Buying and Selling

On 2017-09-27 11:37, jbeattie wrote:
On Wednesday, September 27, 2017 at 7:18:35 AM UTC-7, Joerg wrote:
On 2017-09-26 19:39, John B. wrote:
On Tue, 26 Sep 2017 07:26:12 -0700, Joerg
wrote:

On 2017-09-25 19:23, John B. wrote:
On Mon, 25 Sep 2017 07:06:25 -0700, Joerg
wrote:

On 2017-09-24 17:01, John B. wrote:
On Sun, 24 Sep 2017 07:34:50 -0700, Joerg
wrote:

On 2017-09-23 20:52, John B. wrote:
On Sat, 23 Sep 2017 08:15:14 -0700, Joerg
wrote:

On 2017-09-22 19:03, John B. wrote:
On Fri, 22 Sep 2017 12:36:31 -0700, Joerg
wrote:

On 2017-09-19 19:44, sms wrote:
On 9/19/2017 6:52 PM, somebody wrote:

On 2017-09-19 07:06,
wrote:

snip

Or the brake pads from China, $2/pair and
free ship. As I have always said the
postage fees are grossly lopsided between
Asia and the US and that is one of the core
reasosn for our trade deficit. Except that
most politicians (except manybe one ...) do
not understand that.

It's an international reciprocal postal
treaty that no one worried about when it was
mainly U.S. residents of Chinese descent
sending packages to relatives in China.


More than a decade ago tyat has changed, big
time. How long does it take for politicians to
turn on their brains? Or for some of them, do
they even have one?


... The origin country gets all the postage
and the destination country gets nothing with
the assumption that the volume will be
roughly equal.

The small volume of direct-to-consumer
low-value items from China is not a core
reason for the trade deficit.


It is rising, big time. I know people who buy
just about anything other than groceries on
EBay. When they say "Oh, it always gets here in
three to five weeks" you know what's going on.
Heck, I even had stuff I bought on Amazon come
via "China Post".


... These items would still come into the
U.S. through other channels, at higher
prices, were it not so cheap to do
international shipping from China, you'd just
have a middleman.


Same reason. The stuff then comes in bulk but
the shipping charges are grossly lower than if
a US vendor sent the same items to Asia. It
isn't just China. For example, when we needed
name tags for our therapy dogs' vests (for
nursing home visits) we ordered them via
Amazon. A small package arrived from Manila,
Philippines. I couldn't believe it considering
that we had paid just a few Dollars. Looked at
the postage, calculated - $0.60. Airmail! It
came from a seamstress who appears to
specialize in cloth name tags. The shipping
cost discrepancy alone puts similar
seamstresses in the US out of business.

Given that the cost of living, and salaries, are
as much as five times cheaper in China than in
the U.S. how is changing the mailing costs going
to effect sales?


The ships and aircraft aren't going to be operable
at five times less.

Certainly ships are noticeably cheaper to operate if
they are NOT U.S. flag vessels. Aircraft? I'm not
sure but I would bet that crew costs are noticeably
cheaper and almost certainly maintenance costs are
cheaper and I would guess if a national carrier in
China that fuel costs are also cheaper.


Nope. They pretty much pay international (for example
Singapore) prices:

http://www.edisoninvestmentresearch....ID=18116&LANG=



China Post flies Boeing and I can hardly imagine that they get spare
parts and service a whole lot cheaper than anyone else
whose fleet consist of Boeing aircraft.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/China_Postal_Airlines

You seem to assume that Boeing parts are all that enter
into maintaining an airplane. Wrong. The engines, for
example, can be overhauled and labour, facilities and
equipment are a large part of the cost of the overhaul.
The airframe maintenance is also largely a matter of
facilities, labour and equipment.


Ah yes, and of course Rolls-Royce sells their engine parts
and service to the Chinese at an 80% discount ...

To be honest I don't know how Rolls sells their jet engines
but I do know that the U.S. engine makers sold their engines
to the USAF much cheaper then they sold the same engines to
commercial users.


The Pentagon will get the usual qualtity discount but not
80-90%. With China Post (and many others) versus USPS we are
talking factors of 5:1 to 10:1 here. That difference is not
found in the equipment.

Nope, according to the GE rep the USAF got their engines cheaper
because they did not demand any form of guarantee.


How _much_ cheaper?


But I am sure that you know that jet engines are manufactured
in China? CFN International, a joint venture between GE and
SAFRAN Group. CFM has already delivered 20,000 engines over
four decades, making it the most popular airline jet engine
ever. In fact, a CFM-powered airplane takes off every 2.5
seconds.

Perhaps they aren't using Rolls engines :-)


No, but they aren't selling the engines and the service for
1/10th of the price.



Hey! I was in the business of maintaining airplanes for
my uncle for 20 years and the normal maintenance manpower
for a fleet of airplanes was several hundred people. All
of whom are five times cheaper in China, and the
equipment, tools maintenance stands, buildings, all
cheaper in China.


Your uncle probably didn't fly Boeings or Airbuses
internationally. Those companies require quite strict
procedures or they will call off all bets.

Nope. The companies that make airplanes usually offer a
number of what one might call "standard" versions, for
example number of passenger seats or number of crew
positions. Indonesia for example bought Boeing aircraft with
only two crew positions when other companies were buying
three crew configurations.

And once you buy the thing, test flown and accepted, the
aircraft belongs to you and Boeing or Airbus no longer have
anything to say about it.


The air traffic regulator in the respective countries has a
word to say about that. They usually require maintenance per
the book, per manufacturer's instructions. There is no "Oh,
let's use that aftermarket part here because the original is
too expensive". You don't follow those rules, you lose cert.
Some countries are a bit loose here and then it can happen (and
has) that the FAA prohibits their aircraft from coming into US
air space. Rightfully so.


Nope again. Yes various countries do attempt to control the
quality (for want of a better word) of aircraft flying into their
country but "after market" parts are not forbidden as innumerable
different manufacturers make airplane parts.


Only if approved for type and model. Supplemental Type Certificate
or STC. I know a little about this stuff because I am sometimes
designing electronics for aircraft and while doing that I am a
consultant to third party companies, not to an aircraft
manufacturer (except once) .


What does happen is that all aircraft parts must be approved - I
think that they call it "type approved" for aircraft use - and as
long as that is documented then there is no question that it can
be used.


See?

[...]


When I was in Indonesia we were approached by a group of
Indonesian Airforce people to see if we could improve the
maintenance on their helicopters. We approached the
helicopter makers about parts prices and were referred to
their S.E.A. representative who, in effect, told us to get
lost as they already hade a very nice arrangement to sell
parts to the Indonesian air force at prices much higher then
they were selling to private helicopter companies in the
region.


It does not explain a 5-10x factor between US and Chinese
shipping costs. There is more going on, way deeper than
equipment-related.

Firstly you are saying "shipping costs" which imply moving
substantial amounts of freight, trans-oceanic, by air or sea
which is determined primarily by supply and demand, when what
you are talking about is sending mail, rates for which is
determined by the government of the country in which the mail is
posted.


Mail = shipping. When some buys a bearing for a vehcile front wheel
or whatever in China it must be shipped. They generally use China
Post for that. Which charges a small fractions of the cost to the
shipper as the US Post Office does in the other direction. _That_
is the problem. This was greatly aggravated by the stupid decision
to no longer offer surface mail overseas.


Yes, because China is subsidizing the cost of shipping.


That is what I am suspecting.


... Neither this
president nor this administration is going to subsidize your shipping
overseas. Not with USPS sucking-dry the general fund.


If they are subsidizing then the US is justified in slapping a tariff on
incoming goods via China Post in order to level the playing field. Simple.


And why should I, the American public (I'm putting on my MAGA hat),
pay more taxes to lower the cost of your shipping to China? You
should pay what it costs and pass it on as a business expense. Or, as
in the case of real businesses, you ship via container and pay the
charge.

The easy way of equalizing the imbalance is to apply a tariff to
incoming Chinese goods equal to the difference in shipping costs.


Exactly. And Trump is the first president in years to hint at that.


Hey, maybe I'll give that idea to The Donald the next time I see him
on the golf course. The answer is not making shipping cheap for you
and causing the USPS to swirl further down the deficit drain.


He already knows but fiorst has to deal with a nut case east of China.

--
Regards, Joerg

http://www.analogconsultants.com/

On Thursday, September 28, 2017 at 7:30:44 AM UTC-7, Joerg wrote:
On 2017-09-27 11:37, jbeattie wrote:
On Wednesday, September 27, 2017 at 7:18:35 AM UTC-7, Joerg wrote:
On 2017-09-26 19:39, John B. wrote:
On Tue, 26 Sep 2017 07:26:12 -0700, Joerg
wrote:

On 2017-09-25 19:23, John B. wrote:
On Mon, 25 Sep 2017 07:06:25 -0700, Joerg
wrote:

On 2017-09-24 17:01, John B. wrote:
On Sun, 24 Sep 2017 07:34:50 -0700, Joerg
wrote:

On 2017-09-23 20:52, John B. wrote:
On Sat, 23 Sep 2017 08:15:14 -0700, Joerg
wrote:

On 2017-09-22 19:03, John B. wrote:
On Fri, 22 Sep 2017 12:36:31 -0700, Joerg
wrote:

On 2017-09-19 19:44, sms wrote:
On 9/19/2017 6:52 PM, somebody wrote:

On 2017-09-19 07:06,
wrote:

snip

Or the brake pads from China, $2/pair and
free ship. As I have always said the
postage fees are grossly lopsided between
Asia and the US and that is one of the core
reasosn for our trade deficit. Except that
most politicians (except manybe one ...) do
not understand that.

It's an international reciprocal postal
treaty that no one worried about when it was
mainly U.S. residents of Chinese descent
sending packages to relatives in China.


More than a decade ago tyat has changed, big
time. How long does it take for politicians to
turn on their brains? Or for some of them, do
they even have one?


... The origin country gets all the postage
and the destination country gets nothing with
the assumption that the volume will be
roughly equal.

The small volume of direct-to-consumer
low-value items from China is not a core
reason for the trade deficit.


It is rising, big time. I know people who buy
just about anything other than groceries on
EBay. When they say "Oh, it always gets here in
three to five weeks" you know what's going on.
Heck, I even had stuff I bought on Amazon come
via "China Post".


