The cheap Chinese shipments have been available since the UPU agreement in 1969 ... yes, they've always been around, but they are not trackable packages.
The only part of China manufacturing items for the West in 1969 and for years to come was British Hong Kong. They made made a lot of cheap toys and other low cost items for department stores. I am selling some of those now. The vast majority of these items (99.9999999%) were not shipped via USPS, but on cargo ships and cargo container ships. Being a stamp collector since 1976 I've only seen a hand full of letters, no packages, sent from Hong Kong during this time period that originally contained cheap merchandise, such a single sample necklace for U.S. buyer, and they all used standard Hong Kong postage stamps and letter rates.
eBay's trilateral agreement was for a new ePacket service ... the ePacket is a cheap "tracked" shipment. The ePacket costs slightly more than the regular untracked packages in the UPU agreement.
What we have here is a company misusing a program intended to help poor people to line its own pocket instead; destroy American jobs by dumping Chinese goods in the US., and colluding with a enemy foreign government which has already killed thousands of our servicemen in Korea and which has killed tens of millions of its own people.
The UPU or the 1969 amendment does not make eBay do anything!
The USPS wasn't really having a loss (or much of a loss) with these kinds of shipments up until about 3-4 years ago when the shipments from China started to explode in volume. Now, I believe it is a huge drain on USPS profits.
What nonsense!
https://www.uspsoig.gov/sites/default/files/document-library-files/2015/RARC-WP-16-003.pdf
This article announces eBay's new agreement in May of 2010. That means it was actually used for only short period of time in 2010 and by few sellers. The first full year it was used we see profits of $53 swing to loses of $36. Its now at at $300 million per year according the article below.
https://about.usps.com/news/national-releases/2010/pr10_058.htm
It has been a money loser from the start! Any one with even a tiny bit of business sense would know this was a very bad idea.
It was a scam sold to U.S. tax payers by:
1. A U.S. Congress bought and paid for with political contributions by companies like eBay. They should be voted out.
2. Dysfunctional USPS management who should not only be fired but be banned from ever holding a federal job again. The same managment that ran a program that bought manager's homes who were forced to move because of a job change only to sell those homes at huge loses.
3. eBay. They should have their current USPS discounts terminated until they repay USPS for these loses.
ITS A SCAM ON THE AMERICAN PUBLIC!
@anthology-of-treasures wrote:The USPS wasn't really having a loss (or much of a loss) with these kinds of shipments up until about 3-4 years ago when the shipments from China started to explode in volume. Now, I believe it is a huge drain on USPS profits.
What nonsense!
https://www.uspsoig.gov/sites/default/files/document-library-files/2015/RARC-WP-16-003.pdf
Your table is letters, not packages.
I wasn't trying to imply that these package shipments have not been a losing proposition ... my intent was to say that it has gone from a leak to a major drain in the last few years because of the explosion of ecommerce shipments from China. That is why it is now on everyone's radar.
Regardless, I think we all agree that it needs to be stopped.
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kh-vince
Just for your the record the expansion of Chinese goods into the US marker (and other countries in our started well before 2010 and before anyone could spell eBay or Amazon or any other on line selling venue. Just to cite an example or two, companies in the retail B & M stores thrived and rapidly expanded by offering Chinese items - Dollar Tree Stores - started in 1993, Dollar General - 1967. Combined they have almost 30,000 outlets - and both took a bite out of Wal-Mart.
It seems the only responses certain people post consist of misdirection and half truths.
Sorry, but that is wrong on so many counts.
Chinese goods were imported into the U.S. from British Hong Kong decades before that. You mean to tell me you've not picked up and examined 1960s to 1980s toys made in British Hong Kong? Or the millions of other cheap products typically made for dime stores. I recall seeing those in the local Ben Franklin still into the 1980s. Some of these are quite funny do to mistranslations of English . Other packages show illustrations of caucasian children in western clothing children playing with toy but having oriental eyes.
I guess you missed my other post or posts pointing this out before. Of course that is common knowledge.
The company renamed Dollar Tree was formed in 1953.
