7 ms·

TEMU also existed because of the de minimis exception. To speed up customs processing and ease business, the US and EU had minimum package values before customs

TEMU also existed because of the de minimis exception. To speed up customs processing and ease business, the US and EU had minimum package values before customs and tariff inspection occurred. TEMU and Shein just kind of took it and ran with it by shipping $5 shirts en masse. --- This also only really happened because China's whole export oriented policy relies on keeping workers underpaid via capital control. Workers get their bank accounts at uncompetitive rates and that capital is used to fund manufacturing expansion. The normal thing that happens as a country gets richer is that workers earn more, start buying more of their domestic surplus and their export advantage goes away. However, the current thinking promoted by Xi is that consumption is just capitalist decadence, and so Chinese consumers can't buy the ever increasing goods surplus even if they wanted to. And China is also dealing with internal deflation now due to the massive confidence shock after the property bust.

runarberg 2mo ago
There is a world, where Europe did not turn into a neo-liberal paradise as soon as the cold war ended. Where Europe straightened their labor rights (and kept their consumer protection). In that world, as people started waking up the fact that their products were largely made in sweatshops in India and China, Europe would have imposed import restriction and fined and closed companies who knowingly sold products made in sweatshops. We do not live in that world. We live in a world where Europe went fully neo-liberal as soon as the threat of communism was over. And the results were companies taking full advantage of labor markets with abhorrent lack of labor protections. European regulators and politicians could have done something about this, and decided not to. And so we have TEMU.

7 ms·

TEMU also existed because of the de minimis exception. To speed up customs processing and ease business, the US and EU had minimum package values before customs

by bobthepanda 2mo ago

runarberg 2mo ago
There is a world, where Europe did not turn into a neo-liberal paradise as soon as the cold war ended. Where Europe straightened their labor rights (and kept their consumer protection). In that world, as people started waking up the fact that their products were largely made in sweatshops in India and China, Europe would have imposed import restriction and fined and closed companies who knowingly sold products made in sweatshops. We do not live in that world. We live in a world where Europe went fully neo-liberal as soon as the threat of communism was over. And the results were companies taking full advantage of labor markets with abhorrent lack of labor protections. European regulators and politicians could have done something about this, and decided not to. And so we have TEMU.