... These items would still come into the
U.S. through other channels, at higher
prices, were it not so cheap to do
international shipping from China, you'd just
have a middleman.


Same reason. The stuff then comes in bulk but
the shipping charges are grossly lower than if
a US vendor sent the same items to Asia. It
isn't just China. For example, when we needed
name tags for our therapy dogs' vests (for
nursing home visits) we ordered them via
Amazon. A small package arrived from Manila,
Philippines. I couldn't believe it considering
that we had paid just a few Dollars. Looked at
the postage, calculated - $0.60. Airmail! It
came from a seamstress who appears to
specialize in cloth name tags. The shipping
cost discrepancy alone puts similar
seamstresses in the US out of business.

Given that the cost of living, and salaries, are
as much as five times cheaper in China than in
the U.S. how is changing the mailing costs going
to effect sales?


The ships and aircraft aren't going to be operable
at five times less.

Certainly ships are noticeably cheaper to operate if
they are NOT U.S. flag vessels. Aircraft? I'm not
sure but I would bet that crew costs are noticeably
cheaper and almost certainly maintenance costs are
cheaper and I would guess if a national carrier in
China that fuel costs are also cheaper.


Nope. They pretty much pay international (for example
Singapore) prices:

http://www.edisoninvestmentresearch....ID=18116&LANG=



China Post flies Boeing and I can hardly imagine that they get spare
parts and service a whole lot cheaper than anyone else
whose fleet consist of Boeing aircraft.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/China_Postal_Airlines

You seem to assume that Boeing parts are all that enter
into maintaining an airplane. Wrong. The engines, for
example, can be overhauled and labour, facilities and
equipment are a large part of the cost of the overhaul.
The airframe maintenance is also largely a matter of
facilities, labour and equipment.


Ah yes, and of course Rolls-Royce sells their engine parts
and service to the Chinese at an 80% discount ...

To be honest I don't know how Rolls sells their jet engines
but I do know that the U.S. engine makers sold their engines
to the USAF much cheaper then they sold the same engines to
commercial users.


The Pentagon will get the usual qualtity discount but not
80-90%. With China Post (and many others) versus USPS we are
talking factors of 5:1 to 10:1 here. That difference is not
found in the equipment.

Nope, according to the GE rep the USAF got their engines cheaper
because they did not demand any form of guarantee.


How _much_ cheaper?


But I am sure that you know that jet engines are manufactured
in China? CFN International, a joint venture between GE and
SAFRAN Group. CFM has already delivered 20,000 engines over
four decades, making it the most popular airline jet engine
ever. In fact, a CFM-powered airplane takes off every 2.5
seconds.

Perhaps they aren't using Rolls engines :-)


No, but they aren't selling the engines and the service for
1/10th of the price.



Hey! I was in the business of maintaining airplanes for
my uncle for 20 years and the normal maintenance manpower
for a fleet of airplanes was several hundred people. All
of whom are five times cheaper in China, and the
equipment, tools maintenance stands, buildings, all
cheaper in China.


Your uncle probably didn't fly Boeings or Airbuses
internationally. Those companies require quite strict
procedures or they will call off all bets.

Nope. The companies that make airplanes usually offer a
number of what one might call "standard" versions, for
example number of passenger seats or number of crew
positions. Indonesia for example bought Boeing aircraft with
only two crew positions when other companies were buying
three crew configurations.

And once you buy the thing, test flown and accepted, the
aircraft belongs to you and Boeing or Airbus no longer have
anything to say about it.


The air traffic regulator in the respective countries has a
word to say about that. They usually require maintenance per
the book, per manufacturer's instructions. There is no "Oh,
let's use that aftermarket part here because the original is
too expensive". You don't follow those rules, you lose cert.
Some countries are a bit loose here and then it can happen (and
has) that the FAA prohibits their aircraft from coming into US
air space. Rightfully so.


Nope again. Yes various countries do attempt to control the
quality (for want of a better word) of aircraft flying into their
country but "after market" parts are not forbidden as innumerable
different manufacturers make airplane parts.


Only if approved for type and model. Supplemental Type Certificate
or STC. I know a little about this stuff because I am sometimes
designing electronics for aircraft and while doing that I am a
consultant to third party companies, not to an aircraft
manufacturer (except once) .


What does happen is that all aircraft parts must be approved - I
think that they call it "type approved" for aircraft use - and as
long as that is documented then there is no question that it can
be used.


See?

[...]


When I was in Indonesia we were approached by a group of
Indonesian Airforce people to see if we could improve the
maintenance on their helicopters. We approached the
helicopter makers about parts prices and were referred to
their S.E.A. representative who, in effect, told us to get
lost as they already hade a very nice arrangement to sell
parts to the Indonesian air force at prices much higher then
they were selling to private helicopter companies in the
region.


It does not explain a 5-10x factor between US and Chinese
shipping costs. There is more going on, way deeper than
equipment-related.

Firstly you are saying "shipping costs" which imply moving
substantial amounts of freight, trans-oceanic, by air or sea
which is determined primarily by supply and demand, when what
you are talking about is sending mail, rates for which is
determined by the government of the country in which the mail is
posted.


Mail = shipping. When some buys a bearing for a vehcile front wheel
or whatever in China it must be shipped. They generally use China
Post for that. Which charges a small fractions of the cost to the
shipper as the US Post Office does in the other direction. _That_
is the problem. This was greatly aggravated by the stupid decision
to no longer offer surface mail overseas.


Yes, because China is subsidizing the cost of shipping.


That is what I am suspecting.


... Neither this
president nor this administration is going to subsidize your shipping
overseas. Not with USPS sucking-dry the general fund.


If they are subsidizing then the US is justified in slapping a tariff on
incoming goods via China Post in order to level the playing field. Simple..


And why should I, the American public (I'm putting on my MAGA hat),
pay more taxes to lower the cost of your shipping to China? You
should pay what it costs and pass it on as a business expense. Or, as
in the case of real businesses, you ship via container and pay the
charge.

The easy way of equalizing the imbalance is to apply a tariff to
incoming Chinese goods equal to the difference in shipping costs.


Exactly. And Trump is the first president in years to hint at that.


Hey, maybe I'll give that idea to The Donald the next time I see him
on the golf course. The answer is not making shipping cheap for you
and causing the USPS to swirl further down the deficit drain.


He already knows but fiorst has to deal with a nut case east of China.

I don't think he knows much of anything, really. One hopes he has good advisers (this week). Trade and tax policy is extremely complicated and accounts (at least in part) for many of the wars fought by this nation -- even before it was a nation, e.g. Barbary Pirates exacting "tariffs," import duty on tea, etc., etc. You don't tweet those kinds of policies. And if you were a true conservative, you'd be saying "why is the government running a postal service anyway? Shouldn't that be private market?" Then if you were a true free-marketer, you would ****-can all duties, tariffs and other impediments to trade. If that meant you, as some tiny manufacturer, lost overseas business or went out of business, then so be it. It's a mountain-lion-eat-mountain-lion world out there. It is not a fair place, and it never has been.

On 2017-09-28 08:25, jbeattie wrote:
On Thursday, September 28, 2017 at 7:30:44 AM UTC-7, Joerg wrote:
On 2017-09-27 11:37, jbeattie wrote:
On Wednesday, September 27, 2017 at 7:18:35 AM UTC-7, Joerg
wrote:
On 2017-09-26 19:39, John B. wrote:
On Tue, 26 Sep 2017 07:26:12 -0700, Joerg
wrote:

On 2017-09-25 19:23, John B. wrote:
On Mon, 25 Sep 2017 07:06:25 -0700, Joerg
wrote:

On 2017-09-24 17:01, John B. wrote:
On Sun, 24 Sep 2017 07:34:50 -0700, Joerg
wrote:

On 2017-09-23 20:52, John B. wrote:
On Sat, 23 Sep 2017 08:15:14 -0700, Joerg
wrote:

On 2017-09-22 19:03, John B. wrote:
On Fri, 22 Sep 2017 12:36:31 -0700, Joerg
wrote:

On 2017-09-19 19:44, sms wrote:
On 9/19/2017 6:52 PM, somebody wrote:

On 2017-09-19 07:06,
wrote:

snip

Or the brake pads from China, $2/pair
and free ship. As I have always said
the postage fees are grossly lopsided
between Asia and the US and that is one
of the core reasosn for our trade
deficit. Except that most politicians
(except manybe one ...) do not
understand that.

It's an international reciprocal postal
treaty that no one worried about when it
was mainly U.S. residents of Chinese
descent sending packages to relatives in
China.


More than a decade ago tyat has changed,
big time. How long does it take for
politicians to turn on their brains? Or for
some of them, do they even have one?


... The origin country gets all the
postage and the destination country gets
nothing with the assumption that the
volume will be roughly equal.

The small volume of direct-to-consumer
low-value items from China is not a core
reason for the trade deficit.


It is rising, big time. I know people who
buy just about anything other than
groceries on EBay. When they say "Oh, it
always gets here in three to five weeks"
you know what's going on. Heck, I even had
stuff I bought on Amazon come via "China
Post".


... These items would still come into
the U.S. through other channels, at
higher prices, were it not so cheap to
do international shipping from China,
you'd just have a middleman.


Same reason. The stuff then comes in bulk
but the shipping charges are grossly lower
than if a US vendor sent the same items to
Asia. It isn't just China. For example,
when we needed name tags for our therapy
dogs' vests (for nursing home visits) we
ordered them via Amazon. A small package
arrived from Manila, Philippines. I
couldn't believe it considering that we had
paid just a few Dollars. Looked at the
postage, calculated - $0.60. Airmail! It
came from a seamstress who appears to
specialize in cloth name tags. The
shipping cost discrepancy alone puts
similar seamstresses in the US out of
business.

Given that the cost of living, and salaries,
are as much as five times cheaper in China
than in the U.S. how is changing the mailing
costs going to effect sales?


The ships and aircraft aren't going to be
operable at five times less.

Certainly ships are noticeably cheaper to operate
if they are NOT U.S. flag vessels. Aircraft? I'm
not sure but I would bet that crew costs are
noticeably cheaper and almost certainly
maintenance costs are cheaper and I would guess
if a national carrier in China that fuel costs
are also cheaper.


