By Jo Nova
As Winston Sterzel says: Seriously? Why does it cost more to send a postcard to my neighbor than it does for a Company in China to send a package right across the world?
He explains how an old intergovernmental committee — the Universal Postal Union (UPU) — sets the rules so that rich nations subsidize the poor ones. Like all government committees it clings to a good idea for so many years it kills it. It was set up in 1874, and now in 2024, a nation with a space station is draining money from our postal systems and from our local jobs. What a rort…
Everyone paying for postage in the West is also paying the post for businesses in China to send cheap things which undermine local sellers. It is very difficult for a business using postal delivery to compete in the West — even in its own domestic market.
The UPU is — naturally — another subsidiary of the United Nations. What else do we need to know? It works as well as we’d expect any 150 year old unelected and unaccountable bureaucracy to work — like napalm on a free market.
The UPU motto now is “One World. One Postal Network.” They look, act and smell just like a larval world government.
It’s time to Exit the UN now.
At least the larger online sales outfits are now collecting GST on purchases being sent to Australia. I wonder if the government actually receives it?
70
That much is simple. “China” can post free by incorporating the cost of the postage into the price of the product.
How they do it so cheaply I do wonder every time that I see that an item I purchased was shipped from Botany, where Sydney’s air and sea ports are located.
e.g. I needed a small part for the carburettor of the lawn mower. At the dealer’s it was about $90. At ebay it was $27 including postage for a complete carburettor. Shipped from Botany.
Had I gone to the post office in Botany the minimum freight charge would have been around $10.
80
While there are many good reasons to exit the UN, this is not one of them. It is a reason to exit the UPU which is an independent organization.
917
This from the link
“The Universal Postal Union is a United Nations specialized agency and the postal sector’s primary forum for international cooperation.” So it doesn’t appear to be independent.
Trump has often talked about defunding the UN. It would be very interesting to know what sort of impacts that would have on our lives, quite apart from the dismantling of the IPCC.
There is currently a number of western nations backing off funding the Hamas tainted refugee agency in Gaza. How many more UN agencies of this kind are there? Not all will be bad of course.
441
Tony, looking through the description of the UPU, I can find no indication that they have joined the UN. Consider that the UPU is much older than the UN and while they may align with the UN on membership criteria, I see no indication that their funding comes from the UN.
512
List the good ones.
The road to ruin is paved with good intentions. The entire UN exists to protect the UN and its sources of funding.
252
The UN was established to prevent wars. How many wars has it prevented? None. It cannot stop minor civil wars, Pol Pot for example or the war between the Hutis and Tutsis. The wars within the old Yugoslavia were stopped by NATO not the UN. The trouble with the UN is that each member state has a vote and many smaller nations are corrupt to be bought off by bigger and richer countries to vote in a certain way. Beside which autocrat or tyrant will interfere in the genocide being conducted by another autocrat or tyrant who is most likely a best buddy?
231
Trump was right.
151
2024
UNEXIT and UPEXIT
221
Privatised Royal Mail is struggling to provide the service it is supposed to within the regulatory restrictions it is bound by.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-68067702.amp
140
No worries. Another subsidy can fix that.
But not for long.
30
Another thing that has to be addressed is the huge multiple violations of the intellectial property of Western companies by the Chinese. This is causing tremendous economic damage to the West.
It’s just another way China is at war against the West without (yet) firing a shot. They are softening us first, with the help of a vast slave army of useful idiots of the Left, in the West, who constantly stick up for China and most of whom are more loyal to China than their own country. This includes many of our own politicians and even the US President and the former Victorian state premier (who now works for them).
302
Dave
Not sure there is that many “stick up for China”. Most of us just don’t stick up so that those that do win.
30
Why is everyone criticising a poverty stricken oppressed developing nation.
Well that’s what the UN say. Best we dump the UN. Trump needs to order them to vacate the USA together with total defunding of the free worlds enemy & trouble maker!
