Quote from: Chris24601 on April 10, 2025, 08:30:04 AMFor the record; I didn't say "tough shit, it's for the greater good."

That was all the Leftists telling small businesses they were "nonessential" during the pandemic.

I said "you screwed your neighbors out of work they could be doing to save a few bucks by getting into bed with communists using slave labor. You deserve this."

So does SJG if they're still in bed with China. I'm going to have a toast when Nike, patron saint of profiting via slave labor, goes under.

Businesses doing business with their fellow Americans aren't even touched. Those doing business with someone other than Chinese slave labor have another 90 days to get affairs in order or hope for a good bi-lateral deal.

The net change on printing from anyplace that isn't China is pennies per book. And if you're doing business with Chinese slavers... again, you deserve this.

Let's give credit where credit is due. It's the labor unions' fault those jobs got outsourced in the first place. They became too onerous to work with, make too many ridiculous demands, and try to exert control over businesses. They need this sword of Damocles hanging over their head that, yes, we will outsource all of their jobs to foreign countries if they don't act right.

That's not to discount the rest of what you're saying. Businesses got addicted to cheap foreign labor, and they need the threat of tariffs hanging over their heads to get them to act right.

I'm optimistic that enough people have just been kicked in the nuts that they can sit down and negotiate like civilized men.

Quote from: Cathode Ray on April 10, 2025, 05:14:33 AMSteve Jakcson games just released their shareholders' report.  They of course couldn't keep their TDS in their pants, as expected.  They added this paragraph in italics:

QuoteFinishing this report as I am in early April of 2025, it's hard to remember that I am writing it "as of January 1." A new national administration has come in, the economy is in disarray, and our hobby (like many other sectors) is reeling from tariffs and uncertainty. So clap your hands very hard and pretend you are reading this before life got so interesting.

Life was not interesting before 2025?
Let's review some of the things that made 2024 interesting:

- The economy was in disarray
- Puff Daddy gets thrown in jail
- A senile "President" finally gets seen on the national stage for the nation to witness
- Biden's party forces him out of the campaign
- Biden's party selects their nominee without a single vote
- Pro-genocidal protests throughout nation and college campi
- Jews on college campi fear for their lives at Harvard, Columbia,
   and other universities as they are trapped/held hostage in libraries by genocidal protestors
- Trump found "guilty" of 34 trumped-up charges in Soviet Style attempt to eliminate Biden's polticial opponent
- Haitian illegal immigrants stealing pets and local wild ducks
- Alec Baldwin gets away with murder
- Tulsi Gabbard walks away from the democrat party
- Illegal immigrant gang seizes an apartment complex in Colorado
- An assassination attempt on Trump at a rally in Butler PA
- Secret Service found to be negligent at best, complicit at worst
- Head of Secret Service resigns in disgrace
- Satanic Olympic opening ceremonies and the resulting backlash
- A mean beat a woman to a pulp and wins an Olympic gold medal in women's boxing
- Robert F Kennedy Jr walks away from the democrat party
- Assassination attempt #2 at Trump's property
- New agency, DOGE, is announced
- Boeing planes fall apart in the sky in midflight
- Boeing spaceship breaks down, strands Americans on International Space Station
- Trump wins reelection, taking all 7 swing states
   Kamala HQ, in disarray, just goes home midway through election night
- Marxist fascist murders United Healthcare CEO

But tell me things weren't interesting

Oh, and the report states that 2024 was "about the same" as 2023.  What it conveniently omits, obviously to mislead, is that 2023 was a loss for them, because the economy was "so great" then.

They memory-holed all of that shit because it doesn't fit their narrative.

Quote from: Corolinth on April 10, 2025, 12:09:53 PMLet's give credit where credit is due. It's the labor unions' fault those jobs got outsourced in the first place.

It's hard to compete on wages with people paid pennies per hour.

The Fed didn't help either with all its inflation of fiat currency making the dollar worth pennies on what it was worth a century ago (great for those who can leverage it, a continual tax upon the working class).