Nope. They pretty much pay international (for
example Singapore) prices:

http://www.edisoninvestmentresearch....ID=18116&LANG=





China Post flies Boeing and I can hardly imagine that they get spare
parts and service a whole lot cheaper than anyone
else whose fleet consist of Boeing aircraft.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/China_Postal_Airlines



You seem to assume that Boeing parts are all that enter
into maintaining an airplane. Wrong. The engines,
for example, can be overhauled and labour, facilities
and equipment are a large part of the cost of the
overhaul. The airframe maintenance is also largely a
matter of facilities, labour and equipment.


Ah yes, and of course Rolls-Royce sells their engine
parts and service to the Chinese at an 80% discount
...

To be honest I don't know how Rolls sells their jet
engines but I do know that the U.S. engine makers sold
their engines to the USAF much cheaper then they sold the
same engines to commercial users.


The Pentagon will get the usual qualtity discount but not
80-90%. With China Post (and many others) versus USPS we
are talking factors of 5:1 to 10:1 here. That difference is
not found in the equipment.

Nope, according to the GE rep the USAF got their engines
cheaper because they did not demand any form of guarantee.


How _much_ cheaper?


But I am sure that you know that jet engines are
manufactured in China? CFN International, a joint venture
between GE and SAFRAN Group. CFM has already delivered
20,000 engines over four decades, making it the most
popular airline jet engine ever. In fact, a CFM-powered
airplane takes off every 2.5 seconds.

Perhaps they aren't using Rolls engines :-)


No, but they aren't selling the engines and the service
for 1/10th of the price.



Hey! I was in the business of maintaining airplanes
for my uncle for 20 years and the normal maintenance
manpower for a fleet of airplanes was several hundred
people. All of whom are five times cheaper in China,
and the equipment, tools maintenance stands,
buildings, all cheaper in China.


Your uncle probably didn't fly Boeings or Airbuses
internationally. Those companies require quite strict
procedures or they will call off all bets.

Nope. The companies that make airplanes usually offer a
number of what one might call "standard" versions, for
example number of passenger seats or number of crew
positions. Indonesia for example bought Boeing aircraft
with only two crew positions when other companies were
buying three crew configurations.

And once you buy the thing, test flown and accepted, the
aircraft belongs to you and Boeing or Airbus no longer
have anything to say about it.


The air traffic regulator in the respective countries has
a word to say about that. They usually require maintenance
per the book, per manufacturer's instructions. There is no
"Oh, let's use that aftermarket part here because the
original is too expensive". You don't follow those rules,
you lose cert. Some countries are a bit loose here and then
it can happen (and has) that the FAA prohibits their
aircraft from coming into US air space. Rightfully so.


Nope again. Yes various countries do attempt to control the
quality (for want of a better word) of aircraft flying into
their country but "after market" parts are not forbidden as
innumerable different manufacturers make airplane parts.


Only if approved for type and model. Supplemental Type
Certificate or STC. I know a little about this stuff because I
am sometimes designing electronics for aircraft and while doing
that I am a consultant to third party companies, not to an
aircraft manufacturer (except once) .


What does happen is that all aircraft parts must be approved
- I think that they call it "type approved" for aircraft use
- and as long as that is documented then there is no question
that it can be used.


See?

[...]


When I was in Indonesia we were approached by a group of
Indonesian Airforce people to see if we could improve
the maintenance on their helicopters. We approached the
helicopter makers about parts prices and were referred
to their S.E.A. representative who, in effect, told us to
get lost as they already hade a very nice arrangement to
sell parts to the Indonesian air force at prices much
higher then they were selling to private helicopter
companies in the region.


It does not explain a 5-10x factor between US and
Chinese shipping costs. There is more going on, way
deeper than equipment-related.

Firstly you are saying "shipping costs" which imply moving
substantial amounts of freight, trans-oceanic, by air or sea
which is determined primarily by supply and demand, when
what you are talking about is sending mail, rates for which
is determined by the government of the country in which the
mail is posted.


Mail = shipping. When some buys a bearing for a vehcile front
wheel or whatever in China it must be shipped. They generally
use China Post for that. Which charges a small fractions of the
cost to the shipper as the US Post Office does in the other
direction. _That_ is the problem. This was greatly aggravated
by the stupid decision to no longer offer surface mail
overseas.


Yes, because China is subsidizing the cost of shipping.


That is what I am suspecting.


... Neither this president nor this administration is going to
subsidize your shipping overseas. Not with USPS sucking-dry the
general fund.


If they are subsidizing then the US is justified in slapping a
tariff on incoming goods via China Post in order to level the
playing field. Simple.


And why should I, the American public (I'm putting on my MAGA
hat), pay more taxes to lower the cost of your shipping to China?
You should pay what it costs and pass it on as a business
expense. Or, as in the case of real businesses, you ship via
container and pay the charge.

The easy way of equalizing the imbalance is to apply a tariff to
incoming Chinese goods equal to the difference in shipping
costs.


Exactly. And Trump is the first president in years to hint at
that.


Hey, maybe I'll give that idea to The Donald the next time I see
him on the golf course. The answer is not making shipping cheap
for you and causing the USPS to swirl further down the deficit
drain.


He already knows but fiorst has to deal with a nut case east of
China.

I don't think he knows much of anything, really. One hopes he has
good advisers (this week). Trade and tax policy is extremely
complicated and accounts (at least in part) for many of the wars
fought by this nation -- even before it was a nation, e.g. Barbary
Pirates exacting "tariffs," import duty on tea, etc., etc. You don't
tweet those kinds of policies. And if you were a true conservative,
you'd be saying "why is the government running a postal service
anyway? Shouldn't that be private market?" Then if you were a true
free-marketer, you would ****-can all duties, tariffs and other
impediments to trade. If that meant you, as some tiny manufacturer,
lost overseas business or went out of business, then so be it. It's
a mountain-lion-eat-mountain-lion world out there. It is not a fair
place, and it never has been.


That would mean your career ends as well. Because with a "level playing
field" the guy in Bangladesh makes about the same income as the guy in
Oregon, meaning they can't afford a 3-digit hourly rate even for a few
minutes. Legal matters would not be handled in court anymore by in
fisticuffs or with a six-shooter, like they used to be in the Wild West.

--
Regards, Joerg

http://www.analogconsultants.com/

On 2017-09-27 08:34, wrote:
On Tuesday, September 26, 2017 at 6:58:54 PM UTC-7, John B. wrote:
On Tue, 26 Sep 2017 06:36:12 -0700 (PDT),
wrote:

On Monday, September 25, 2017 at 7:53:43 PM UTC-7, John B.
wrote:
On Mon, 25 Sep 2017 15:50:54 -0500, AMuzi
wrote:

On 9/25/2017 2:42 PM, Joerg wrote:
On 2017-09-25 08:03, AMuzi wrote:
On 9/25/2017 9:06 AM, Joerg wrote:
On 2017-09-24 17:01, John B. wrote:
24 Sep Joerg wrote:
On 2017-09-23 20:52, John B. wrote:
23 Sep Joerg wrote:
On 2017-09-22 19:03, John B. wrote:
22 Sep Joerg
wrote:
On 2017-09-19 19:44, sms wrote:
On 9/19/2017 6:52 PM, somebody wrote:
On 2017-09-19 07:06,
wrote:

snip

-snip snip-

Hey! I was in the business of maintaining airplanes
for my uncle for 20 years and the normal maintenance
manpower for a fleet of airplanes was several hundred
people. All of whom are five times cheaper in China,
and the equipment, tools maintenance stands,
buildings, all cheaper in China.


Your uncle probably didn't fly Boeings or Airbuses
internationally. Those companies require quite strict
procedures or they will call off all bets.

-more snip-

USAF, Navy, Marines & SAC fly LOTS of miles/hours. (no
Airbus hardware!)


Which of them has their aircraft serviced by a low cost
shop in China or elsewhere?


Mr Slocumb might elaborate but I bet no facility staffed by
Uncle Sam's enlisted military, anywhere, is 'low cost'.

Having observed some of the civilian "feather merchants" that
inhabit the military system I suggest that perhaps,
disregarding the physical installation, the Military might be
the lower cost :-)

But in a more sober vein the Military works on a budget system.
the Defense Department allocates so much money to a Unit for,
say aircraft fuel, and the Unit is then tasked with using all
that fuel, as the byword in any government agency is "Never,
Never under spend your budget!"

The theory being that if you don't use all the money this year
you will get less next year.

First you give us the interesting theory that the Air Force
doesn't do preventative maintenance (if it ain't broke don't fix
it) followed by hundreds of Chinese "overhauling" F4's. I must
say that at least your ideas are novel.

Quite the contrary. The Air force did come up with a program which
THEY referred to as "if it isn't broke don't fix it" which referred
to the "time change" items, mostly engine components, that were
changed on an hours of use basis rather than on a does it work
basis. The result was both an increase in the hours flown/hours
maintenance ratio as well as a reduction in the time required for
the various scheduled inspection times.

The "overhaul" facility I mentioned in Taiwan, effectively took an
F-4 apart and rebuilt it completely. Even the hydraulic hoses and
tubing were replaced.

I don't know what Air Force you were in but in mine all mission
critical items were replaced on schedules. Maybe you were talking
about the food in the mess halls?


Or maybe it's the "Alternative Air Force" :-)

ducking now

--
SCNR, Joerg

http://www.analogconsultants.com/

On Thursday, September 28, 2017 at 8:25:06 AM UTC-7, jbeattie wrote:
On Thursday, September 28, 2017 at 7:30:44 AM UTC-7, Joerg wrote:
On 2017-09-27 11:37, jbeattie wrote:
On Wednesday, September 27, 2017 at 7:18:35 AM UTC-7, Joerg wrote:
On 2017-09-26 19:39, John B. wrote:
On Tue, 26 Sep 2017 07:26:12 -0700, Joerg
wrote:

On 2017-09-25 19:23, John B. wrote:
On Mon, 25 Sep 2017 07:06:25 -0700, Joerg
wrote:

On 2017-09-24 17:01, John B. wrote:
On Sun, 24 Sep 2017 07:34:50 -0700, Joerg
wrote:

On 2017-09-23 20:52, John B. wrote:
On Sat, 23 Sep 2017 08:15:14 -0700, Joerg
wrote:

On 2017-09-22 19:03, John B. wrote:
On Fri, 22 Sep 2017 12:36:31 -0700, Joerg
wrote:

On 2017-09-19 19:44, sms wrote:
On 9/19/2017 6:52 PM, somebody wrote:

On 2017-09-19 07:06,
wrote:

snip

Or the brake pads from China, $2/pair and
free ship. As I have always said the
postage fees are grossly lopsided between
Asia and the US and that is one of the core
reasosn for our trade deficit. Except that
most politicians (except manybe one ...) do
not understand that.