382
Many large western companies have established manufacturing in China. A normal condition of establishing those business is a Chinese based partner. That, along with the fact that they employ Chinese workers, means it is the Chinese companies advancing the technology.
An example is BASF:
https://www.yicaiglobal.com/news/20230426-04-basf-to-step-up-investment-in-china-to-take-stake-in-its-low-carbon-transition
In the long game, China wins as the west losses its manufacturing base.
Australian engineers are being trained to erect wind turbines and solar farms. China’s engineers are being trained to develop and manage complex manufacturing processes.
China may get harmed by its heavy investment in producing EVs but they are likely to survive while the western manufacturers with interests outside China will succunmmb to market forces as sensible people move towards hybrids and ditch BEVs.
101
It’s my experience that the majority of sinophobes cannot see that the ones screwing them and enabling the Chinese are in fact their own governments. You want to stop the Chinese then you need to stop your fifth columnists !
260
We have a of Sino/Russo apologists under the guise of US haters here. I call them out, do you?
40
Please repeat in English.
30
China’s advantages, including the western loss of technological advantage, comes primarily from the profit and interbusiness competitive forces in the West’s own open domestic market system. Trump nailed it with his demands that, to preserve the US economy, business superiority and jobs, that US companies choosing to take their manufacturing and technologies offshore to China be hit with import duties. That was recognition that the US open market was working against US interests and employment, fully recognising this would force a backwards change on the world trading system.
One would imagine his first strike if he becomes POTUS again would be to strike out China’s developing nation status. The second would be to slam on those import duties, The third would be to defund the UN in the USA and invite it to move offshore to Moscow, Beijing, Pakistan or somewhere in Africa where folk of like nature can chat with themselves forever – but have no US funding to connive and scheme against the USA itself. Everyone would be happy. It would also remove a festering nidus of activist activity that stirs trouble within the USA, offshore.
81
I don’t dispute the existence of “The Universal Postal Union” but most Chinese junk retailers hide some or all of postage into the cost of the item
so we don’t know how much they actually pay. Plus, like Amazon, they have volume on their side.
140
There would be thousands of items on eBay today with a TOTAL cost below $5
https://www.ebay.com.au/itm/283988496219?hash=item421f088f5b:g:rloAAOSwu9le~v7T&var=585931267392
80
And it all originates in China! More often than not buyers don’t realise the item is being shipped from China
60
Small businesses in China have free international postage. That means that cost == manufacturing + packaging cost + Internet website sales cost. Postage, which is a big chunk, doesn’t figure in. We pay about $240M PA to subsidise them.
However if you buy a DVD on ebay the cost is often very low irrespective of whether it’s from within Australia of from the UK. If you look at the manufacturing cost and the packaging and postage there can’t be much left out of $12 for retail profit.
90
That’s what the thread is about.
DVDs are VERY cheap to package. There is plenty of margin left in $12 especially if the artist is being gypped.
20
I’ve told people about that [I didn’t know the details] and they don’t believe me.
90
Temu is very popular! People close their eyes if to open them would be to take the national interest stance and lose their dirt cheap purchases.
imo, the problem with doing anything about the apparent anticompetitive status the West has accepted for China – regardless who owns or controls the international postal services – is, our democratic, elected governments don’t seem to review old agreements nor place termination dates on those agreements.
Consider the election cycles of 3-5years for the democracies. Nobody is complaining loudly nor exposing deficiencies coming from long-standing agreements. So, if a government did become aware, it’s torn between remedying what it sees as a ‘minor problem’, offending the beneficiaries, cause large msm hassles against it ie cost more votes than it wins. If Abbott and Morrison class free speech as a third order issue, then this postal question would simply never reach consideration stage.
10
See Craig Kelly’s entry below. #16
00
I think defunding the UN is essential and particularly their climate alarmist obsession, so much of which is just more of their dangerous BS and FRAUD.
If the USA and other concerned OECD countries halved their funding immediately they might start to wake up, or quickly drop so many of their pet left wing divisive projects.
