O Canada! → Canadian → Canadian Chat > [Serious] Should consumer border limits be abolished?

Re: [Serious] Should consumer border limits be abolished?

^^ this.

now, if they had a real Canadian entity, your shipping (from say, Mississauga) would be $10...but of course, the part would likely be more than $40 because of all the costs associated with having said Canadian entity (the duplicity i mentioned before).

> That's because they ship UPS Expedited

No - no evidence of that.

> which INCLUDES the taxes, duties and brokerage into the
> shipping cost. That's how they can claim there's no "extra" cost.

What part of "bullshat" did you miss in my post?

Why as a nation do we tolerate the extra layer of bullshat at the border that takes a $9 shipping charge and inflates it to $80?

I'll order stuff all day from the US when it includes a SANE delivery charge (US UPS + %50 CAN markup) and HST. Take my $40 part, give UPS $15 to deliver it, add $6 for HST, making the total $61. No moar customs/brokerage bullshat. Get rid of that layer for anything under, say, $1000. Big retail / wholesale shipments don't qualify. Just the stuff that us civilians / consumers would or could buy from the states. Watch the GST roll into gov't coffers.

just drive across the border, buy the part for $40 in a store there, and drive back...Port Huron is only 45 minutes away...quit being so cheap.

He may be referring to the arbitrary UPS brokerage fees which are not government fees but their own fees that are in addition to anything you'd pay with someone like USPS.

Furthermore, anything passing through the border shipped by UPS has a far greater chance to fall under the scrutiny of those that officially tack on extra charges, possibly so UPS can tack on their extra charges, than if someone else like United States Postal Service (USPS).

If I have anything shipped via UPS to a business address it 100% of the time has those arbitrary UPS fees and regular taxes. To my residential address it's about 70% with UPS. It's about 25% with USPS.

sure, there is "greed" involved, but duplicity adds a fortune to the cost of doing business...eliminate that duplicity and your prices will be much more comparable.

The biggest issue is not so much RIV, but the different standards between countries, they don't build "world cars' per se, but cars for each market.

Just as an example the US may allow bumpers that sustain a 5mph crash,but we want say 10. That makes it more expensive to make a car for Canada.

On top of that, you have the UAW doing it's damnest to lower wages in order to keep jobs and keep those union dues coming in.

Also, eliminating RIV will simply flood the market with US cars, eliminating the need to have any cars made up here, which will effectively wipe out Ontario.
--
No, I didn't. Honest... I ran out of gas. I... I had a flat tire. I didn't have enough money for cab fare. My tux didn't come back from the cleaners. An old friend came in from out of town. Someone stole my car. There was an earthquake.......

So like many of you here,because you don't make the money they do we should punish them?

Do you really think that the you're looking at is going to be any cheaper because of slashed labour wages? The companies will just take all in profit and distribute it to their shareholders, who (depending who/what they are) contribute nothing to the economy,while the autoworker, does contribute spending his or her discretionary income
--
No, I didn't. Honest... I ran out of gas. I... I had a flat tire. I didn't have enough money for cab fare. My tux didn't come back from the cleaners. An old friend came in from out of town. Someone stole my car. There was an earthquake.......

Why would prices drop? We talk about the free market, if the "free market' says I can sell you say a Kia for 20K ,why would eliminating artificial tariffs or protections make it cheaper?

The market can absorb X number of those (actually any)cars a year, so making the car cheaper is not going to necessarily make more sales, it might move people from a cheaper car to the more expensive one, but then you cannibalize those cheaper car sales (which the car companies don't make much money on to begin with) ,I put it to you like I did to corster, it will benefit the corporations, not the people.

--
No, I didn't. Honest... I ran out of gas. I... I had a flat tire. I didn't have enough money for cab fare. My tux didn't come back from the cleaners. An old friend came in from out of town. Someone stole my car. There was an earthquake.......

I don't know how we even got into this discussion, but the sad reality is that Oshawa is done for after GM's commitment to the Federal and Ontario Governments - with right-to-work and cheaper UAW labour, there's no reason for them not to move production back to Michigan.

If you were GM, would you willingly pay more to produce cars in a foreign country?

I'm sick of it, did Henry Ford suck on the public teat to get started?
How about Walter Chrysler? It's always about dangling "the jobs" in front of a politician and they crumble like a wet tissue.
This money comes with ZERO strings attached

It was about jobs when we through money at US Steel/Stelco/Dafasco (whatever they were called) they took the cash, said FU and closed the plant anyway. When Tony "Gazebo boy" Clement made a lot of noise, US Steel made some vague promises and he dropped it.

Google? Amazon? (yes they're American but so is Ford).
This is like sports teams, build us a new arena/stadium at the public expense, give it to us (or let us run it and keep the profits) or we'll move.

This not about Canada, America or anywhere else in particular, people have to step up and SAY STOP. The problem is EVERYONE has to stop or the game will never end.
--
No, I didn't. Honest... I ran out of gas. I... I had a flat tire. I didn't have enough money for cab fare. My tux didn't come back from the cleaners. An old friend came in from out of town. Someone stole my car. There was an earthquake.......

