But if you look even just a little bit under the facade you see the global system crumbling. Hong Kong is revolting from China. Argentina is joining Venezuela into the downward spiral. The middle east is shaky and everyone here in the US is pissed off at everyone else. Our politicians have dropped any semblance of statesmanship or inter-party cooperation. It's turned into a vicious political knife fight and, soon enough, actual fisticuffs on the congressional floor.
But back to China for a second. Today I got an email from ebay which contained this link to an explanation of the Universal Postal Union. While I never heard of this before, apparently its like a global post office and has been for some time now. Well, in the face of collapsing globalism, the US is now threatening to pull out of the UPU.
This body was set up almost 150 years ago to help postal operators all around the world communicate and operate with each other. Another thing the UPU does is set the rates that countries charge each other for mail delivery. For a long time, the UPU rate system worked well, but recently it has become more and more unfair for certain mail users. For example, in some cases, someone sending a package from another country to the US may pay less than it costs to ship the same package WITHIN the US.
As a result of this unfair rate system, the US government announced that it is going to withdraw from the UPU. If the US moves forward with this withdrawal plan, it could mean big trouble for anyone who sends or receives mail or packages internationally. Luckily, there is a chance for the UPU to reform its rates before the US withdraws. The US government is currently pushing rate reform to encourage the UPU to change the current system. If that works, the US would likely remain in the UPU, and rates would be set more fairly.
Well well well. Who can we be talking about here as the low rate offender? Hmm. Let's see. Could it be.... CHINA? Oh Hell yes it's China. I have commented MANY times on how China will deliver stuff for almost free. If people had to pay the actual shipping rate for shit from China to the US, prices of small items would double. But the USPS doesn't get a free pass here and so they look like the bad guys, overcharging for shipping. How does China do it? Well all you have to do is watch the video interview I posted here of exiled Chinese billionaire Miles Kwok. He says that China has created a fake economy by printing up more than 30 trillion USD worth of Yuan and are spending it on creating the appearance of a strong Chinese "miracle" economy. What the Chinese are doing is using sneaky debt to drive publicly visible growth. It's a scam. And that scam is almost over. And when it collapses, miracle growth will turn into fugly, nasty collapse.
It's too bad for the American consumer because getting all this high quality free shit from China was a real blessing for the past couple decades but time's almost up for that. When Americans have to pay the actual postage for stuff from China, a huge collapse will happen to China's dollar based cash flow. I'll say it again. China was paying the postage in printed Yuan making it almost free for us (and in many times actually free) to ship a $10-$30 purchase from China to the US. Shipping for the item should rightfully have cost $10 or $15 even for a small item. But China hid the cost. The Ebay link says "luckily" there is still time for this offending player to charge fair rates for shipping, but to volunteer to do so would collapse China so China will not volunteer. As a result, the US will continue with more protectionism and pull out of the UPU.
Expect everything made in China to get a good deal more expensive once that happens. If you need to buy shit from China, do it now while prices are still good.
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