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

Suspension of inbound parcels from China and Hong Kong

about.usps.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

461–470 of 610 posts

Re: Suspension of inbound parcels from China and Hong Kong

#461

Post by onemoresoop »

throw37373 wrote: post #246
likeabatterycar wrote: post #213

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Remember how Apple couldn't just pick up and move the production of iPhones to India or Vietnam? You left out the part about dormitories full of modern-day slaves, complete with nets so they don't leap to their deaths. Generally this is frowned upon in the West. India and Vietnam wouldn't tolerate it either, despite being developing countries. Wasn't there a riot at Apple's India factory over work conditions or am…

Except they have dormitories with safety nets in India and Vietnam too. The riot in India was because they weren't getting paid, not because of the work conditions.

Gosh, they were not getting paid despite those conditions? That’s batshit crazy.

Re: Suspension of inbound parcels from China and Hong Kong

#462

Post by pieix »

ggm wrote: post #160

Anyone got a non-intuited, horses-mouth reason why? I suspect (ie, intuit) that its actually an attack on the USPS, not on China. The party of government doesn't like the post office, and this is to teach us not to like the post office either. I guess if they stopped using electric cars, they might like the post office again.

A huge portion of USPS international package volume is “ePackets” from China. These are a special service provided by USPS since 2011 for Chinese/HK goods that are cheaper and faster than normal USPS international shipping.

These ePackets are then bundled up into big sacks that are basically not inspected at all at US international mail facilities due to the de minimis exemption, which was just rolled back. The special status granted to ePackets meant that the volume shipped grew far beyond the processing capacity for normal packages at US IMFs. This pause (and subsequent unpause) from USPS on packages from China is because they don’t know how they’re going to handle that volume if it isn’t given special status.

Source: I worked on a project adjacent to this a couple of years ago. Close enough to pick up the basics but this isn’t quite what I was working on, so take my comment with a grain of salt.

Re: Suspension of inbound parcels from China and Hong Kong

#463

Post by floatrock »

throw_m239339 wrote: post #449
Veliladon wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because there's nowhere in the US like Shenzhen, Guangdong or Hong Kong. Remember how Apple couldn't just pick up and move the production of iPhones to India or Vietnam? You need all the ancillary industries around the production to be there, along with being competitive and commoditized as well. When a supplier has something go wrong a line of manufacturing doesn't go down. You go down the street to the same guy sel…

> You metaphorically need to invent the universe to make it work in the US. You didnt answer the obvious question of the why things are the way they are now? US used to have their entire electronic supply chain, save from raw materials, in USA in the 70s... So why cant US build its own Shenzhen or Hong Kong? taxes? corporate taxes are relatively low in some US states, infrastructure? US has all the infrastructure nee…

The boston-95-ring-vs-silicon-valley/noncompete-enforcement story gets close to this. Or the detroit-automotive-supply-chain story.

It's largely about can you set up an effective ecosystem of suppliers.

The story of the Traitorous 8 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Traitorous_eight is basically the tale of how free-market competition spawns the economic prosperity of an entire region. In those times, Boston's 95 ring was the favored home of semiconductor tech, but the popular story goes that Massachusetts enforced non-compete clauses while California didn't, and the result was the ascension of Silicon Valley as people out west intermingled between semiconductor and computer companies, traded ideas, started new firms from those ideas, etc.

Shenzhen is amazing because it's an entire village of micro-manufacturies... one bodega specializes in one type of capacitor, a neighborhood specializes in rapid prototype boards, there's institutional social connections between all these folks so you can just run to the other side of town if you need something for this week's production run or if your assembly line controller board failed.

As for why we can't reproduce that in the US, my best guess is we've had the "get big or get out" mentality since Nixon. VC's won't fund a bodega specializing in some obscure electronics niche -- we favor rapid injection of capital into something that can quickly grow and dominate an entire industry. "Lifestyle business" is a pejorative here. The Shenzhen model on the other hand is an interconnected cottage industry village of generalists that focus on small runs of whatever Temu gadget is trending today and can rapidly change and adapt week to week. No individual bodega dominates, but as an ecosystem it does. Something something anti-fragile.

Yes, there are also the megafactories that make our iphones and galaxies and have dormitories for the basically-slave-level workforce, so the models do mix. But it's largely a different business mindset -- ecosystem vs. winner-takes-all.