The UN should be forced to go on a compulsory diet and learn to live a leaner and more sensible existence.
211
No !… a fatal shot is needed !
There is nothing more dangerous tha a woulded , hungry, creature.
….and the UN is a very large and dangerous creature !….it and its idealogy must be totally dismantled or it will eventually reform and come back even more agressively.
110
Just think of those 40,000 employees and their poor families, how will they cope .
00
Kinda like free cheese in a mousetrap.
120
241
Before the plandemic I used to get small items like electronic components for my projects off sites like Deal Extreme, from China, including delivery to me, for A$1. It was far cheaper than I could buy them within Australia either in-store or online.
I always marvelled at how they could do it so cheaply. Even vendor credit card or PayPal fees alone, in the West, would exceed that cost.
After the plandemic, things from China cost much more.
81
..correction..
After the plandemic, EVERYTHING cost much more. !
And i find it strange that there is not much more realisation as to how much more things have increased ?
Driven, fundamentally i believe, by the increase in primary energy costs. (Eg..electricity)
121
Correct, Chad.
EVERYTHING is more expensive and our Government (Australia) lies to us about the true inflation rate.
I regularly ask housewives how much they think the inflation rate is based on purchases of groceries from the supermarket and they all agree it’s around 25%-30%.
According to the RBA it’s 5.4% or less.
Complete and UTTER BS!
https://www.rba.gov.au/inflation-overview.html
161
The Law of Supply and Demand could do it.
In 2023 the Ford Ranger light truck became Australia’s most popular new vehicle, overtaking the Toyota Hilux light truck.
The renowned reliability of Toyota’s light trucks made them very popular for fighting wars with. And there are a few of those going around. Hence demand for these products for military purposes creates a scarcity of Toyota products generally, which scarcity is then extrapolated across the wider market.
00
David. As you know, the answer lies in how the official inflation data is compiled. It doesn’t consider many items that feed into every cost we face. It seems most government induced costs are excluded. This will be the interesting part of the Coles/Woolworths pricing investigations. The terms of reference will exclude climate change costs, interest rates and energy costs as far as possible, seeing this was a defensive federal government move to get the bad press on costs off its back. It’ll be costs at the farm gate, transport (without elucidation), store sales prices (again without elucidation) and aim to make much of any differences in any pricing between the big company’s stores. Its all about ‘showing’ ‘the anti competitive’ nature of our major general store owners as ‘cartels’. We’ve seen it all before.
30
Actually, I believe, the rot set in before the plandemic. Covid and Ukraine has just facilitated and accelerated the green agenda. Now the red sea chaos is just adding to the global economic decline. The Davos set are very happy with this situation.
You’re all very ungrateful for not appreciating their efforts.
110
Oohhh, that’s an old story Jo. Even before Winny covered it, it was 10 years old. 😎
There are eBay sellers claiming to be based in Darwin (well away from The rest of Oz, so freight takes longer) but are in fact based in China.
After 2 weeks when your item hasn’t arrived you query the seller and they say “Shipping from Darwin. Allow time”.😉
eBay never fixes its myriad of dodgy practices and sellers…
Even for real Aussie sellers (whatever they are. Lol) actually here in Oz, they can offer free freight when the post cost should exceed the item value, cubed rate not just weight.
It must be one hell of a bulk rate deal with Aus Post..