It's an international reciprocal postal
treaty that no one worried about when it was
mainly U.S. residents of Chinese descent
sending packages to relatives in China.


More than a decade ago tyat has changed, big
time. How long does it take for politicians to
turn on their brains? Or for some of them, do
they even have one?


... The origin country gets all the postage
and the destination country gets nothing with
the assumption that the volume will be
roughly equal.

The small volume of direct-to-consumer
low-value items from China is not a core
reason for the trade deficit.


It is rising, big time. I know people who buy
just about anything other than groceries on
EBay. When they say "Oh, it always gets here in
three to five weeks" you know what's going on.
Heck, I even had stuff I bought on Amazon come
via "China Post".


... These items would still come into the
U.S. through other channels, at higher
prices, were it not so cheap to do
international shipping from China, you'd just
have a middleman.


Same reason. The stuff then comes in bulk but
the shipping charges are grossly lower than if
a US vendor sent the same items to Asia. It
isn't just China. For example, when we needed
name tags for our therapy dogs' vests (for
nursing home visits) we ordered them via
Amazon. A small package arrived from Manila,
Philippines. I couldn't believe it considering
that we had paid just a few Dollars. Looked at
the postage, calculated - $0.60. Airmail! It
came from a seamstress who appears to
specialize in cloth name tags. The shipping
cost discrepancy alone puts similar
seamstresses in the US out of business.

Given that the cost of living, and salaries, are
as much as five times cheaper in China than in
the U.S. how is changing the mailing costs going
to effect sales?


The ships and aircraft aren't going to be operable
at five times less.

Certainly ships are noticeably cheaper to operate if
they are NOT U.S. flag vessels. Aircraft? I'm not
sure but I would bet that crew costs are noticeably
cheaper and almost certainly maintenance costs are
cheaper and I would guess if a national carrier in
China that fuel costs are also cheaper.


Nope. They pretty much pay international (for example
Singapore) prices:

http://www.edisoninvestmentresearch....ID=18116&LANG=



China Post flies Boeing and I can hardly imagine that they get spare
parts and service a whole lot cheaper than anyone else
whose fleet consist of Boeing aircraft.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/China_Postal_Airlines

You seem to assume that Boeing parts are all that enter
into maintaining an airplane. Wrong. The engines, for
example, can be overhauled and labour, facilities and
equipment are a large part of the cost of the overhaul.
The airframe maintenance is also largely a matter of
facilities, labour and equipment.


Ah yes, and of course Rolls-Royce sells their engine parts
and service to the Chinese at an 80% discount ...

To be honest I don't know how Rolls sells their jet engines
but I do know that the U.S. engine makers sold their engines
to the USAF much cheaper then they sold the same engines to
commercial users.


The Pentagon will get the usual qualtity discount but not
80-90%. With China Post (and many others) versus USPS we are
talking factors of 5:1 to 10:1 here. That difference is not
found in the equipment.

Nope, according to the GE rep the USAF got their engines cheaper
because they did not demand any form of guarantee.


How _much_ cheaper?


But I am sure that you know that jet engines are manufactured
in China? CFN International, a joint venture between GE and
SAFRAN Group. CFM has already delivered 20,000 engines over
four decades, making it the most popular airline jet engine
ever. In fact, a CFM-powered airplane takes off every 2.5
seconds.

Perhaps they aren't using Rolls engines :-)


No, but they aren't selling the engines and the service for
1/10th of the price.



Hey! I was in the business of maintaining airplanes for
my uncle for 20 years and the normal maintenance manpower
for a fleet of airplanes was several hundred people. All
of whom are five times cheaper in China, and the
equipment, tools maintenance stands, buildings, all
cheaper in China.


Your uncle probably didn't fly Boeings or Airbuses
internationally. Those companies require quite strict
procedures or they will call off all bets.

Nope. The companies that make airplanes usually offer a
number of what one might call "standard" versions, for
example number of passenger seats or number of crew
positions. Indonesia for example bought Boeing aircraft with
only two crew positions when other companies were buying
three crew configurations.

And once you buy the thing, test flown and accepted, the
aircraft belongs to you and Boeing or Airbus no longer have
anything to say about it.


The air traffic regulator in the respective countries has a
word to say about that. They usually require maintenance per
the book, per manufacturer's instructions. There is no "Oh,
let's use that aftermarket part here because the original is
too expensive". You don't follow those rules, you lose cert.
Some countries are a bit loose here and then it can happen (and
has) that the FAA prohibits their aircraft from coming into US
air space. Rightfully so.


Nope again. Yes various countries do attempt to control the
quality (for want of a better word) of aircraft flying into their
country but "after market" parts are not forbidden as innumerable
different manufacturers make airplane parts.


Only if approved for type and model. Supplemental Type Certificate
or STC. I know a little about this stuff because I am sometimes
designing electronics for aircraft and while doing that I am a
consultant to third party companies, not to an aircraft
manufacturer (except once) .


What does happen is that all aircraft parts must be approved - I
think that they call it "type approved" for aircraft use - and as
long as that is documented then there is no question that it can
be used.


See?

[...]


When I was in Indonesia we were approached by a group of
Indonesian Airforce people to see if we could improve the
maintenance on their helicopters. We approached the
helicopter makers about parts prices and were referred to
their S.E.A. representative who, in effect, told us to get
lost as they already hade a very nice arrangement to sell
parts to the Indonesian air force at prices much higher then
they were selling to private helicopter companies in the
region.


It does not explain a 5-10x factor between US and Chinese
shipping costs. There is more going on, way deeper than
equipment-related.

Firstly you are saying "shipping costs" which imply moving
substantial amounts of freight, trans-oceanic, by air or sea
which is determined primarily by supply and demand, when what
you are talking about is sending mail, rates for which is
determined by the government of the country in which the mail is
posted.


Mail = shipping. When some buys a bearing for a vehcile front wheel
or whatever in China it must be shipped. They generally use China
Post for that. Which charges a small fractions of the cost to the
shipper as the US Post Office does in the other direction. _That_
is the problem. This was greatly aggravated by the stupid decision
to no longer offer surface mail overseas.


Yes, because China is subsidizing the cost of shipping.


That is what I am suspecting.


... Neither this
president nor this administration is going to subsidize your shipping
overseas. Not with USPS sucking-dry the general fund.


If they are subsidizing then the US is justified in slapping a tariff on
incoming goods via China Post in order to level the playing field. Simple.


And why should I, the American public (I'm putting on my MAGA hat),
pay more taxes to lower the cost of your shipping to China? You
should pay what it costs and pass it on as a business expense. Or, as
in the case of real businesses, you ship via container and pay the
charge.

The easy way of equalizing the imbalance is to apply a tariff to
incoming Chinese goods equal to the difference in shipping costs.


Exactly. And Trump is the first president in years to hint at that.


Hey, maybe I'll give that idea to The Donald the next time I see him
on the golf course. The answer is not making shipping cheap for you
and causing the USPS to swirl further down the deficit drain.


He already knows but fiorst has to deal with a nut case east of China.

I don't think he knows much of anything, really. One hopes he has good advisers (this week). Trade and tax policy is extremely complicated and accounts (at least in part) for many of the wars fought by this nation -- even before it was a nation, e.g. Barbary Pirates exacting "tariffs," import duty on tea, etc., etc. You don't tweet those kinds of policies. And if you were a true conservative, you'd be saying "why is the government running a postal service anyway? Shouldn't that be private market?" Then if you were a true free-marketer, you would ****-can all duties, tariffs and other impediments to trade. If that meant you, as some tiny manufacturer, lost overseas business or went out of business, then so be it. It's a mountain-lion-eat-mountain-lion world out there. It is not a fair place, and it never has been.

Jay, really, what do you know about trade and tax policies? That is hardly your specialty I would warrant.

Something you might be a great deal more educated about - exactly what is the limit in small claims court in California, Alameda County? It looks like the insurance company for that woman who ran into and totaled my parked car is simply planning on doing nothing at all.

On 2017-09-28 13:58, wrote:
On Thursday, September 28, 2017 at 8:25:06 AM UTC-7, jbeattie wrote:
On Thursday, September 28, 2017 at 7:30:44 AM UTC-7, Joerg wrote:
On 2017-09-27 11:37, jbeattie wrote:
On Wednesday, September 27, 2017 at 7:18:35 AM UTC-7, Joerg
wrote:
On 2017-09-26 19:39, John B. wrote:
On Tue, 26 Sep 2017 07:26:12 -0700, Joerg
wrote:

On 2017-09-25 19:23, John B. wrote:
On Mon, 25 Sep 2017 07:06:25 -0700, Joerg
wrote:

On 2017-09-24 17:01, John B. wrote:
On Sun, 24 Sep 2017 07:34:50 -0700, Joerg
wrote:

On 2017-09-23 20:52, John B. wrote:
On Sat, 23 Sep 2017 08:15:14 -0700, Joerg
wrote:

On 2017-09-22 19:03, John B. wrote:
On Fri, 22 Sep 2017 12:36:31 -0700, Joerg
wrote:

On 2017-09-19 19:44, sms wrote:
On 9/19/2017 6:52 PM, somebody wrote:

On 2017-09-19 07:06,
wrote:

snip

Or the brake pads from China, $2/pair
and free ship. As I have always said
the postage fees are grossly lopsided
between Asia and the US and that is
one of the core reasosn for our trade
deficit. Except that most politicians
(except manybe one ...) do not
understand that.

It's an international reciprocal
postal treaty that no one worried about
when it was mainly U.S. residents of
Chinese descent sending packages to
relatives in China.


More than a decade ago tyat has changed,
big time. How long does it take for
politicians to turn on their brains? Or
for some of them, do they even have one?