I disagree about your duplicity theory driving up costs.

Honestly how much do you really think Head Office costs are in the grand scheme of things , a very small fraction of sales.

We're two different markets, look when Loews tried to buy Rona (would have been smart for Rona shareholders but...) they had no concept of the Canadian market, tried to bully their way in , like they do in the US, and in the end ran up against defiant governments.

You need to understand the market you are in, do you think McDonalds would do well say in Japan, if all operations were run from the US? What does some pinhead sitting in an office in Indiana (can you get more backwater) know about the Japanese culture/consumer?

Like in Pulp fiction, in some European countries, you don't call it a Quarter Pounder with Cheese,but Royale with Cheese.

So now we got marketing, do we ship all the goods from a warehouse in the US to those various countries? So now we need local warehousing. Of course we need workers for both departments, someone to oversea those departments and then we need buyers,see how it expands? So duplicity is not the cause for higher prices.
--
No, I didn't. Honest... I ran out of gas. I... I had a flat tire. I didn't have enough money for cab fare. My tux didn't come back from the cleaners. An old friend came in from out of town. Someone stole my car. There was an earthquake.......

Corster and AndrewW, I tend to write to quickly and not get my thoughts in order.

First I don't think RIV applies to new cars imported by the car makers, that would be a trade barrier and would bring up an objection under Nafta. It applies to you and me (AndrewW yes your Telsa would be subject to RIV). But how many people import cars vs going down to their local car dealer to buy one? Dropping RIV may flood the Canadian market with people importing cheaper US cars, but unless I live near the border like Gone and UB, I wouldn't do it. It's far to much money to spend on something that would be sold "AS IS".

Corster you bring up high wages, tell me then why is car made in Mexico, where there are almost ZERO environmental impediments,you pay workers pennies on the dollar compared to US/Canadian workers, both which lower the cost doing business, isn't dirt cheap?

I can answer my own question, because the labour input into a car is peanuts compared to the raw materials, plants costs, R&D and after manufacturing costs like warranties and spare parts warehousing. Labour costs are a red herring, I stand by my comment that it simply enriches the bottom line of the corporations.

As for the assumption people buy cars in the country their made, no, not at all, my Escape is made in the US. IIRC DJ's Kia and/or Hyundai came from South Korea, not the US or Canada.

AndrewW, as for the bumpers, fair enough, I was looking for examples of differences, and that's what came to mind.

Where there are higher costs are the that cars here have to be metric, have bilingual packaging (though I'm pretty sure American cars have a healthy dose of Spanish,but that's easily fixed buy creating "world" packaging like many Tier1 computer makers do. Or that we require DRL while the US DOT doesn't (and has rejected petitions from GM to do so). And there are probably other safety features required up here, that the US market doesn't that I can't think of.
--
No, I didn't. Honest... I ran out of gas. I... I had a flat tire. I didn't have enough money for cab fare. My tux didn't come back from the cleaners. An old friend came in from out of town. Someone stole my car. There was an earthquake.......

Why, you ignore the underlying premise that these corporations are simply doing what's best for them, not you, me or the folks that work for them. It's not a hundred years ago, Amazon and Google both launched with private money, not sucking on the government teat. Which goes back to what I said sometime ago, instead of giving them cash outright, become a VC and INVEST in the company.

Ford got some cash, if a US state waved all that money(govt and their own) at them, they'd close Oakville in a heartbeat. And that's my point, who ever gives the biggest bribe wins.
--
No, I didn't. Honest... I ran out of gas. I... I had a flat tire. I didn't have enough money for cab fare. My tux didn't come back from the cleaners. An old friend came in from out of town. Someone stole my car. There was an earthquake.......

it's not a bribe when there is a return on the investment...perhaps if Ford received $140 million to keep the plant down here open, we'd still have 3000 people working there too (plus all the spin off jobs associated with the plant's supply chain partners)...it decimated St Thomas and hurt London too...it's one of the reasons we have the highest unemployment of any major city in Canada...you always ramble on about "tax payer money" being handed out, well it still is...just now it is in welfare payments and various other social programs (retraining and EI, although i'm entirely sure of how the EI funds are structured)...in the end, investing tax payer money pays off in spades...letting companies leave, putting all those people out of work does 10x more damage than partnering up with the companies so everyone wins.

What ROI? We invested in GM to keep from going under and they're shifting more jobs and production to places that provide the best "incentive"(better?) as Corster put it, he wouldn't be surprised if they pack it up in Canada altogether and head to where they get a better "incentive" .

You ignored my Amazon and Google examples once again, neither needed "government investments" to launch and are both good places to work, good money, good for the local communities they are in.
--
No, I didn't. Honest... I ran out of gas. I... I had a flat tire. I didn't have enough money for cab fare. My tux didn't come back from the cleaners. An old friend came in from out of town. Someone stole my car. There was an earthquake.......

... you're comparing car manufacturing to software engineering? Stop comparing apples to eggplants.

You're also ignoring that Amazon has shut down warehouses and ended their affiliate program due to tax changes in California.