50
That’s what made me laugh “undermining the local sellers”. They are all dropshippers now. Essentially,they are parasites with no skin in the game: no stock, no responsibility, no honesty (BS about “Aussie seller/manufacturer”). I hate dropshipping in all its forms, but looks like everyone wants to make an easy living getting a passive income from an online shop with massive mark ups. I noticed it started happening over 10 years ago – first the ebay, later online stores (irrigation, spares, electronics, female fashion), Aliexpress now has a special section for them with free shipping. Now our big retailers join in. Bunnings being one example with its “special orders” – you order, you pay, they will order from China. They order in bulk, bulk container shipping is relatively inexpensive (it is more expensive now, but still). As many people above already said, that cost is absorbed into pricing. Next time you need to buy a cheaper fridge or a washing machine, notice how online our big retailers of white goods inevitably say “not available for click and collect”, but they will gladly deliver from someplace over east. From one of those huge fulfillment centers they’ve been building around Australia? Makes economic sense. Everything is shipped from China anyway. Ebay, Amazon and multitude of dropshippers might as well share the facility and partake in cost savings delivered by the economy of scales.
20
“It’s time to Exit the UN now.”
I’ve been saying for decades that not only should we be out of the UN and all its various offshoots, we must cancel any and all involvements, agreements or treaties we are involved with as part of our membership.
This includes UNESCO, UNHCR, WHO, IMF, and myriad other predatory and parasitic orgs in any way related to the United Nations – an unelected body hijacked and controlled by unaccountable third world thugs and dictators of every hue which specifically don’t have our best interests at heart.
Think about it: Can you name a single thing the UN has ever done that you can actually say you have got a personal benefit from?
170
I am no friend of international GO’s or even IGO’s, BUT:
There are many organs of the UN that do useful work, much of which does indeed have impact in a positive way on day-to-day life. IMO and ICAO issue guidelines and conventions governing air cargo/pax safety and IMO is the same for marine. I do not dispute the evil ways of much of the UN including the GA, but it is simplistic to therefore imply that any and all international collaboration is of no value.
24
Adellad. Do you believe in the Ridd summary of the state of the GBR? Or the UN’s? The activists prefer the UN’s and always threaten to declare the GBR an endangered world heritage item. Do you agree with the UN’s advice that Australia is the biggest net producer of CO2 per capita in the world? Australia is a net absorber of CO2 due to its size, its small population relative to size, its huge expanses of forests, trees, grasses (and weeds) and its surrounding oceans on the continental shelf.
‘ it is simplistic to therefore imply that any and all international collaboration is of no value.’ That wasn’t implied. Other forums for talkfests can easily be constructed for the useful sections. The UN was a useful construct for its time, after WW2. Its interests were reconstruction of nations after the war, become a world forum aimed at preventing future wars, and assist developing nations in food, health and economics. It has morphed into something more destructive as it seeks to gather international powers to itself. We see the narcisists we are demanded to obey on our TV screens every DOHA round and in between.
Power is always the aphrodisiac of political types. The UN has become an outright political body. It is a series of international political, commom interest blocks. Our politicians take its demands and incorporate them into legislation without full public debate. They use the foreign affairs powers to sign on to binding UN agreements and quickly pass them into law by the political parties acting in unison in the Parliament. The people have little say.
This is the achilles heel for the nation when it comes to the transference of national power to the UN. This is what awaits us by May’24 when the UN tries to take control of how nations react to what the UN determines to be an international emergency. Its scope is wide.
20
The UPU is an optional organisation and is not involved in price-setting (which would be illegal).
Shipping large quantities of goods to set destinations is highly efficient. It is the ‘extra mile’ where much of the cost lies.
There is a good discussion on terminal dues on Wikipedia, where countries like the US and Australia import more goods through the mail than they receive are disadvantaged but the charging mechanisms have now changed.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Universal_Postal_Union
22
Freight rates would rarely be the same in both directions. Demand for capacity would rarely be the same. Empty containers can offer cheap freight. My imagination of the toilet paper fiasco was that It was probably going to China with the benefit of cheap freight on that route.
10
How are the fees paid to the UPU decided, asking for a friend.
00
The answer to that could be “with a phone call”.
Trading in other countries is done differently to Australia. Chinese traders may have avenues that are not strangled by regulations.
00
Ons and offs, with positive balances paid or the negative balances invoiced to the UPU member.
