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US Announces Withdraw From Postal Treaty

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Re: US Announces Withdraw From Postal Treaty

#161

Post by zolthrowaway »

burfog wrote: post #114
jarfil wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Manufacturing jobs are a thing of the past, even China is automating more every day. When "the jobs come back", it won't be to employ the poor and middle-class but to set up automated production. Which, this time around, will be more competitive than low waged Chinese workers.

It isn't time to give up on the USA. The USA got an extra 378000 manufacturing jobs in the past year and a half. That is jobs, not just automated production.

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 it's down 42% since 1990 [0]. In addition to the steel industry, I work in the financial sector. It used to take a room full of accountants to file with the SEC. Now it takes one or two to input the data and check for errors in the software. Process enhancements and technology are going to eat people's lunch and manufacturing is one of the easiest areas to automate and streamline.

[0]: https://www.politifact.com/punditfact/statements/2018/mar/08...

Re: US Announces Withdraw From Postal Treaty

#162

Post by dexen »

fzeroracer wrote: post #35
nostromo wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They should pay the cost of shipping their parts from China to the US without a subsidy from the US taxpayer.

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.

>will likely disproportionately affect the poor and middle-class

...in China, while improving emloyment in manufacturing in USA.

Currently you have an imbalance in America's economy, where the poor and middle-class get goods from China, and the poor and middle-class in manufacturing[1] in China get the monetary reward.

Used to be that, due to local manufacturing of the goods, the same poor-and-middle-class americans would be earning back the money spent on the goods[1] by their neighbors, in effect exchanging with each other (and with local capitalists). However due to the current trade costs imbalance, a lot of the money flows out of american's pockets, but not back to them.

Will there be a price increase right around the change? Sure. But it will make local manufacturing more cost-effective, in effect spurring local employment in both production and related services, and thus looping the money expended on the goods[1] back in to the neighbor's pockets.

It's a win-win for the voters in USA.

[1] and related services, like engineering, transportation, worker catering & care, etc.

Re: US Announces Withdraw From Postal Treaty

#163

Post by cableshaft »

Considering pretty much all board and video games are manufactured in and shipped from China, this probably means they're all going to become more expensive. Yay.

It still might be a good thing overall to do away with this treaty, I don't know, but this is probably not going to be great for those industries.

Re: US Announces Withdraw From Postal Treaty

#164

Post by chrissnell »

cableshaft wrote: post #163

Considering pretty much all board and video games are manufactured in and shipped from China, this probably means they're all going to become more expensive. Yay. It still might be a good thing overall to do away with this treaty, I don't know, but this is probably not going to be great for those industries.

Manufactured goods are not being sent to distributors and dealers in bulk by postal mail. That stuff comes in a shipping container. This is targeted at the typical AliExpress shipment.

Re: US Announces Withdraw From Postal Treaty

#165

Post by yostrovs »

baldfat wrote: post #158
wbl wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The biggest reduction in global poverty we've seen is due to outsourcing to China. Don't you care about starving Chinese peasants?

> due to outsourcing to China No it is the demand for better working conditions and wages. That helps the local Chinese and American workers. Oh that's right labor unions are evil????

The demand existed long before the outsourcing. There aren't really labor unions in China.

Re: US Announces Withdraw From Postal Treaty

#166

Post by datavirtue »

raquo wrote: post #53
colechristensen wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The idea of free trade/globalization is everyone benefiting from the efficiency of each place doing the work it can do most efficiently. Iowa corn and Swiss fine machinery and Arab oil and all sorts of things where one place can do something better and cheaper because of the nature of the place. Poverty (cheap labor) and treaties (cheap postage) shouldn't be the drivers of this efficiency because they aren't caused b…

But the issue here is not the differential in efficiencies. It's China receiving subsidies from the US because it was considered a developing country in 1969. It's not anymore, it's a global superpower now, it can pay its own postage.

Also of note, American tax payers were dropping $300MM a year to help Chinese small business.

Re: US Announces Withdraw From Postal Treaty

#167

Post by tartuffe78 »

jrnichols wrote: post #156
Tim_Norton wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

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."

Someone I worked with once told me that putting anything he does in a good light risks "normalizing his behavior". Shows how polarized these times are.

Re: US Announces Withdraw From Postal Treaty

#168

Post by nkurz »

baldfat wrote: post #157
raquo wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But the issue here is not the differential in efficiencies. It's China receiving subsidies from the US because it was considered a developing country in 1969. It's not anymore, it's a global superpower now, it can pay its own postage.

No it has no bearing on China. It is the same policy with Switzerland. You get the international package to America we pay for the final delivery. Pay for a package to Switzerland and Switzerland pays for the final delivery. It was suppose to be a wash for both parties. China just got a much better deal. Cost me more to mail a package the next state away then for me to get a package delivered from China. Now you have…

EBay from China is now bye bye.

Why would this change the be end of direct shipping from China? Currently (rounded off numbers) the cost of shipping a 2 lb (1 kg) package within the US is about $7, and the cost of shipping such a package from China to a US address is about $2. The obvious solution would be that the Chinese shipment ends up costing $9 (current Chinese rate of $2 to the US border, plus $7 standard US shipping). The Chinese shipping would thus end up $2 more than the US. Presumably there would be lots of cases where the $2 greater shipping is offset by lower price of the item?

Re: US Announces Withdraw From Postal Treaty

#169

Post by chippy »

basicplus2 wrote: post #47

all i know is i have to pay an ENORMOUS amount of money to pay for freight from US to Australia So is this going to make it worse? Because this is an enormous incentive NOT to buy any US goods

It's not going to make it any cheaper. This will mainly effect the cost of others shipping goods to you.

Re: US Announces Withdraw From Postal Treaty

#170

Post by datavirtue »

fzeroracer wrote: post #66
nostromo wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you want to help poor people, subsidizing imports from China is a stupid way of going about it.

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.

Stopping the externalization of costs will help everyone but is rarely popular since the immediate impact is felt by certain parties.
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