... The origin country gets all the
postage and the destination country
gets nothing with the assumption that
the volume will be roughly equal.

The small volume of direct-to-consumer
low-value items from China is not a
core reason for the trade deficit.


It is rising, big time. I know people who
buy just about anything other than
groceries on EBay. When they say "Oh, it
always gets here in three to five weeks"
you know what's going on. Heck, I even
had stuff I bought on Amazon come via
"China Post".


... These items would still come into
the U.S. through other channels, at
higher prices, were it not so cheap to
do international shipping from China,
you'd just have a middleman.


Same reason. The stuff then comes in bulk
but the shipping charges are grossly
lower than if a US vendor sent the same
items to Asia. It isn't just China. For
example, when we needed name tags for our
therapy dogs' vests (for nursing home
visits) we ordered them via Amazon. A
small package arrived from Manila,
Philippines. I couldn't believe it
considering that we had paid just a few
Dollars. Looked at the postage,
calculated - $0.60. Airmail! It came
from a seamstress who appears to
specialize in cloth name tags. The
shipping cost discrepancy alone puts
similar seamstresses in the US out of
business.

Given that the cost of living, and
salaries, are as much as five times cheaper
in China than in the U.S. how is changing
the mailing costs going to effect sales?


The ships and aircraft aren't going to be
operable at five times less.

Certainly ships are noticeably cheaper to
operate if they are NOT U.S. flag vessels.
Aircraft? I'm not sure but I would bet that
crew costs are noticeably cheaper and almost
certainly maintenance costs are cheaper and I
would guess if a national carrier in China that
fuel costs are also cheaper.


Nope. They pretty much pay international (for
example Singapore) prices:

http://www.edisoninvestmentresearch....ID=18116&LANG=





China Post flies Boeing and I can hardly imagine that they get spare
parts and service a whole lot cheaper than anyone
else whose fleet consist of Boeing aircraft.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/China_Postal_Airlines



You seem to assume that Boeing parts are all that enter
into maintaining an airplane. Wrong. The engines,
for example, can be overhauled and labour,
facilities and equipment are a large part of the
cost of the overhaul. The airframe maintenance is
also largely a matter of facilities, labour and
equipment.


Ah yes, and of course Rolls-Royce sells their engine
parts and service to the Chinese at an 80% discount
...

To be honest I don't know how Rolls sells their jet
engines but I do know that the U.S. engine makers sold
their engines to the USAF much cheaper then they sold
the same engines to commercial users.


The Pentagon will get the usual qualtity discount but
not 80-90%. With China Post (and many others) versus USPS
we are talking factors of 5:1 to 10:1 here. That
difference is not found in the equipment.

Nope, according to the GE rep the USAF got their engines
cheaper because they did not demand any form of guarantee.


How _much_ cheaper?


But I am sure that you know that jet engines are
manufactured in China? CFN International, a joint
venture between GE and SAFRAN Group. CFM has already
delivered 20,000 engines over four decades, making it
the most popular airline jet engine ever. In fact, a
CFM-powered airplane takes off every 2.5 seconds.

Perhaps they aren't using Rolls engines :-)


No, but they aren't selling the engines and the service
for 1/10th of the price.



Hey! I was in the business of maintaining airplanes
for my uncle for 20 years and the normal
maintenance manpower for a fleet of airplanes was
several hundred people. All of whom are five times
cheaper in China, and the equipment, tools
maintenance stands, buildings, all cheaper in
China.


Your uncle probably didn't fly Boeings or Airbuses
internationally. Those companies require quite
strict procedures or they will call off all bets.

Nope. The companies that make airplanes usually offer
a number of what one might call "standard" versions,
for example number of passenger seats or number of
crew positions. Indonesia for example bought Boeing
aircraft with only two crew positions when other
companies were buying three crew configurations.

And once you buy the thing, test flown and accepted,
the aircraft belongs to you and Boeing or Airbus no
longer have anything to say about it.


The air traffic regulator in the respective countries has
a word to say about that. They usually require
maintenance per the book, per manufacturer's
instructions. There is no "Oh, let's use that aftermarket
part here because the original is too expensive". You
don't follow those rules, you lose cert. Some countries
are a bit loose here and then it can happen (and has)
that the FAA prohibits their aircraft from coming into
US air space. Rightfully so.


Nope again. Yes various countries do attempt to control
the quality (for want of a better word) of aircraft flying
into their country but "after market" parts are not
forbidden as innumerable different manufacturers make
airplane parts.


Only if approved for type and model. Supplemental Type
Certificate or STC. I know a little about this stuff because
I am sometimes designing electronics for aircraft and while
doing that I am a consultant to third party companies, not to
an aircraft manufacturer (except once) .


What does happen is that all aircraft parts must be
approved - I think that they call it "type approved" for
aircraft use - and as long as that is documented then there
is no question that it can be used.


See?

[...]


When I was in Indonesia we were approached by a group
of Indonesian Airforce people to see if we could
improve the maintenance on their helicopters. We
approached the helicopter makers about parts prices and
were referred to their S.E.A. representative who, in
effect, told us to get lost as they already hade a very
nice arrangement to sell parts to the Indonesian air
force at prices much higher then they were selling to
private helicopter companies in the region.


It does not explain a 5-10x factor between US and
Chinese shipping costs. There is more going on, way
deeper than equipment-related.

Firstly you are saying "shipping costs" which imply moving
substantial amounts of freight, trans-oceanic, by air or
sea which is determined primarily by supply and demand,
when what you are talking about is sending mail, rates for
which is determined by the government of the country in
which the mail is posted.


Mail = shipping. When some buys a bearing for a vehcile front
wheel or whatever in China it must be shipped. They generally
use China Post for that. Which charges a small fractions of
the cost to the shipper as the US Post Office does in the
other direction. _That_ is the problem. This was greatly
aggravated by the stupid decision to no longer offer surface
mail overseas.


Yes, because China is subsidizing the cost of shipping.


That is what I am suspecting.


... Neither this president nor this administration is going to
subsidize your shipping overseas. Not with USPS sucking-dry the
general fund.


If they are subsidizing then the US is justified in slapping a
tariff on incoming goods via China Post in order to level the
playing field. Simple.


And why should I, the American public (I'm putting on my MAGA
hat), pay more taxes to lower the cost of your shipping to
China? You should pay what it costs and pass it on as a
business expense. Or, as in the case of real businesses, you
ship via container and pay the charge.

The easy way of equalizing the imbalance is to apply a tariff
to incoming Chinese goods equal to the difference in shipping
costs.


Exactly. And Trump is the first president in years to hint at
that.


Hey, maybe I'll give that idea to The Donald the next time I
see him on the golf course. The answer is not making shipping
cheap for you and causing the USPS to swirl further down the
deficit drain.


He already knows but fiorst has to deal with a nut case east of
China.

I don't think he knows much of anything, really. One hopes he has
good advisers (this week). Trade and tax policy is extremely
complicated and accounts (at least in part) for many of the wars
fought by this nation -- even before it was a nation, e.g. Barbary
Pirates exacting "tariffs," import duty on tea, etc., etc. You
don't tweet those kinds of policies. And if you were a true
conservative, you'd be saying "why is the government running a
postal service anyway? Shouldn't that be private market?" Then if
you were a true free-marketer, you would ****-can all duties,
tariffs and other impediments to trade. If that meant you, as some
tiny manufacturer, lost overseas business or went out of business,
then so be it. It's a mountain-lion-eat-mountain-lion world out
there. It is not a fair place, and it never has been.

Jay, really, what do you know about trade and tax policies? That is
hardly your specialty I would warrant.

Something you might be a great deal more educated about - exactly
what is the limit in small claims court in California, Alameda
County? It looks like the insurance company for that woman who ran
into and totaled my parked car is simply planning on doing nothing at
all.


http://www.courts.ca.gov/1062.htm

If you are a AAA member there is also some legal help available.

--
Regards, Joerg

http://www.analogconsultants.com/

On Thursday, September 28, 2017 at 2:08:12 PM UTC-7, Joerg wrote:
On 2017-09-28 13:58, wrote:
On Thursday, September 28, 2017 at 8:25:06 AM UTC-7, jbeattie wrote:
On Thursday, September 28, 2017 at 7:30:44 AM UTC-7, Joerg wrote:
On 2017-09-27 11:37, jbeattie wrote:
On Wednesday, September 27, 2017 at 7:18:35 AM UTC-7, Joerg
wrote:
On 2017-09-26 19:39, John B. wrote:
On Tue, 26 Sep 2017 07:26:12 -0700, Joerg
wrote:

On 2017-09-25 19:23, John B. wrote:
On Mon, 25 Sep 2017 07:06:25 -0700, Joerg
wrote:

On 2017-09-24 17:01, John B. wrote:
On Sun, 24 Sep 2017 07:34:50 -0700, Joerg
wrote:

On 2017-09-23 20:52, John B. wrote:
On Sat, 23 Sep 2017 08:15:14 -0700, Joerg
wrote:

On 2017-09-22 19:03, John B. wrote:
On Fri, 22 Sep 2017 12:36:31 -0700, Joerg
wrote:

On 2017-09-19 19:44, sms wrote:
On 9/19/2017 6:52 PM, somebody wrote:

On 2017-09-19 07:06,
wrote:

snip

Or the brake pads from China, $2/pair
and free ship. As I have always said
the postage fees are grossly lopsided
between Asia and the US and that is
one of the core reasosn for our trade
deficit. Except that most politicians
(except manybe one ...) do not
understand that.

It's an international reciprocal
postal treaty that no one worried about
when it was mainly U.S. residents of
Chinese descent sending packages to
relatives in China.


More than a decade ago tyat has changed,
big time. How long does it take for
politicians to turn on their brains? Or
for some of them, do they even have one?


... The origin country gets all the
postage and the destination country
gets nothing with the assumption that
the volume will be roughly equal.

The small volume of direct-to-consumer
low-value items from China is not a
core reason for the trade deficit.


It is rising, big time. I know people who
buy just about anything other than
groceries on EBay. When they say "Oh, it
always gets here in three to five weeks"
you know what's going on. Heck, I even
had stuff I bought on Amazon come via
"China Post".


... These items would still come into
the U.S. through other channels, at
higher prices, were it not so cheap to
do international shipping from China,
you'd just have a middleman.


