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A comment on The U.S. can now set its own rates for mail from China and other countries. Parent comment

Re:The U.S. can now set its own rates for mail from China an... by thaumasiotes on Monday June 29, 2020 @01:11AM (#23674549)
> I am truly disappointed at at the downvotes and the complete lack of research done by down-voters. The answer to your question is "Yes" not because of cost prohibition - but because most fentayl imports are less than 700 grams - which get lost in the massive flood of UPS e-Packet shipments and thus near impossible to inspect.

So what? 100 grams would be bought, by the numbers above, for $600 and sold for $8,000. If shipping cost $200, no one would care. That would add $2,000 in shipping costs to the full kilogram, but, again, no one would care. It's just not significant.

Do you have an argument to advance that isn't ludicrous on its face?

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Re:The U.S. can now set its own rates for mail from China an... by capitol_ on Monday June 29, 2020 @01:28AM (#23674623)
I guess that if shipping cost $200, only very lucrative goods like fentanyl would be shipped. That would reduce that the total shipping volume to something that was possible for the border guards to inspect in order to find drugs.
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Re:The U.S. can now set its own rates for mail from China an... by lenkite on Monday June 29, 2020 @01:21AM (#23674590)
It is not a matter of the shipping cost. Can you please state which statement do you find ludicrous ?

1. Chinese fentayl shipments do not need to have high weight due to purity. Mentioned explicitly in the trade commission report linked above.

2. Due to 1), it is convenient to leverage e-packet shipment as inspection of massive volume of e-packet shipments is near impossible.

3. Small-scale US businesses were adversely affected by e-packet rates https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2018/10/trump...

[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:The U.S. can now set its own rates for mail from China an... by close04 on Monday June 29, 2020 @01:56AM (#23674783)
>> There were a truckload of articles [...] on how this "international China shipping" being cheaper than "domestic shipping" destroyed small businesses

> It is not a matter of the shipping cost.

Seems like your original point was centered on shipping costs destroying domestic businesses. In light of the downvotes it became mostly a matter of drug imports in small, cheap packages:

> most fentayl imports are less than 700 grams - which get lost in the massive flood of UPS e-Packet shipments and thus near impossible to inspect

Which is irrelevant, shipping costs (within reason) won't change this.

[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:The U.S. can now set its own rates for mail from China an... by lenkite on Monday June 29, 2020 @02:18AM (#23674889)
"Seems like your original point was centered on shipping costs"

I made both points right at the beginning, though the thread got focused around one of them.

1. e-packet shipping cost adversely affecting US businesses

2. e-packet being used to hide fentayl shipments thanks to massive volume and delivery convenience. (cheap and fast)

"Which is irrelevant, this will be the case regardless of the shipping costs, within reason."

I fail to understand this statement. How will reduction of e-packets - one of the major causes of the bloat of international packages not help in inspection ?

If you reduce the total number of e-packets by removing the subsidy, then it becomes far easier to inspect which packages have fentayl and which do not. EMS shipments apparently quadrupled after the e-packet scheme was introduced which adversely affected all inspection procedures as agencies could not cope with the volume.

Reduce the volume by removing the subsidy - the inspection agencies can then manage their job.

[ Parent | on HN ]