Re: Suspension of inbound parcels from China and Hong Kong

#464

Post by harimau777 »

bdcravens wrote: post #458
throw_m239339 wrote: post #449

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You metaphorically need to invent the universe to make it work in the US. You didnt answer the obvious question of the why things are the way they are now? US used to have their entire electronic supply chain, save from raw materials, in USA in the 70s... So why cant US build its own Shenzhen or Hong Kong? taxes? corporate taxes are relatively low in some US states, infrastructure? US has all the infrastructure nee…

It barely explains the full situation, but I feel like in the US we have lifestyle expectations (which is more than just money) that go with our education and career choices. This puts a virtual boundary on where you'll be able to get talent to go. (Relating it to our common experience, there's a reason why San Francisco or Austin is a much more attractive city for developers than Houston)

I'd almost say that the lifestyle expectations come first. I care about getting paid a lot primarily because high pay is necessary to live somewhere like San Francisco/Austin/NYC.

Re: Suspension of inbound parcels from China and Hong Kong

#465

Post by neom »

HPsquared wrote: post #414
eru wrote: post #404

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Going a bit on a tangent: I grew up in Europe, but am now living in Singapore. It's interesting: despite all the PRC's advances and progress in the last few decades, they are still the poorest Chinese-majority country. You can go even wider, and look at countries with sizeable Chinese minorities, like Malaysia or Thailand, and I think you will find that the average ethnic Chinese person there also makes more than the…

Similarly the UK is pretty much the poorest Anglo country. It seems to be a pattern where the most ambitious/productive types "boil off" to where there is more opportunity. I suspect this pattern is reflected with most diaspora groups.

It also begets the other, a place that has that opportunity attracts people who want to work, people who want to work build opportunity, attract more people, etc. Once you're in a death spiral of people who don't want to work and you're not specifically building socialism, you end up in this half functional dead state like my country (Canada). I always say, I honestly don't care if we do communism or capitalism just pick one and do it well.

Re: Suspension of inbound parcels from China and Hong Kong

#466

Post by ozmodiar »

alistairSH wrote: post #454

And they've already walked that back... https://about.usps.com/newsroom/service-alerts/international... What a dumpster fire. Hard to believe ~half the electorate thought electing Trump, Musk, and army brocoll-topped tech-bros was a good idea.

It's so ridiculous. From an outside perspective the US starts cackling wildly and making threats (and they do seem to delight particularly in trying to humiliate their targets), then when people think they won't actually do it they start implementing them to remove any doubt. Then the final step is to say "oops, give us a second, like maybe a month."

Like, they've played their hand already, do you think everyone's just going to assume everything is fine? Any competent world leader, include "The West" which the US seems to think it owns completely, should now be scrambling to cut the US out as much as possible and they've got good company to go to with all the other countries being bullied. It's practically a matter of pride at this point to cut the US off as much as possible.

Re: Suspension of inbound parcels from China and Hong Kong

#468

Post by account42 »

catherd wrote: post #376
nottorp wrote: post #368

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Paying ~$30 for express shipping through DHL (plus whatever the new tariffs end up being) will still get you those parts in 3-5 days to most major shipping hubs in the US, your suppliers will just need to start filing the export paperwork correctly. In my european experience, DHL is anything but fast when customs are involved. And I doubt they have the manpower to handle it for the new US rules. > These changes wil…

DHL B2C shipments to the EU are generally held in customs until the duty is paid, which makes it slow but ensures DHL isn't left holding the bag when people decide they don't want to pay unexpected import duties. That's (historically) not the case for US B2B shipments. For those, DHL pays the duty as the shipment goes through customs and then sends an invoice after the parcel is delivered.

> DHL B2C shipments to the EU are generally held in customs until the duty is paid

That used to be the case here in Germany until recently when they started paying the duty for you and then demand it at pickup along with a "small" markup (up to 1000% when the duty was low) for a service you never asked for.

Re: Suspension of inbound parcels from China and Hong Kong

#469

Post by neom »

sidewndr46 wrote: post #459

This appears to be the end of my hobbies as there are just so many small parts I can't possibly get in the US but are available for $6 on AliExpress

Climate change is out of control and you're buying $6 plastic from China. Thank god it's the end of your hobbies.

Re: Suspension of inbound parcels from China and Hong Kong

#470

Post by ozmodiar »

anigbrowl wrote: post #118
9283409232 wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Trump and Elon apparently don't know how to do anything without first blowing it up.

It's divide and conquer tactics. They are not interested in continuity or a smoothly functioning economy. They want chaos and panic because they can exploit it.

The problem is they've already threatened most of their allies. In divide and conquer the goal is supposed to be to divide your enemies, not divide yourself from your allies. As it is their enemies and allies now have good reason to work together.
Post reply on HN