various watch brand histories is quite interesting.

Re: US Announces Withdraw From Postal Treaty

#294

Post by jchb »

forapurpose wrote: post #236

Imagine your CTO said this: 'I found a bug, therefore we should discard the entire system'; imagine it's a mature, complex, functioning system. If your CTO did it, you'd seriously doubt their leadership. The real question is, what are the outcomes we are choosing from? What is the outcome if we keep the system, and what is the outcome if we discard it? What would we replace it with - are we going to try to build a co…

> complex

Complex is an understatement.

The Universal Postal Union constitution (1) from 1964 is some readable 11 pages, setting the scope to "... a single postal territory for the reciprocal exchange of letter-post items" and international collaboration to improve postal services including facilitating technical assistance.

Fast forward to 2018 and there is a a list of UPU activities (2) that really stretch that constitution to its limits.

Then some two hundred pages of regulation (3), including a bunch of country specific rules and exceptions. "Not withstanding article 17-107.5.2, Azerbaijan, India, Indonesia, Lebanon, Nepal, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Ukraine, Uzbekistan and Zimbabwe shall admit sound recordings as items for the blind only if these are sent by, or addressed to, an officially recognized institute for the blind"

That doesn't yet include the elaborate classification of countries into different contribution groups. Those classification documents are hidden behind a login screen on the UPU website - only accessible to "select partners". Although with a bit of Google-fu you can find them from the US Postal Regulatory Commission (4). There you can see that the US is classified as group I, China as group III.

A complex world may need complex regulation, and the activities the UPU undertakes are not necessarily bad. But just a brief look at this thing reminds me of a quote from the "The CumEx-Files" article that is currently on the HN front page: "the German tax law has grown so complex that those who have written the laws no longer understand it themselves".

(1)http://www.upu.int/uploads/tx_sbdownloader/actInForceIndefin... (2)http://www.upu.int/en/activities.html (3)http://www.upu.int/uploads/tx_sbdownloader/actRegulationsCon... (4)https://www.prc.gov/docs/96/96632/Attachment%20B.pdf

Re: US Announces Withdraw From Postal Treaty

#295

Post by daveFNbuck »

blihp wrote: post #86
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?

It made sense when they were truly a developing country. But the issue is that entire businesses have been built on top of exploiting these rates. For example, a few years back I bought several specialized antenna cables for $2-3 online (total price, including shipping) and assumed they must be surplus some warehouse was trying to unload here in the U.S. and they'd just drop them in domestic First Class mail. I could…

This asymmetry also prevents you from doing a return when your $2 cable is broken or doesn't match the description.

Re: US Announces Withdraw From Postal Treaty

#296

Post by mcbits »

nemo846 wrote: post #101
dragonwriter wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Withdrawing from the UPU will allow the US raise the rates Chinese mailers pay to mail into the US, but won't lower (and, depending on how China responds, may raise) the rates US mailers have to pay to mail into China. It's potentially an extension of the existing trade war in that respect.

Trade war or not. This particular move makes sense though. There is no reason to continue giving China - an economic superpower - a discount on mail.

Maybe it makes sense logically in the abstract, but I'm going to miss buying electronics components and building things.

Re: US Announces Withdraw From Postal Treaty

#297

Post by daveFNbuck »

plugger wrote: post #43
nostromo wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You’re paying the costs, just indirectly via taxes and artificially higher US shipping costs.

Incorrect, I live in Australia. This kinda reminds me of the conversation I had with my brother in law regarding the likes of SingAir, Emirates, and Qatar and just how much better they are when compared to US carriers that charge more on the same route despite providing an inferior product comparatively. He started on about how those air carriers are government subsidised, it's not fair, and I shouldn't be flying wit…

As a consumer in Australia, how do you benefit from cheap shipping from China to the US?

Re: US Announces Withdraw From Postal Treaty

#298

Post by SilasX »

SilasX wrote: post #226
atomi wrote: post #188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I would love to hear a reasonable counterpoint on this.

Re: US Announces Withdraw From Postal Treaty

#299

Post by tmaly »

paulsutter wrote: post #7
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.

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

I kept hearing the claim that the US Post Office was losing money on items shipped by Amazon.

So I asked the Postman delivering my Amazon package on a Sunday, and he confirmed that indeed the Post Office was being paid far less on a per package basis for Amazon deliveries than the regular rate.

In the case of this Postal Treaty, it seems like the Post Office is losing money on delivering these The US Post Office is struggling enough, I think pulling out of this treaty is a good thing if it can help them.

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