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Suspension of inbound parcels from China and Hong Kong

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Re: Suspension of inbound parcels from China and Hong Kong

#521

Post by insane_dreamer »

Workaccount2 wrote: post #496
insane_dreamer wrote: post #494

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Big US corps moved manufacturing to China to save money and destroyed the supply chains that used to exist in the US. Oops. But at least big shareholders made a lot of money, and GDP is up!! (I don't think most people realize how easy it is for China to f*k with the US for this very reason. Yeah, they'd also be shooting themselves in the foot, but they're a country that might be willing to do that if they had to, bec…

Shareholders made tons of money and consumers saved tons of money. People demand cheap shit, and riot over expensive stuff. Hell Trump is arguably in power because people couldn't handle prices increasing since 2020 (despite wages increasing too).

Consumers didn't save tons of money. They just bought more stuff with the money they had.

> People demand cheap shit and riot over expensive stuff

Sure, agree. But moving manufacturing to China wasn't done under pressure of Americans protesting that prices were high.

Re: Suspension of inbound parcels from China and Hong Kong

#522

Post by seanmcdirmid »

Foobar8568 wrote: post #364
seanmcdirmid wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

CNY goes for two weeks and just started last Tuesday night. The golden week holiday however just ended. Most people take extra time off so things are usually slow until the whole holiday is over.

In HK it's just a few days...

It is still two weeks, just the official days you get off from work are only a week or a few days.

In 2008 when they burned down the CCTV cultural center with fireworks on the last day of CNY, we were already pretty much back to work in Beijing.

Re: Suspension of inbound parcels from China and Hong Kong

#523

Post by KerrAvon »

jaredklewis wrote: post #168
dtquad wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>I literally do not know how the electrical and firmware engineers will do their jobs now if we cannot receive packages from China As a software engineer who works closely with electrical and firmware engineers I know what you are saying is completely true. The question is how did we let it go this far? Why has there never been serious Western alternatives to JLCPCB, PCBWay, JLCCNC etc.? Has anyone asked themselves h…

> The question is how did we let it go this far? Because allowing countries to maximize their comparative advantages is great for economic growth. It doesn’t make sense for every nation on earth to have their own copy of every industrial sector. We don’t need all nations to manufacture their own jet engines, oil tankers, t-shirts, and Tylenol. Trade is good. The idea that China is a major security threat is basically…

China is a nuclear power and has been recognized as a major security threat since they acquired nuclear weapons (in the sixties?).

But your last sentence is true. Politicians and corporate executives failing to accurately extrapolate long-term consequences have not done us any favors over the past 50 years, and now we’re super fucked. It’d be hard even if we still had a competent government instead of the smoking ruin in progress.

(Thomas Friedman and his globalization-is-brilliant shtick making people think this was all OK wasn’t great either.)

Re: Suspension of inbound parcels from China and Hong Kong

#524

Post by dang »

fragmede wrote: post #234
dang wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here's a subthread from yesterday where I went into this in depth: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42911011 . Past explanations: https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que... . If anyone has a question that isn't answered at those links, I'd be happy to take a crack at it.

another question I had was what are your thoughts on spinning off a politics.news.ycombinator.com or some other official link from here, and letting the people that want to do politics have a space separate from the main site?

I don't know who would both want to and be good at moderating that.

Also, I'm not sure it would make sense for YC to fund it. HN is in a sweet spot that way [1] but the sweet spot is a fairly constrained corner of the internet, different but analogous to how I described the political constraints in my reply above [2]. I doubt it's possible to modify one variable very much while keeping the others fixed.

[1] https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...

[2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42949237

Re: Suspension of inbound parcels from China and Hong Kong

#525

Post by seanmcdirmid »

insane_dreamer wrote: post #521
Workaccount2 wrote: post #496

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Shareholders made tons of money and consumers saved tons of money. People demand cheap shit, and riot over expensive stuff. Hell Trump is arguably in power because people couldn't handle prices increasing since 2020 (despite wages increasing too).

Consumers didn't save tons of money. They just bought more stuff with the money they had. > People demand cheap shit and riot over expensive stuff Sure, agree. But moving manufacturing to China wasn't done under pressure of Americans protesting that prices were high.