Setting up fiduciary laws for public companies to focus exclusively on short term gains also made it criminal to NOT do everything possible to maximize profits by shipping those jobs out to use slave labor.

If those laws aren't changed, then elements like high tariffs are the only thing that can reverse the trend.

But that only applies to publically held companies... that's not most game companies who, if they chose to, could choose to do what's best for their customers and employees and community. Those game companies choosing to do business with China deserve every bit of pain they're going to receive.

Quote from: Ratman_tf on April 09, 2025, 04:53:26 PM

Quote from: Banjo Destructo on April 09, 2025, 03:59:27 PMAll of this does feel like a "wait 1-2 weeks and see how it goes" kind of thing instead of "freak out every day at things coming up"

The Trump doomcasters make their hay out of every Trump decision being the End Of The World. And when the world does not, in fact, end, they look like idiots.

Its like the Mayan Calendar DOOOOOM morons who predict DOOOOOOOOOM!!!! for some year. Then when it never happens... they move the goalposts... again.

Though with Trump stuff you never know where things will go sideways and we ARE seeing problems on other fronts.

Quote from: Ratman_tf on April 10, 2025, 12:29:41 AM

Quote from: Mistwell on April 09, 2025, 09:54:14 PMMEGA corps can afford that loss. Small businesses like mine, and most medium sized businesses, cannot.

How much did you lose?

Looking about close to $50K. And we were lucky. Didn't have to pay the extreme high tariff on one of our two large shipments, just the 20% higher.

Quote from: Ratman_tf on April 10, 2025, 12:29:41 AMNonsense, Obamacare effected everyone, was permanent, and based on a lie. Tariffs are a short term bad that will go away or push different sourcing so they don't matter. I understand your pissed but that's a bad comparison.

I am not talking about the entire thing being the same, I said and mean the fuckers who told me I needed to pay more for worse insurance so that others could have better insurance was the same intent and sentiment as those saying I need to pay more to sacrifice so that America can regain it's manufacturing base. It doesn't matter how long or short term, the intent with both is telling me to sacrifice for your ideals while you don't sacrifice for those same ideals.

Quote from: Mistwell on April 10, 2025, 09:21:39 PM

Quote from: Ratman_tf on April 10, 2025, 12:29:41 AMNonsense, Obamacare effected everyone, was permanent, and based on a lie. Tariffs are a short term bad that will go away or push different sourcing so they don't matter. I understand your pissed but that's a bad comparison.

I am not talking about the entire thing being the same, I said and mean the fuckers who told me I needed to pay more for worse insurance so that others could have better insurance was the same intent and sentiment as those saying I need to pay more to sacrifice so that America can regain it's manufacturing base. It doesn't matter how long or short term, the intent with both is telling me to sacrifice for your ideals while you don't sacrifice for those same ideals.

I think you misquoted when replying to this one.

Quote from: Mistwell on April 10, 2025, 08:57:54 PM

Quote from: Ratman_tf on April 10, 2025, 12:29:41 AM

Quote from: Mistwell on April 09, 2025, 09:54:14 PMMEGA corps can afford that loss. Small businesses like mine, and most medium sized businesses, cannot.

How much did you lose?

Looking about close to $50K. And we were lucky. Didn't have to pay the extreme high tariff on one of our two large shipments, just the 20% higher.

I was hoping for a bit more context. I don't know the nature of your business, the amounts you usually pay, and how shipping rates fluxuate outside of this incident. At the risk of derailing the thread. I'm curious how serious this particular incident was, since you brought it up.

oooh. This all now makes me wonder how hard or not this will impact any Kickstarter that was either shipping overseas. Or having manufacturing done overseas?

Quote from: Omega on April 11, 2025, 06:03:26 AMoooh. This all now makes me wonder how hard or not this will impact any Kickstarter that was either shipping overseas. Or having manufacturing done overseas?