Same reason. The stuff then comes in bulk
but the shipping charges are grossly
lower than if a US vendor sent the same
items to Asia. It isn't just China. For
example, when we needed name tags for our
therapy dogs' vests (for nursing home
visits) we ordered them via Amazon. A
small package arrived from Manila,
Philippines. I couldn't believe it
considering that we had paid just a few
Dollars. Looked at the postage,
calculated - $0.60. Airmail! It came
from a seamstress who appears to
specialize in cloth name tags. The
shipping cost discrepancy alone puts
similar seamstresses in the US out of
business.

Given that the cost of living, and
salaries, are as much as five times cheaper
in China than in the U.S. how is changing
the mailing costs going to effect sales?


The ships and aircraft aren't going to be
operable at five times less.

Certainly ships are noticeably cheaper to
operate if they are NOT U.S. flag vessels.
Aircraft? I'm not sure but I would bet that
crew costs are noticeably cheaper and almost
certainly maintenance costs are cheaper and I
would guess if a national carrier in China that
fuel costs are also cheaper.


Nope. They pretty much pay international (for
example Singapore) prices:

http://www.edisoninvestmentresearch....ID=18116&LANG=





China Post flies Boeing and I can hardly imagine that they get spare
parts and service a whole lot cheaper than anyone
else whose fleet consist of Boeing aircraft.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/China_Postal_Airlines



You seem to assume that Boeing parts are all that enter
into maintaining an airplane. Wrong. The engines,
for example, can be overhauled and labour,
facilities and equipment are a large part of the
cost of the overhaul. The airframe maintenance is
also largely a matter of facilities, labour and
equipment.


Ah yes, and of course Rolls-Royce sells their engine
parts and service to the Chinese at an 80% discount
...

To be honest I don't know how Rolls sells their jet
engines but I do know that the U.S. engine makers sold
their engines to the USAF much cheaper then they sold
the same engines to commercial users.


The Pentagon will get the usual qualtity discount but
not 80-90%. With China Post (and many others) versus USPS
we are talking factors of 5:1 to 10:1 here. That
difference is not found in the equipment.

Nope, according to the GE rep the USAF got their engines
cheaper because they did not demand any form of guarantee.


How _much_ cheaper?


But I am sure that you know that jet engines are
manufactured in China? CFN International, a joint
venture between GE and SAFRAN Group. CFM has already
delivered 20,000 engines over four decades, making it
the most popular airline jet engine ever. In fact, a
CFM-powered airplane takes off every 2.5 seconds.

Perhaps they aren't using Rolls engines :-)


No, but they aren't selling the engines and the service
for 1/10th of the price.



Hey! I was in the business of maintaining airplanes
for my uncle for 20 years and the normal
maintenance manpower for a fleet of airplanes was
several hundred people. All of whom are five times
cheaper in China, and the equipment, tools
maintenance stands, buildings, all cheaper in
China.


Your uncle probably didn't fly Boeings or Airbuses
internationally. Those companies require quite
strict procedures or they will call off all bets.

Nope. The companies that make airplanes usually offer
a number of what one might call "standard" versions,
for example number of passenger seats or number of
crew positions. Indonesia for example bought Boeing
aircraft with only two crew positions when other
companies were buying three crew configurations.

And once you buy the thing, test flown and accepted,
the aircraft belongs to you and Boeing or Airbus no
longer have anything to say about it.


The air traffic regulator in the respective countries has
a word to say about that. They usually require
maintenance per the book, per manufacturer's
instructions. There is no "Oh, let's use that aftermarket
part here because the original is too expensive". You
don't follow those rules, you lose cert. Some countries
are a bit loose here and then it can happen (and has)
that the FAA prohibits their aircraft from coming into
US air space. Rightfully so.


Nope again. Yes various countries do attempt to control
the quality (for want of a better word) of aircraft flying
into their country but "after market" parts are not
forbidden as innumerable different manufacturers make
airplane parts.


Only if approved for type and model. Supplemental Type
Certificate or STC. I know a little about this stuff because
I am sometimes designing electronics for aircraft and while
doing that I am a consultant to third party companies, not to
an aircraft manufacturer (except once) .


What does happen is that all aircraft parts must be
approved - I think that they call it "type approved" for
aircraft use - and as long as that is documented then there
is no question that it can be used.


See?

[...]


When I was in Indonesia we were approached by a group
of Indonesian Airforce people to see if we could
improve the maintenance on their helicopters. We
approached the helicopter makers about parts prices and
were referred to their S.E.A. representative who, in
effect, told us to get lost as they already hade a very
nice arrangement to sell parts to the Indonesian air
force at prices much higher then they were selling to
private helicopter companies in the region.


It does not explain a 5-10x factor between US and
Chinese shipping costs. There is more going on, way
deeper than equipment-related.

Firstly you are saying "shipping costs" which imply moving
substantial amounts of freight, trans-oceanic, by air or
sea which is determined primarily by supply and demand,
when what you are talking about is sending mail, rates for
which is determined by the government of the country in
which the mail is posted.


Mail = shipping. When some buys a bearing for a vehcile front
wheel or whatever in China it must be shipped. They generally
use China Post for that. Which charges a small fractions of
the cost to the shipper as the US Post Office does in the
other direction. _That_ is the problem. This was greatly
aggravated by the stupid decision to no longer offer surface
mail overseas.


Yes, because China is subsidizing the cost of shipping.


That is what I am suspecting.


... Neither this president nor this administration is going to
subsidize your shipping overseas. Not with USPS sucking-dry the
general fund.


If they are subsidizing then the US is justified in slapping a
tariff on incoming goods via China Post in order to level the
playing field. Simple.


And why should I, the American public (I'm putting on my MAGA
hat), pay more taxes to lower the cost of your shipping to
China? You should pay what it costs and pass it on as a
business expense. Or, as in the case of real businesses, you
ship via container and pay the charge.

The easy way of equalizing the imbalance is to apply a tariff
to incoming Chinese goods equal to the difference in shipping
costs.


Exactly. And Trump is the first president in years to hint at
that.


Hey, maybe I'll give that idea to The Donald the next time I
see him on the golf course. The answer is not making shipping
cheap for you and causing the USPS to swirl further down the
deficit drain.


He already knows but fiorst has to deal with a nut case east of
China.

I don't think he knows much of anything, really. One hopes he has
good advisers (this week). Trade and tax policy is extremely
complicated and accounts (at least in part) for many of the wars
fought by this nation -- even before it was a nation, e.g. Barbary
Pirates exacting "tariffs," import duty on tea, etc., etc. You
don't tweet those kinds of policies. And if you were a true
conservative, you'd be saying "why is the government running a
postal service anyway? Shouldn't that be private market?" Then if
you were a true free-marketer, you would ****-can all duties,
tariffs and other impediments to trade. If that meant you, as some
tiny manufacturer, lost overseas business or went out of business,
then so be it. It's a mountain-lion-eat-mountain-lion world out
there. It is not a fair place, and it never has been.

Jay, really, what do you know about trade and tax policies? That is
hardly your specialty I would warrant.

Something you might be a great deal more educated about - exactly
what is the limit in small claims court in California, Alameda
County? It looks like the insurance company for that woman who ran
into and totaled my parked car is simply planning on doing nothing at
all.


http://www.courts.ca.gov/1062.htm

If you are a AAA member there is also some legal help available.

I could have sworn I had a triple A card but I can't find it. But it is nice to know that I can sue for not only the car and the missed reservation at a hotel the next day, but that all of my time and bother can be covered as well. It looks like tomorrow I'll have to drop by the police station and get a copy of the police report.

On Thursday, September 28, 2017 at 1:58:41 PM UTC-7, wrote:
On Thursday, September 28, 2017 at 8:25:06 AM UTC-7, jbeattie wrote:
On Thursday, September 28, 2017 at 7:30:44 AM UTC-7, Joerg wrote:
On 2017-09-27 11:37, jbeattie wrote:
On Wednesday, September 27, 2017 at 7:18:35 AM UTC-7, Joerg wrote:
On 2017-09-26 19:39, John B. wrote:
On Tue, 26 Sep 2017 07:26:12 -0700, Joerg
wrote:

On 2017-09-25 19:23, John B. wrote:
On Mon, 25 Sep 2017 07:06:25 -0700, Joerg
wrote:

On 2017-09-24 17:01, John B. wrote:
On Sun, 24 Sep 2017 07:34:50 -0700, Joerg
wrote:

On 2017-09-23 20:52, John B. wrote:
On Sat, 23 Sep 2017 08:15:14 -0700, Joerg
wrote:

On 2017-09-22 19:03, John B. wrote:
On Fri, 22 Sep 2017 12:36:31 -0700, Joerg
wrote:

On 2017-09-19 19:44, sms wrote:
On 9/19/2017 6:52 PM, somebody wrote:

On 2017-09-19 07:06,
wrote:

snip

Or the brake pads from China, $2/pair and
free ship. As I have always said the
postage fees are grossly lopsided between
Asia and the US and that is one of the core
reasosn for our trade deficit. Except that
most politicians (except manybe one ...) do
not understand that.

It's an international reciprocal postal
treaty that no one worried about when it was
mainly U.S. residents of Chinese descent
sending packages to relatives in China.


More than a decade ago tyat has changed, big
time. How long does it take for politicians to
turn on their brains? Or for some of them, do
they even have one?


... The origin country gets all the postage
and the destination country gets nothing with
the assumption that the volume will be
roughly equal.

The small volume of direct-to-consumer
low-value items from China is not a core
reason for the trade deficit.


It is rising, big time. I know people who buy
just about anything other than groceries on
EBay. When they say "Oh, it always gets here in
three to five weeks" you know what's going on.
Heck, I even had stuff I bought on Amazon come
via "China Post".


... These items would still come into the
U.S. through other channels, at higher
prices, were it not so cheap to do
international shipping from China, you'd just
have a middleman.


Same reason. The stuff then comes in bulk but
the shipping charges are grossly lower than if
a US vendor sent the same items to Asia. It
isn't just China. For example, when we needed
name tags for our therapy dogs' vests (for
nursing home visits) we ordered them via
Amazon. A small package arrived from Manila,
Philippines. I couldn't believe it considering
that we had paid just a few Dollars. Looked at
the postage, calculated - $0.60. Airmail! It
came from a seamstress who appears to
specialize in cloth name tags. The shipping
cost discrepancy alone puts similar
seamstresses in the US out of business.

