Hacker News Reader

Comment by solotronics | Hacker News Reader

Good! No longer will we be ripped off by funding shipping from China to the US with taxpayer money.

I actually think it would be better to stay in the agreement with most countries but slap a "transport fee" or creatively name it, on all the things coming from China, and use that to pay for the shipping cost. It should be looked at on a country by country basis, where countries we export more than import to get to send for free.

View on HN

I think you're getting downvoted because of the use of the word "taxpayer."

The USPS is not funded by taxes.

But we certainly fund the government that mis-manages the USPS.

The USPS is exempt from paying federal taxes therefore we are subsidizing it. "The United States Postal Service (USPS; also known as the Post Office, U.S. Mail, or Postal Service) is an independent agency of the executive branch of the United States federal government responsible for providing postal service in the United States, including its insular areas and associated states. It is one of the few government agencies explicitly authorized by the United States Constitution."

It is essentially a public service built to deliver our packages with special federal provisions: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Postal_Service#L...

The USPS exists to serve the public good rather than to enrich shareholders. Why should the USPS pay taxes when non-profits don't?

They could be using money to deliver packages better (faster, tracking improvements, 24 hour delivery) instead of paying for China to dump products here.

> American taxpayers subsidize the USPS at a rate that surpasses the costs associated with any Congressional mandate. He estimates that, all told, the subsidies and legal monopolies that Congress bestows upon the post office is worth $18 billion annually. https://fortune.com/2015/03/27/us-postal-service/

This is a Republican talking point. The bans that prevent the Post Office from doing logical things like being a local bank of last resort, becoming an identity broker and online access provider, etc. would more than make the Post Office viable and dwarf any so-called subsidy.

In reality, a bunch of Republican dipshits are jealous of some of the real estate that the Post Office is sitting on and they are trying very hard to hose the Post Office finances to make them sell it.

So your argument is that the post office could be profitable if it were allowed to be more than a post office? Yeah I agree with that, but it doesn't really say anything about whether the USPS in reality has a net cost on tax payers.

USPS is actually adequately funded. However, a Republican congress saddled them with having to fund 70 years of pensions up front, something that Republicans somehow don't seem to care about when the pension obligations belong to a company like Bethlehem Steel.

In addition, we fund the Post Office in order to maintain connection to those parts of the country that profit wouldn't connect. So, ironically, if we demand that the Post Office be more profitable, the first people to suffer would be those calling for its head. But, then, that's become pretty much standard operating procedure in US politics.

And, historically in the US, a Post Office generally was more than just mail. You could go there to pay your bills, send money, etc. This is an artifact of the Post Office generally being associated with the General Store.

For example, it pains me to see all the "Paycheck Cashing" places that are so predatory when the Post Office could do this effectively for free and make money on the float.

The big problem with this theory is that building manufacturing in the United States will be expensive, and if the next president is going to undo this, then what’s the point of building it? It could be less expensive to weather through those 4 years.

edit: could, not would

This is a weekness in our current system that has been exploited. It's a strategic national security concern and is finally being treated as such. China has "Made in China 2025" we should do the same and it should be supported by whatever measures are necessary. The alternative is that CCP will take Americas place in regards to global geopolitics.

Do you know that the next president is going to undo this? If the bar for action is that someone might undo it in the future, why do anything?

You have to make a decision given the information you have. You can chose to wait, but that is a decision. You will always have to choose again in the future based on new information, but often once you set a plan in motion you should continue even if though without the sunk costs of the past you wouldn't.

I don't know who the next President will be. The current president could die in an hour. The current president could win or lose re-election. The current president could become a military dictator for life. The above applies to any president of any country (not just Trump). You have to decide what the risk of each is and prepare accordingly.

But once you have manufacturing in the US it can be cheaper. US manufacturing needs to be very automated because of labor costs, but if you are very automated the US is a useful place to be located: close to your customers, who speak the same language. (of course Europe is also a potential customer and so the location advantage is lost)

Of course this assumes that you have a process that can be automated cost effectively. That assumption is often false.

My wishful thinking is move more of the manufacturing onshore and use automation to reduce costs yet give blue collar workers some opportunities. Also favoring trade relationships with all our neighboring countries as a substitute to China.

It's expensive because we can't get away with the labor rates that China does-- for building infrastructure, acquiring raw materials, and employing a workforce with benefits and pensions and unions. China has less bureaucratic overhead (in terms of factories/mines not caring about pollution) and a more driven, obedient workforce (i.e. they will work harder expecting less pay). I'm not saying those are good things, just facts as I see them. I don't know if this is a true dichotomy, but on the surface it seems that we either pay more at all levels to employ our own citizenry in manufacturing these goods, or we let our manufacturing capabilities and professions atrophy. This may actually be a good (roundabout) way to ensure that greener manufacturing is used, by making us design manufacturing these capabilities by our standards.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com