00
Welcome Alice to yet another rabbit hole in your quest to “follow the money”. Don’t fret at the thought of “oh no another rabbit hole” as a large part of this one is exactly the same as all those other ones ie same globalist money management cooperative development program that have the UN at their core – but for all intense and purposes are stand alone noble “independent” organisations with their sole aim being the betterment of all the world – IMF, UPU, ITU/CCITT.
Yes the UPU is interesting but the real meat and potatoes are found in the International Monetary Fund (IMF) kitchen. Their dish of every day, the SDR (Special Drawing Rights), “is an interest-bearing international reserve asset created by the IMF in 1969 to supplement other reserve assets of member countries.”
The use of SDRs in telecommunications followed the principle that developed countries – like New Zealand – who sent more telegraphic messages to the Pacific Islands than the islands sent back therefore used island facilities more than they used ours so we paid for the privilege by granting SDRs to them. The imbalance of communications traffic was actually due to the fact that so many Pacific Islanders had moved to NZ to work in the meat works (cheap labour source) and were sending their pay packets back home as international money orders was beside the point. NZ had the obligation to “pay the rental” for using their services. Of course NZ was responsible for establishing ($$$) and running ($$$) the TOR (telegraph over radio) installations while training up the locals but that was overseas aid and didn’t matter.
Anyway this SDR fact sheet makes interesting reading and quantifies the $$$amounts from its humble beginnings of a low SDR9.3b in 1970-72 through to the 2023 allocation of SDR456.5B (US650B) on August 23 2021.
40
On Australia exiting the UN, this looks like a good start;
The following seven countries have suspended their funding of the UNRWA based on Israeli claims that 12 of the agency’s 30,000 employees took part in the Hamas attacks.
USA, Australia, UK, Canada, Finland, Italy and Netherlands.
Whadya know… all white democracies, and not a word from the third world or any muslim nation.
120
Jo, this is just another I tried my best on, but I could not raise any support from other MP’s and bureaucrats ran me around in circles trying to get specifics from them. 😔
https://www.afr.com/politics/conservatives-urge-government-to-review-australian-participation-in-un-bodies-20181121-h185bz
Regards,
Craig Kelly
Former Member for Hughes
171
That would be right.
It is up to us as individuals with sites such as joannenova to keep up the pressure, keep this issue alive, it is important. MPs and bureaucrats will listen when there is a critical volume.
10
From CBC
Why it’s so much cheaper to ship stuff from China than within Canada
00
1874!!!! That’s only a decade after the US Civil war! How much has changed since then? Everything! No planes in 1874.
00
A fair article. The question is, do Jo and others really want to revert back to 1874 with unappealable surcharges every time your mail crosses a country’s border?
To really get into the 19th Century vibe, maybe mail should only be transported by coal-fired locomotive and steamship.
01
Didn’t the Donald threaten to boot them from the UN building on the East River and turn it into something else, low priced housing or such.
Can’t go wrong with that thinking.
Someone asked the UN peacekeeping force why they weren’t doing something about some war in East Africa, their reply was ‘there is no peace to keep’
90
This issue wouldn’t matter is we hadn’t fallen in love with internet shopping and cheap stuff in our retail stores . As pointed out above a lot of what we have been buying shouldn’t be at the prices we have paid for them . It has killed local manufacturing as they cannot compete . Energy costs have crippled our industry and corporations have gone where the cheap energy (and wages) are . Super funds (and hedge funds) are chasing big returns and they rely on increasing profits provided by this process . With governments creating money (deficits) its all feeding into a perfect storm . The UN is owned .
10
And vendors in Australia are also competing with Amazon USA….
while Amazon does use the Australian Postal system (at bulk rates I suspect) they do seem to have their own planes coming from the USA on a regular basis at costs less than what would be charged for overseas US postal system rates.
And they seem to “consolidate” some things….
00
The benefit of competition.
Productivity gain. Efficiency gain.
Cutting out the middleman.
Consumer benefits with cheaper goods; means the consumer has more money in his pocket.
Sounds good to me.
10