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US Announces Plans To Withdraw From 144-Year-Old Postal Treaty (thehill.com)
JoeyRox writes: The Trump Administration announced today that it's intending to withdraw from the Universal Postal Union, an international postage rate system overseen by the United Nations. "The decision was borne out of frustration with discounts imposed by the Universal Postal Union (UPU) that allow China and some other nations to ship products into the U.S. at cheaper rates than American companies receive to ship domestically," reports The Hill. "The administration argues the system undercuts U.S. manufacturers and allows China to flood the market with cheap goods." The U.S. is hoping to renegotiate the rates, known as terminal dues, but was frustrated with opposition from other nations in the UPU. According to the report, "The withdrawal would not take effect for one year, allowing the U.S. some time to broker a new deal."
"The 144-year-old UPU sets fees that postal services charge to deliver mail and packages from foreign carriers," reports The Hill. "For decades, developing nations have been allowed to pay lower rates than wealthier nations. China has fallen under the developing nation category, a designation the U.S. says it no longer deserves because of its booming economy." The Trump administration wants to move to a system of "self-declared rates" that would allow the U.S. Postal Service to set its own prices for shipping international packages of all sizes. As it stands, the P.O. is only allowed to use self-declared rates on packages exceeding 4.4 pounds.
"The 144-year-old UPU sets fees that postal services charge to deliver mail and packages from foreign carriers," reports The Hill. "For decades, developing nations have been allowed to pay lower rates than wealthier nations. China has fallen under the developing nation category, a designation the U.S. says it no longer deserves because of its booming economy." The Trump administration wants to move to a system of "self-declared rates" that would allow the U.S. Postal Service to set its own prices for shipping international packages of all sizes. As it stands, the P.O. is only allowed to use self-declared rates on packages exceeding 4.4 pounds.
Blind squirrel, acorn.. you all know the retort.
Joking aside, this system has been abused extensively and is really in need of an overhaul.
I used to live in China and used the postal service to ship a lot of my personal stuff back home when we moved back to the US. It was ridiculously cheap to move that way. I couldn't believe how cheap it was. Each box was just shy of the 25kg limit and right on the maximum allowed dimensions. Each one shipped from South China to Alabama for about $20. I couldn't even mail them to another city in Alabama for that price, but here they were circling half the globe.
I buy a lot of that "cheap junk" off of ebay, that comes directly from China. I've noticed that over the last year a lot of it no longer being sent using China mail (i.e. the official government mail that is part of the postal union and is at issue here). Most has moved to "private carriers" - who, from all the appearances, ship things in bulk to the US and then separate and ship packages internally as domestic first class mail.
Some of it started coming from Malaysia (likely based on their advantageous mailing rates, and the fact that they are not in the crosshairs of the current administration much).
My guess is, by the time this administration successfully stomps into the ground the existing legacy system, there will be a ready and nimble replacement not subject to the "old rules".
And so it goes with most of their undertakings - huffing and puffing and breaking all the china in the store, losing what little goodwill we may have had, to protect industrial interests that are past their prime. Auto, coal, what else?
Meanwhile, our only friends now may be in Saudi Arabia and we are so afraid to lose them, that we cannot call them out on an political murder. Even Israel is sucking up to Russia so hard you can hear it from across the ocean. Yes, the last paragraph is a rant, but the world is very small now, and mail is not the only thing that unites (or divides) it.
China is still in the development phase. Far from everyone has been brought up to a first world standard of living there, in fact the majority have not.
The developing nation status helps those people by making it easier for small businesses and even individuals to sell to relatively wealthy consumers in the west.
I'm sure someone will ask why they should care about people in China or helping China develop. I'll assume that humanitarian arguments won't work so I'll use an economic one. As China develops it opens up opportunities for the US to sell to China. European and Japanese cars are becoming quite popular, for example, not to mention tourism.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
Came here to post this :) Here's the link:
https://www.npr.org/sections/m...
TL;DR version - Yes there is a postal "illuminati." The treaty states that, when sending things via international mail, the sending country handles the cost to get the package to the country being delivered to, and the country being delivered to covers the cost of delivery from the point of entry to the final destination. As you can imagine, sending something from China on an enormous container ship to a port in Los Angeles is relatively cheap, especially when most of the manufacturing and shipping is done near sea ports. Shipping that thing from Los Angeles to Miami is pretty expensive. The cost of the last part is covered by the US post office.
My Other Computer Is A Data General Nova III.
Good! China has too many "poor developing nation" breaks. Level the playing field for a change. Yeah, the UN (useless nations) will probably flood the airwaves with videos of the poor parts of China, but won't show you the ghost cities. Cities the corrupt communist government wasted money on building, then, abandoned them. Monuments to the stupidity of the communist regime. If China were forced to play on a level playing field, other than their self imposed slave labor of around 1.5 billion people, you'd see more manufacturers leaving China.
I expect there are many things that hamstring the Post Office that the public doesn't know about.
One of my best friends has worked for the Post Office since he was 18 as a letter carrier. I can assure you that you are exactly correct.
The economics of the Post Office operations is hamstrung by arcane ancient regulations at all levels. The 6 days a week delivery schedule is among the most stupid and costly ones I can thing of. Then, when you cannot control what you charge without a literal act of congress, it's ridiculous to expect the Post Office to run as a zero cost entity.
In the face of rising employment rates, the Post Office simply cannot hire and train enough carriers to deliver to every address everyday but Sunday so my friend has been working 6 day weeks for almost two years now, getting paid overtime for every hour over 40, which turns out to be about 20 hours a week. He's a senior carrier with 20+ years of seniority so he's maxed out what he gets paid and the ONLY thing that keeps him walking the streets is the generous retirement that keeps accruing. Once he maxes out the retirement payments, in about 18 months, he's going to retire, collect his government pension and take an easier job. I fully understand why the younger carriers are leaving in droves, I'd give a job like that the heave ho too and go work for Amazon or UPS where at least the hours would be better.
"File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101
I've been working to set up a small business. Some of the components I need would have been coming from China as we don't manufacture them here in the US of A. This increase in shipping costs will put me out of business before I can get started.
No, I cannot increase the price of my product to compensate to the increased shipping costs.
His punishment of China killed me.
It seems like a reasonable thing to do.
A while ago, I decided to clean up some clutter by selling all my extra chargers, cables, and whatnot. But I had to cancel that, since it turned out that I had to pay more for postage than what they sell the same thing for from China. Yes, even if I were to sell the used stuff at $0, a new one from China was cheaper than the USPS package price.
This is not sustainable, and US might bet a fair deal if one year period is used correctly.
We /. types benefit greatly by being able to buy arduino clones and electronic stuff like that on eBay and getting it at an affordable cost. Most of us will just stop playing with that kind of thing when the cost goes through the roof if its even available at any cost. This will have a lot of unintended consequences.
During the debate, the president said he was going to add 28 million more jobs. I was confused, because we didn't have 28 million people out of work (unless the unemployment figures are rigged). Add on top of that a rejection of immigrants so it will take generations to expand the labor force. Now I read in the news that there are substantially more job openings than applicants.
Who is going to make our stuff if we can't make it here or import it at a reasonable cost? Mythical robots and AI?
Greed is the root of all evil.