The BattleTech Mercenaries kickstarter has said it will eat the increased costs for backers but the products showing up in retail will have increased prices. However, the vast majority of backers had already received their stuff (at least within the USA and much of Europe), so I don't think this really bites all that deeply.

Quote from: Mistwell on April 10, 2025, 08:57:54 PM

Quote from: Ratman_tf on April 10, 2025, 12:29:41 AM

Quote from: Mistwell on April 09, 2025, 09:54:14 PMMEGA corps can afford that loss. Small businesses like mine, and most medium sized businesses, cannot.

How much did you lose?

Looking about close to $50K. And we were lucky. Didn't have to pay the extreme high tariff on one of our two large shipments, just the 20% higher.

Yikes. Deep hit for any small to medium business.

I'm not really having a lot of sympathy for companies that print in China and get burned by it. Just browsing through my small library, Swords and Wizardry, ACKs and all my POD books are printed in the US. Griffon Saddlebag books are printed in Europe.

China is a choice to save some money. That's fine if you want to do that rather than employee/support local economies, but these are the kinds of risks you take on with that.

Heck, maybe we need a "Prints in North America/Europe" company list thread.

According to Sandra Taylor on their newest Kickstarter for books, the new tariffs don't apply. (Doesn't matter for card games and minis, etc. But interesting for books.)

QuoteBooks: As stated above, books are not subject to the recent US tariffs. The tariffs were enacted under the IEEPA (a law allowing the US President to enact tariffs unilaterally), and that law specifically exempts bound printed matter from tariffs. There are other tariffs that do apply to books, but we've been dealing with those for years.

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/howardtayler/a-function-of-firepower-schlock-mercenary-book-19/posts/4360073

Quote from: Ratman_tf on April 10, 2025, 10:28:23 PM

Quote from: Mistwell on April 10, 2025, 08:57:54 PM

Quote from: Ratman_tf on April 10, 2025, 12:29:41 AM

Quote from: Mistwell on April 09, 2025, 09:54:14 PMMEGA corps can afford that loss. Small businesses like mine, and most medium sized businesses, cannot.

How much did you lose?

Looking about close to $50K. And we were lucky. Didn't have to pay the extreme high tariff on one of our two large shipments, just the 20% higher.

I was hoping for a bit more context. I don't know the nature of your business, the amounts you usually pay, and how shipping rates fluxuate outside of this incident. At the risk of derailing the thread. I'm curious how serious this particular incident was, since you brought it up.

We usually pay a 29% tariff and have since Trump's first administration (it was lower before that but he gave lots of notice of the new rate his first term and adjusted our business to accommodate it), and paid a 50% tariff instead this year. We're lucky we didn't pay a 145% tariff. We can survive the $50k but it makes things much more difficult. And we will need to switch vendors for next year, despite really liking our vendor who we have worked with for 15 years, and who we know runs an ethical business with good working conditions for his employees, something we can't say for many China manufacturers. We personally checked out this vendor, and there won't be time or funds to personally check out a new one in a different country  (though we may get recommendations from someone we trust who has).

Trump's now exempting high tech from his new tariffs for China. Which is absurdly hypocritical. He wants to bring back the lowest level of sewing jobs but not the higher level technology jobs? Come on, you guys can't think this is a wise plan, or any real plan he's working from.

'Concepts of a plan.' At least Trump was upfront about not having a plan.

The real issue being overlooked is that the USA is nearly ready to default on the national debt. This is all really just theatrics while they scramble to figure out how to make payments by June (or raise the ceiling, but we're getting awful close and Trump isn't exactly in a bipartisan mood-- everyone seemingly ignoring this massive elephant in the room). If Trump's financial games don't pay off big time, there's a much bigger issue at hand than tariffs at that point. This is why Biden disappeared at the end of his term and wore a maga hat. This is why Musk was allowed into the White House with a chainsaw-- the US government is out of money and is running out of time.

https://www.reuters.com/world/us/us-risks-default-soon-august-without-action-debt-ceiling-cbo-estimates-2025-03-26/