Given that the cost of living, and salaries, are
as much as five times cheaper in China than in
the U.S. how is changing the mailing costs going
to effect sales?


The ships and aircraft aren't going to be operable
at five times less.

Certainly ships are noticeably cheaper to operate if
they are NOT U.S. flag vessels. Aircraft? I'm not
sure but I would bet that crew costs are noticeably
cheaper and almost certainly maintenance costs are
cheaper and I would guess if a national carrier in
China that fuel costs are also cheaper.


Nope. They pretty much pay international (for example
Singapore) prices:

http://www.edisoninvestmentresearch....ID=18116&LANG=



China Post flies Boeing and I can hardly imagine that they get spare
parts and service a whole lot cheaper than anyone else
whose fleet consist of Boeing aircraft.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/China_Postal_Airlines

You seem to assume that Boeing parts are all that enter
into maintaining an airplane. Wrong. The engines, for
example, can be overhauled and labour, facilities and
equipment are a large part of the cost of the overhaul.
The airframe maintenance is also largely a matter of
facilities, labour and equipment.


Ah yes, and of course Rolls-Royce sells their engine parts
and service to the Chinese at an 80% discount ...

To be honest I don't know how Rolls sells their jet engines
but I do know that the U.S. engine makers sold their engines
to the USAF much cheaper then they sold the same engines to
commercial users.


The Pentagon will get the usual qualtity discount but not
80-90%. With China Post (and many others) versus USPS we are
talking factors of 5:1 to 10:1 here. That difference is not
found in the equipment.

Nope, according to the GE rep the USAF got their engines cheaper
because they did not demand any form of guarantee.


How _much_ cheaper?


But I am sure that you know that jet engines are manufactured
in China? CFN International, a joint venture between GE and
SAFRAN Group. CFM has already delivered 20,000 engines over
four decades, making it the most popular airline jet engine
ever. In fact, a CFM-powered airplane takes off every 2.5
seconds.

Perhaps they aren't using Rolls engines :-)


No, but they aren't selling the engines and the service for
1/10th of the price.



Hey! I was in the business of maintaining airplanes for
my uncle for 20 years and the normal maintenance manpower
for a fleet of airplanes was several hundred people. All
of whom are five times cheaper in China, and the
equipment, tools maintenance stands, buildings, all
cheaper in China.


Your uncle probably didn't fly Boeings or Airbuses
internationally. Those companies require quite strict
procedures or they will call off all bets.

Nope. The companies that make airplanes usually offer a
number of what one might call "standard" versions, for
example number of passenger seats or number of crew
positions. Indonesia for example bought Boeing aircraft with
only two crew positions when other companies were buying
three crew configurations.

And once you buy the thing, test flown and accepted, the
aircraft belongs to you and Boeing or Airbus no longer have
anything to say about it.


The air traffic regulator in the respective countries has a
word to say about that. They usually require maintenance per
the book, per manufacturer's instructions. There is no "Oh,
let's use that aftermarket part here because the original is
too expensive". You don't follow those rules, you lose cert.
Some countries are a bit loose here and then it can happen (and
has) that the FAA prohibits their aircraft from coming into US
air space. Rightfully so.


Nope again. Yes various countries do attempt to control the
quality (for want of a better word) of aircraft flying into their
country but "after market" parts are not forbidden as innumerable
different manufacturers make airplane parts.


Only if approved for type and model. Supplemental Type Certificate
or STC. I know a little about this stuff because I am sometimes
designing electronics for aircraft and while doing that I am a
consultant to third party companies, not to an aircraft
manufacturer (except once) .


What does happen is that all aircraft parts must be approved - I
think that they call it "type approved" for aircraft use - and as
long as that is documented then there is no question that it can
be used.


See?

[...]


When I was in Indonesia we were approached by a group of
Indonesian Airforce people to see if we could improve the
maintenance on their helicopters. We approached the
helicopter makers about parts prices and were referred to
their S.E.A. representative who, in effect, told us to get
lost as they already hade a very nice arrangement to sell
parts to the Indonesian air force at prices much higher then
they were selling to private helicopter companies in the
region.


It does not explain a 5-10x factor between US and Chinese
shipping costs. There is more going on, way deeper than
equipment-related.

Firstly you are saying "shipping costs" which imply moving
substantial amounts of freight, trans-oceanic, by air or sea
which is determined primarily by supply and demand, when what
you are talking about is sending mail, rates for which is
determined by the government of the country in which the mail is
posted.


Mail = shipping. When some buys a bearing for a vehcile front wheel
or whatever in China it must be shipped. They generally use China
Post for that. Which charges a small fractions of the cost to the
shipper as the US Post Office does in the other direction. _That_
is the problem. This was greatly aggravated by the stupid decision
to no longer offer surface mail overseas.


Yes, because China is subsidizing the cost of shipping.


That is what I am suspecting.


... Neither this
president nor this administration is going to subsidize your shipping
overseas. Not with USPS sucking-dry the general fund.


If they are subsidizing then the US is justified in slapping a tariff on
incoming goods via China Post in order to level the playing field. Simple.


And why should I, the American public (I'm putting on my MAGA hat),
pay more taxes to lower the cost of your shipping to China? You
should pay what it costs and pass it on as a business expense. Or, as
in the case of real businesses, you ship via container and pay the
charge.

The easy way of equalizing the imbalance is to apply a tariff to
incoming Chinese goods equal to the difference in shipping costs.


Exactly. And Trump is the first president in years to hint at that.


Hey, maybe I'll give that idea to The Donald the next time I see him
on the golf course. The answer is not making shipping cheap for you
and causing the USPS to swirl further down the deficit drain.


He already knows but fiorst has to deal with a nut case east of China..

I don't think he knows much of anything, really. One hopes he has good advisers (this week). Trade and tax policy is extremely complicated and accounts (at least in part) for many of the wars fought by this nation -- even before it was a nation, e.g. Barbary Pirates exacting "tariffs," import duty on tea, etc., etc. You don't tweet those kinds of policies. And if you were a true conservative, you'd be saying "why is the government running a postal service anyway? Shouldn't that be private market?" Then if you were a true free-marketer, you would ****-can all duties, tariffs and other impediments to trade. If that meant you, as some tiny manufacturer, lost overseas business or went out of business, then so be it. It's a mountain-lion-eat-mountain-lion world out there. It is not a fair place, and it never has been.

Jay, really, what do you know about trade and tax policies? That is hardly your specialty I would warrant.

I was the North American expert on the UN Convention on the International Sale of Goods (CISG) for about a day, or maybe or a week -- because of a footnote in one of my cases. http://cisgw3.law.pace.edu/cases/950412u1.html

I get involved in trade and tax policy only incidentally. I have to get involved in the Jones Act and flagging issues, which has gotten into the news lately with the devastation in Puerto Rico, foreign supply of fuel to vessels. Mega Yachts made in Germany. This and that. http://cdn.ca9.uscourts.gov/datastor...9/13-35163.pdf

You wanna talk about the wacky Ninth Circuit, try arguing to former Cheif Judge Kozinski. It's like getting a half-hour prostate exam. That was going to the USSC before we settled. I was proud of the cert petition in that case.

I don't do any real tariff work except that I had to pay a duty for some wheels I bought from Wiggle before DHL would deliver them. What a rip-off! Order from PBK -- they tend to skip the whole duty thing.

I've had to deal with the Foreign Sovereign Immunity Act suing Chinese corporations who are all state owned. Don't expect to get a quick settlement with some Chinese OE supplier or Chinese insurer.

Totally OT, but what I find fascinating about suing the Chinese is that they never speak English at deposition or trial. All testimony is given with great effort through an interpreter -- who always seems to be the wrong interpreter, Cantonese versus Mandarin, etc., etc. Anyway, the second the guy (always a guy) is done, and he's walking out with his attorney, I can hear him speaking English and saying things like "hey, let's go get some hookers."

Something you might be a great deal more educated about - exactly what is the limit in small claims court in California, Alameda County? It looks like the insurance company for that woman who ran into and totaled my parked car is simply planning on doing nothing at all.

That would require work on my part -- and I'm prohibited from practicing law in California. It should be available on the internet. It is! http://www.dca.ca.gov/publications/s...ims/file.shtml

-- Jay Beattie.

On 9/28/2017 5:11 PM, jbeattie wrote:
On Thursday, September 28, 2017 at 1:58:41 PM UTC-7, wrote:
On Thursday, September 28, 2017 at 8:25:06 AM UTC-7, jbeattie wrote:
On Thursday, September 28, 2017 at 7:30:44 AM UTC-7, Joerg wrote:
On 2017-09-27 11:37, jbeattie wrote:
On Wednesday, September 27, 2017 at 7:18:35 AM UTC-7, Joerg wrote:
On 2017-09-26 19:39, John B. wrote:
On Tue, 26 Sep 2017 07:26:12 -0700, Joerg
wrote:

On 2017-09-25 19:23, John B. wrote:
On Mon, 25 Sep 2017 07:06:25 -0700, Joerg
wrote:

On 2017-09-24 17:01, John B. wrote:
On Sun, 24 Sep 2017 07:34:50 -0700, Joerg
wrote:

On 2017-09-23 20:52, John B. wrote:
On Sat, 23 Sep 2017 08:15:14 -0700, Joerg
wrote:

On 2017-09-22 19:03, John B. wrote:
On Fri, 22 Sep 2017 12:36:31 -0700, Joerg
wrote:

On 2017-09-19 19:44, sms wrote:
On 9/19/2017 6:52 PM, somebody wrote:

On 2017-09-19 07:06,
wrote:

snip

Or the brake pads from China, $2/pair and
free ship. As I have always said the
postage fees are grossly lopsided between
Asia and the US and that is one of the core
reasosn for our trade deficit. Except that
most politicians (except manybe one ...) do
not understand that.

It's an international reciprocal postal
treaty that no one worried about when it was
mainly U.S. residents of Chinese descent
sending packages to relatives in China.


More than a decade ago tyat has changed, big
time. How long does it take for politicians to
turn on their brains? Or for some of them, do
they even have one?


