# How are companies able to sell/ship products from China so cheaply?

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-are-companies-able-to-sell-ship-products-from-china-so-cheaply/681362>\
**Category:** Factual Questions\
**Created:** [February 14, 2014, 7:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-are-companies-able-to-sell-ship-products-from-china-so-cheaply/681362 "2014-02-14T19:42:04Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 2\
**Page:** 3

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**Author:** ![Colophon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f05b48/32.png) [@Colophon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colophon)\
**Post date:** [February 19, 2014, 6:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-are-companies-able-to-sell-ship-products-from-china-so-cheaply/681362/41 "2014-02-19T18:49:46Z")

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> [@harmonicamoon](#):
>
> I can understand electronics, very cheap, from China. They are labor intensive products. But when, at the store, I saw garlic, imported from China, I was shocked. California has the best soil in the world, and I am offered garlic from China? How could it be cheaper?

Isn’t most of the soil in California now buried under McMansions? 😉

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**Author:** ![cnyc](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/7c8e57/32.png) [@cnyc](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cnyc)\
**Post date:** [May 10, 2014, 1:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-are-companies-able-to-sell-ship-products-from-china-so-cheaply/681362/42 "2014-05-10T13:05:54Z")

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The reason it is so cheap is because the US taxpayers dollars are hard at work to subsidize these companies. So we give them practically free postage (you cannot mail a small package locally for what they can to the same zip) and the difference is paid by your (if you are a US taxpayer) tax dollars.

This was agreed to in an effort to help keep unemployment low in China and Hong Kong. The US wouldn’t want them to have unemployment as we can clearly see first hand how much damage it can do (the USA is wrath with unemployment).

So, what remaining people in the US are working and paying taxes, they are subsidizing these companies in China and putting the squeeze on more US merchants because they cannot compete.

Brilliant isn’t it? :mad:

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