

Cost of US Letter Delivered to Your Neighbor vs. Kiwi Delivered From New Zealand - mhb
http://perfectsubstitute.blogspot.com/2009/08/is-post-office-so-bad-yes-and-try.html

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michael_dorfman
Wow, what a pointless comparison.

I think it's more instructive to ask the question another way: I want to task
you with hand-delivering a small envelope to another address in the
continental United States, to be named later, and I want the delivery to occur
within a few days of the handoff. How much would you like me to pay you to
provide such a service?

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gdp
I like the premise of the article, but there are two shortcomings.

1) Kiwifruit are distributed through existing food distribution networks. New
Zealand's economy is primarily driven by agricultural exports, and so they
have good (cheap!) ways of getting food to overseas markets quickly and
cheaply. Similarly, food distribution (once it reaches the US) is setup
through corporate structures (such as supermarket chains and distributors),
where high-value products will be delivered together in high volumes regularly
tos specific location, rather than a single low-value item being delivered by
hand to a specific address that may only receive post intermittently.

2) The New Zealand dollar is worth approximately 0.5 USD. Exporters basically
make their income based on the difference in labour, land and materials costs
in New Zealand versus the export value of their product in USD.

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ErrantX
The whole argument is weak: because the transport / distribution involved is
so vastly different.

