The Pffft Factor
A few days back I received a motor for my son’s drone all the way from some distant province of China (through ebay). The total cost was AUD 2.50! How is this possible in a world where we couldn’t even get burger for that price! In Australia, if I tried to send an empty envelope to my neighbour who is approximately 10m away from me, through Australia post, it would cost me 90 cents! To add to that, I would have to travel to a post box and mail it! Now some simple calculations (curtesy of google) suggest that Beijing is approximately 9,000km from home and at the going rate for domestic mail in Aussie, this would cost me $810,000!! Ok, the cheapest Australia Post rate for mailing something to China was $12.25. Add to that the cost of the motor, say $1.00 and the vendor is at a loss of $10.75 already! This got me thinking! Why is it that everything is a thousand times more expensive if a capitalistic country is involved and is it truly sustainable in a world where national borders are inc...