The company later named Dollar General originated in 1939.
Neither of these companies began importing items from Mainland Communist China until China was granted membership to the WTO, granted most favored trading status and given other benefits clearly unwarranted by their horrible human rights record. The public was told by politicians that the added prosperity would mellow out the Chinese government. Anyone with any common sense knows it would only lead to a more controlling police state. The real reason the politicians granted these privileges was so that their corporate masters could benefit from setting up companies there. Like eBay's management these company CEOs were only interested in generating short term profits and getting their bonuses and stock optiions, while long term they were giving away the store to the Chinese.
Mao is infamously credited with saying that the last capitalist we hang will be the one that sells us the rope.
None of the store chains buying items from British Hong Kong in the 1960s through the early 1970s were importing goods from Mainland Red China. The government of mainland China was too busy killing off millions of its own people. They were also too busy invading Tibet and committing crimes against humanity as a way to ethnically cleanse Tibet and replace the population with Chinese occupiers. Perhaps you should ask the 800,000 to 1 million Chinese Uighurs now in death camps how they feel about the Chinese government mellowing out with new found wealth.
Chinese product were accepted on the west coast both consumer products & industrial/heavy equipment. A very good friend of mine in the LA area - named P. Wang tried to get me to come to LA and sell his lines of Chinese. I liked & trusted him a lot but no way did I ever want to live in LA.
I am utterly shocked. The Chinese make so called industrial / heavy equipment. They also make asbestos brake pads that cause cancer, drywall that makes home owners sick, pet food that kills pets, illegal drugs that kill tens of thousands of Americans and host of other unsafe products. I certainly wouldn't buy any Chinese heavy equipment. I like the good old American made tools that after 100 years still are going strong. My oldest vehicile is a 1940 Ford with its original V8 motor.
My sales activities in Georgia started in 1996. I readily discovered that the Chinese had a very large presence here - the air port & proximity to major inbound ports -Chinese products were in warehouses every where I turned.
My sales started in 1976 when I bought and resold stamps at a profit as a kid.
But these products were shipped on container ships and not shipped via USPS using a UPU program intended to help poor people. The importation of these products didn't cause USPS huge loses so that eBay could line its own pockets. Stealing from the poor to give to the rich.
Their rapid growth to be was very much parallel to the acceptance of Japanese products starting in the 1969.
eBay, Amazon just gave the Chinese another avenue to further penetrate the US & other significant market places.
Japanese products were imported into the U.S. well before WWII. For a time both China and Japan were closed to the outside world until they fond out during the 19th Century how behind they were. both started sending students to the U.S. & Europe in the 1860s and 1870s to learn Western technology.
There was a slight pause during the war. They began to be imported again almost immediately after war ended. Haven't you seen the millions and millions of items marked "Occupied Japan" before? Lefton China, for instance, was already importing items by 1946. Some of those Japanese tin toys were hand made from discarded tin cans from American troops and were sold as cheap toys at the time, but which are now highly desirable.
Just as a side note Mitusubishi (forklift manufacturing group) had a plant in China making products under the Mitsubishi name in 1992. They sold their old tooling to the Chinese so they could produce a almost look a like.
The Chinese let you setup a plant in their country under the guise of doing long term business and expanding your company. You are forced to partner with a Chinese firm. Chinese firm learns your manufacturing techniques, steal your IP, and you are forced to sign over IP to Chinese firms to do business in China. Yuor company starts to have problems with Chinese "regulations" to force you out of business. The Chinese cookie cutter approach to business theft is common knowledge.
Chinese agents were even caught even stealing seeds from unmarked test fields in my state so they could avoid spending billions on research and decades of time. China has established the world's largest theft ring of IP ever seen.
You might want to watch the film China Blue. Its about two underage girls who venture from the country into a city were they sew jeans for pennies a hour. One is certainly to have less production costs when the government and the company you work for are the same; workers are slaves of the state and have no rights; and you don't have to follow environmental laws that would get you quickly shut down in the West.
"the acceptance of Japanese products starting in the 1969." is a great punch line for a joke.