I remember the 90s before China joined the WTO and things did feel “more expensive”, the rise of Chinese production definitely led to lower prices and basically tamed inflation for a couple of decades.

Re: Suspension of inbound parcels from China and Hong Kong

#526

Post by graeme »

Scoundreller wrote: post #178
graeme wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They got rid of the de minimis exemption. Now every package needs to pay duty. They may not inspect the package but they still have to collect duty on it. I live in Canada where our de minimis exemption is like $20. Generally when a package comes to in it is help at the border where a broker certifies it for customs. Below $20 there's no broker. Now you need brokers etc for every single package. Def more paperwork ev…

Sure when you courier stuff into Canada but when it’s through the postal service, duty & sales tax collection is at the discretion of customs. Customs used to check everything and tax/duty any parcel over $20 until ~2011 or so. Not sure if it was because of cutbacks, rationalization (it’s a lot of paperwork to collect a couple bucks even with their, at the time, $6.95 fee), or a part of their reinvention as gun carry…

There's still more paperwork though. Canada Post cites a $9.95 handling fee on international packages over $20.

I'm not saying US customs will inspect everything. My point is on $800 packages they're moving from a very low level of scrutiny to some scrutiny and at scale that matters. They'll need to add staff to handle the new process and make the new process.

https://www.canadapost-postescanada.ca/cpc/en/support/articl...

Re: Suspension of inbound parcels from China and Hong Kong

#527

Post by markus_zhang »

Workaccount2 wrote: post #502
markus_zhang wrote: post #432

I sincerely hope US and Canada can regrow some manufacturing capacity. I think the only way to do it is by a one-two punch, and middle class like me are going to seriously get hurt, but I still want it done, for the sake of later generations and for a better, safer, more competitive humanity. Safer because a successful reform removes the need of a world war. The one-two punch is: 1) A massive devaluation of housing,…

I'd love to see it too, but as someone who does hardware for a living and software sometimes for fun, I just don't see how this is going to happen. Hardware is a money pit endeavor with low margins and high overhead. Software is a money printer with high margins and low overhead.

TBH, I don't see it either. It's a hell lot of changes that can only be achieved by some dramatic political movements.

Re: Suspension of inbound parcels from China and Hong Kong

#528

Post by ranger_danger »

ndom91 wrote: post #437

Looks like they've flip flopped already: > Effective February 5, 2025, the Postal Service will continue accepting all international inbound mail and packages from China and Hong Kong Posts. The USPS and Customs and Border Protection are working closely together to implement an efficient collection mechanism for the new China tariffs to ensure the least disruption to package delivery.

[flagged]

Re: Suspension of inbound parcels from China and Hong Kong

#529

Post by Symbiote »

K0balt wrote: post #474
reaperman wrote: post #72

This is going to utterly fuck so many R&D projects at my company. We actually do large-scale manufacturing of industrial valves in the USA. But a lot of our prototyping involves working with Chinese suppliers and getting small batches of samples / prototypes / revisions sent in packages on airplanes. I literally do not know how the electrical and firmware engineers will do their jobs now if we cannot receive packages…

We do R&D in the Dominican Republic. Like most nations in the USA orbit, we receive our eastern imports via the USA via transshipping. This is also disrupting the nascent technology industries in the Caribbean and the Latin-American diaspora. For us specifically, it will increase our logistics costs by multiples and lead times by weeks. I expect this will result in substantial schedule misses and cost overruns.

Perhaps new transshippers in Canada or maybe Mexico could take the place of the Americans.

Re: Suspension of inbound parcels from China and Hong Kong

#530

Post by Workaccount2 »

insane_dreamer wrote: post #521
Workaccount2 wrote: post #496

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Shareholders made tons of money and consumers saved tons of money. People demand cheap shit, and riot over expensive stuff. Hell Trump is arguably in power because people couldn't handle prices increasing since 2020 (despite wages increasing too).

Consumers didn't save tons of money. They just bought more stuff with the money they had. > People demand cheap shit and riot over expensive stuff Sure, agree. But moving manufacturing to China wasn't done under pressure of Americans protesting that prices were high.

No, but it was done under pressure of Americans buying Walmart over local mom and pop.

I cannot take anyone seriously who thinks people care about "Made in USA" more than $10 sweatshirts and $50 dinnerware sets.

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