... The origin country gets all the postage
and the destination country gets nothing with
the assumption that the volume will be
roughly equal.

The small volume of direct-to-consumer
low-value items from China is not a core
reason for the trade deficit.


It is rising, big time. I know people who buy
just about anything other than groceries on
EBay. When they say "Oh, it always gets here in
three to five weeks" you know what's going on.
Heck, I even had stuff I bought on Amazon come
via "China Post".


... These items would still come into the
U.S. through other channels, at higher
prices, were it not so cheap to do
international shipping from China, you'd just
have a middleman.


Same reason. The stuff then comes in bulk but
the shipping charges are grossly lower than if
a US vendor sent the same items to Asia. It
isn't just China. For example, when we needed
name tags for our therapy dogs' vests (for
nursing home visits) we ordered them via
Amazon. A small package arrived from Manila,
Philippines. I couldn't believe it considering
that we had paid just a few Dollars. Looked at
the postage, calculated - $0.60. Airmail! It
came from a seamstress who appears to
specialize in cloth name tags. The shipping
cost discrepancy alone puts similar
seamstresses in the US out of business.

Given that the cost of living, and salaries, are
as much as five times cheaper in China than in
the U.S. how is changing the mailing costs going
to effect sales?


The ships and aircraft aren't going to be operable
at five times less.

Certainly ships are noticeably cheaper to operate if
they are NOT U.S. flag vessels. Aircraft? I'm not
sure but I would bet that crew costs are noticeably
cheaper and almost certainly maintenance costs are
cheaper and I would guess if a national carrier in
China that fuel costs are also cheaper.


Nope. They pretty much pay international (for example
Singapore) prices:

http://www.edisoninvestmentresearch....ID=18116&LANG=



China Post flies Boeing and I can hardly imagine that they get spare
parts and service a whole lot cheaper than anyone else
whose fleet consist of Boeing aircraft.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/China_Postal_Airlines

You seem to assume that Boeing parts are all that enter
into maintaining an airplane. Wrong. The engines, for
example, can be overhauled and labour, facilities and
equipment are a large part of the cost of the overhaul.
The airframe maintenance is also largely a matter of
facilities, labour and equipment.


Ah yes, and of course Rolls-Royce sells their engine parts
and service to the Chinese at an 80% discount ...

To be honest I don't know how Rolls sells their jet engines
but I do know that the U.S. engine makers sold their engines
to the USAF much cheaper then they sold the same engines to
commercial users.


The Pentagon will get the usual qualtity discount but not
80-90%. With China Post (and many others) versus USPS we are
talking factors of 5:1 to 10:1 here. That difference is not
found in the equipment.

Nope, according to the GE rep the USAF got their engines cheaper
because they did not demand any form of guarantee.


How _much_ cheaper?


But I am sure that you know that jet engines are manufactured
in China? CFN International, a joint venture between GE and
SAFRAN Group. CFM has already delivered 20,000 engines over
four decades, making it the most popular airline jet engine
ever. In fact, a CFM-powered airplane takes off every 2.5
seconds.

Perhaps they aren't using Rolls engines :-)


No, but they aren't selling the engines and the service for
1/10th of the price.



Hey! I was in the business of maintaining airplanes for
my uncle for 20 years and the normal maintenance manpower
for a fleet of airplanes was several hundred people. All
of whom are five times cheaper in China, and the
equipment, tools maintenance stands, buildings, all
cheaper in China.


Your uncle probably didn't fly Boeings or Airbuses
internationally. Those companies require quite strict
procedures or they will call off all bets.

Nope. The companies that make airplanes usually offer a
number of what one might call "standard" versions, for
example number of passenger seats or number of crew
positions. Indonesia for example bought Boeing aircraft with
only two crew positions when other companies were buying
three crew configurations.

And once you buy the thing, test flown and accepted, the
aircraft belongs to you and Boeing or Airbus no longer have
anything to say about it.


The air traffic regulator in the respective countries has a
word to say about that. They usually require maintenance per
the book, per manufacturer's instructions. There is no "Oh,
let's use that aftermarket part here because the original is
too expensive". You don't follow those rules, you lose cert.
Some countries are a bit loose here and then it can happen (and
has) that the FAA prohibits their aircraft from coming into US
air space. Rightfully so.


Nope again. Yes various countries do attempt to control the
quality (for want of a better word) of aircraft flying into their
country but "after market" parts are not forbidden as innumerable
different manufacturers make airplane parts.


Only if approved for type and model. Supplemental Type Certificate
or STC. I know a little about this stuff because I am sometimes
designing electronics for aircraft and while doing that I am a
consultant to third party companies, not to an aircraft
manufacturer (except once) .


What does happen is that all aircraft parts must be approved - I
think that they call it "type approved" for aircraft use - and as
long as that is documented then there is no question that it can
be used.


See?

[...]


When I was in Indonesia we were approached by a group of
Indonesian Airforce people to see if we could improve the
maintenance on their helicopters. We approached the
helicopter makers about parts prices and were referred to
their S.E.A. representative who, in effect, told us to get
lost as they already hade a very nice arrangement to sell
parts to the Indonesian air force at prices much higher then
they were selling to private helicopter companies in the
region.


It does not explain a 5-10x factor between US and Chinese
shipping costs. There is more going on, way deeper than
equipment-related.

Firstly you are saying "shipping costs" which imply moving
substantial amounts of freight, trans-oceanic, by air or sea
which is determined primarily by supply and demand, when what
you are talking about is sending mail, rates for which is
determined by the government of the country in which the mail is
posted.


Mail = shipping. When some buys a bearing for a vehcile front wheel
or whatever in China it must be shipped. They generally use China
Post for that. Which charges a small fractions of the cost to the
shipper as the US Post Office does in the other direction. _That_
is the problem. This was greatly aggravated by the stupid decision
to no longer offer surface mail overseas.


Yes, because China is subsidizing the cost of shipping.


That is what I am suspecting.


... Neither this
president nor this administration is going to subsidize your shipping
overseas. Not with USPS sucking-dry the general fund.


If they are subsidizing then the US is justified in slapping a tariff on
incoming goods via China Post in order to level the playing field. Simple.


And why should I, the American public (I'm putting on my MAGA hat),
pay more taxes to lower the cost of your shipping to China? You
should pay what it costs and pass it on as a business expense. Or, as
in the case of real businesses, you ship via container and pay the
charge.

The easy way of equalizing the imbalance is to apply a tariff to
incoming Chinese goods equal to the difference in shipping costs.


Exactly. And Trump is the first president in years to hint at that.


Hey, maybe I'll give that idea to The Donald the next time I see him
on the golf course. The answer is not making shipping cheap for you
and causing the USPS to swirl further down the deficit drain.


He already knows but fiorst has to deal with a nut case east of China.

I don't think he knows much of anything, really. One hopes he has good advisers (this week). Trade and tax policy is extremely complicated and accounts (at least in part) for many of the wars fought by this nation -- even before it was a nation, e.g. Barbary Pirates exacting "tariffs," import duty on tea, etc., etc. You don't tweet those kinds of policies. And if you were a true conservative, you'd be saying "why is the government running a postal service anyway? Shouldn't that be private market?" Then if you were a true free-marketer, you would ****-can all duties, tariffs and other impediments to trade. If that meant you, as some tiny manufacturer, lost overseas business or went out of business, then so be it. It's a mountain-lion-eat-mountain-lion world out there. It is not a fair place, and it never has been.

Jay, really, what do you know about trade and tax policies? That is hardly your specialty I would warrant.

I was the North American expert on the UN Convention on the International Sale of Goods (CISG) for about a day, or maybe or a week -- because of a footnote in one of my cases. http://cisgw3.law.pace.edu/cases/950412u1.html

I get involved in trade and tax policy only incidentally. I have to get involved in the Jones Act and flagging issues, which has gotten into the news lately with the devastation in Puerto Rico, foreign supply of fuel to vessels. Mega Yachts made in Germany. This and that. http://cdn.ca9.uscourts.gov/datastor...9/13-35163.pdf

You wanna talk about the wacky Ninth Circuit, try arguing to former Cheif Judge Kozinski. It's like getting a half-hour prostate exam. That was going to the USSC before we settled. I was proud of the cert petition in that case.

I don't do any real tariff work except that I had to pay a duty for some wheels I bought from Wiggle before DHL would deliver them. What a rip-off! Order from PBK -- they tend to skip the whole duty thing.

I've had to deal with the Foreign Sovereign Immunity Act suing Chinese corporations who are all state owned. Don't expect to get a quick settlement with some Chinese OE supplier or Chinese insurer.

Totally OT, but what I find fascinating about suing the Chinese is that they never speak English at deposition or trial. All testimony is given with great effort through an interpreter -- who always seems to be the wrong interpreter, Cantonese versus Mandarin, etc., etc. Anyway, the second the guy (always a guy) is done, and he's walking out with his attorney, I can hear him speaking English and saying things like "hey, let's go get some hookers."

Something you might be a great deal more educated about - exactly what is the limit in small claims court in California, Alameda County? It looks like the insurance company for that woman who ran into and totaled my parked car is simply planning on doing nothing at all.

That would require work on my part -- and I'm prohibited from practicing law in California. It should be available on the internet. It is! http://www.dca.ca.gov/publications/s...ims/file.shtml

-- Jay Beattie.


While I do not always disagree (just usually) with Alex
Kosinsky, isn't his reputation and body of work enough to
get a summary decision on change of venue? He's a flake.

--
Andrew Muzi
www.yellowjersey.org/
Open every day since 1 April, 1971

On Thu, 28 Sep 2017 06:39:31 -0700 (PDT), wrote:

On Wednesday, September 27, 2017 at 6:57:18 PM UTC-7, John B. wrote:
You have made statement several times that could be taken to mean that
you served in the Military but when I asked you what your position
was, enlisted, commissioned, flying, ground pounder, you never seem to
answer.

There's that alzheimers of yours acting up again. I told you I was E3 in a maintenance squadron. But like your claim that Britannia ruled the North American continent, it is always convenient to forget some things. Such as France and Spain.

You did? Strange I can remember asking you but I can't remember your
response? But then, I don't seem to remember ever saying that
Britannia ruled the North American continent.

Are you sure that you aren't having one of your concussion moments?
--
Cheers,

John B.