US tariffs and trade woes for gaming

[wolfie65Participant 1250xp 0]

Item a) Politics is puppet theater for adults. If you believe that the guys and gals in suits wearing red, blue or any other color ties you get to see on TV are the ones actually making the decisions, you’ve got a LOT of waking up to do.

Item b) On the bright side, the current press secretary for what a VERY long time ago was the White House is nice to look at. What she says is irrelevant, see item a.

Item c) @ limburger – What lies did Göbbels tell ? Granted, reporting got a little iffy by late ’43 to avoid mass panic, but before that, most of it was pretty much dead on.

[grantinvanman 2503xp 0]

Propaganda Barbie gets trolled by the Chinese, again

“you don’t have the cards…”

”the cards are made in China!”

 

[a27cromwell 3207xp 0]

To be fair , where the hell can you find locally made “anything ” these days ? Here in Canada , 20 – 30 years ago , all the big department stores ( Sears , Eatons , Woodwards , The Bay ) had their own made in Canada clothing , furniture , sporting goods , etc . Only one left is The Bay and they probably won’t last a few more years . Most of the products they carry are made in Asia . And if you do find local , it is very high end . There is a home grown furniture company in  Camrose , run by the Amish ( IRC ) , hand made furniture , 6 – 8 month wait on dining tables and chairs . And chairs start IRC about $500 each , tables 3-4000 and up .

We screwed  ourselves  by wanting cheaper in price goods , so companies went where they could build a factory cheaper , less Govt regulations and a much cheaper work force . Oh course quality control went out the window and now we buy stuff at Walmart which we have to replace on a regular basis .

[grantinvanman 2503xp 0]

Dude, The Bay went under like last month. 🤣

Most clothing that I buy is made in various places. Vietnam is common. Indonesia is another. Canada… yeah not so much.

Italian, for leather goods, cycling clothes, but are they at a premium? You betcha.

I think the point is that China is being funny at pointing at the sheer insane irony of MAGA Barbie wearing 245% tariffs – on the regular.

[a27cromwell 3207xp 0]

The Bay here in Red Deer is still open , although stock is slowly disappearing , mind you  they’ve had really wide aisles and minimum stock for a while now . Haven’t shopped at the Bay since they got rid of their record/electronics department in the late 80s. Nice to see the board members are going to get big buck payouts and the store staff get screwed over probably losing their pensions . Kind of like what happened at Sears .

Yeah I get the irony . Sort like Hollywood types flying up to Fort Mac in their private jets , bitching about air pollution and the oil patch .

Its like the anti US  movement here in Canada with people avoiding US products at the grocery store , its too much work to really go all in . Plus , I’m gonna buy what tastes good and is value for my $ , really don’t care where it comes from. Not when i’m hungry , and I’m always hungry

• This reply was modified 4 weeks ago by  a27cromwell.

[grantinvanman 2503xp 0]

The Bay hasn’t been Canadian for at least a decade; US private equity firms (two pillaged it). Sold off the valuable real estate, and now the last of the pittance as you say does go the vultures.

Ironically, a Chinese-Canadian woman in Vancouver was – last I read – trying to save the Bay; who knows where that stands. Old Hong Kong money!

Down here the anti-US movement is real. Fruit is rotting on shelves; oranges are now product of Egypt – no California stuff.

Everyone does what they can. The US will feel the lack of tourism – $90Billion; the lack of bourbon sales – Ontario is was the single largest importer of it, all gone! I won’t buy it now.

California was complaining about its wine losses. “Thoughts and prayers…” as they say.

BYE AMERICA. ELBOWS UP!

 

[warhammergrimace 13767xp 0]

I was going to say we might see an explosion of 3D printing in the USA but then realised that most if not all 3D printers are made in China. It’s going to be a rough few years for the US until the next election.

 

[pagan8thParticipant 12933xp 0]

It might not end then… I heard some speculation that the overload will run as vice president to his minion and if the minion steps down he gets to break the rules and be dictator for another term… his role model is the guy in russia and he wants to rule forever…

[elessar2590 18217xp 1]

Yep just what I thought, the thread broke down into schitzoposting about puppet string pullers/Russia and cheap gotchas. All clothing is from China, it’s actually one of the justifications for these Tariffs being implemented, agree with them or not it doesn’t change the reasoning, because manufacturing has largely gone overseas from all Western countries. Also why would she be rich or able to afford these things? The Tariffs aren’t implemented yet and she obviously bought them beforehand, I despise this cheap gotcha trash, it’s the reason political discourse is in the gutter, not Trump, not everything has to be a fight to the death no holds bared.

I miss the simple days where Obama mocked people openly for being afraid of Russia and got caught on that hot mic telling Medvedev to give him ‘space’ and that he’d have more ‘flexibility’ after the election. It was just a story, it didn’t become a fanatical obsession for an entire wing of politics for a decade.

We’ve got an ongoing Federal election here in Australia and you can hardly tell. Our political parties solved a lot of these issues decades ago and even though both sides have been in power neither messes with them. To see Americans, Canadians and Europeans bicker endlessly about them is like watching children fight. Illegals? If you come here illegally we will deport you to a foreign nation and there is zero chance you will be allowed to stay, we did this to stop people dying in boats and funding criminal smugglers. Tariffs? We don’t do those because we’re a raw materials exporter primarily. Our current party is Left Wing and has been very cordial and decent when dealing with Trump, not using insults or trying to score points, just making deals which have paid off because the Tariffs on Australia are the lowest. They’ve done a good job and will most likely stay in power, they’re currently overseeing the dissolution of the biggest Union in the country for pretty intense criminal corruption despite them being their biggest supporters. Stop the gotchas, stop the petty,endless sniping at one another.

[horati0nosebl0wer 19691xp 1]

Steering back into the realm of games I think there was some good insight as to what current events are meeting to create a black swan event for CMON and others.

The tariffs will influence where production occurs, plain and simple. It’ll be interesting to see a likely liberation of what can be published for TTRPG books as censorship of content under the PRC won’t be happening for US writers/producers. Maybe we could see more wild and weird things using Asia as the backdrop.

[limburger 21920xp 0]

@horati0nosebl0wer sure … except there is currently nowhere for production to move.
The knowledge and skills required simply do not exist in the USA.
Ignition Core Games posted something to the effect that they had asked local manunfacturers for quotes and they either didn’t respond at all or couldn’t deliver the quality required at the scale of production needed.

And then there’s the question of finding people willing to do the work.
The minimum wage in the USA is something like 7$/hour depending on the location.  I doubt you can survive on that.
By comparison over here it is currently at +/- 14,40 Euro/hour for a 21 year old.

Never mind how kids these days would rather be an ‘influencer’ instead of doing something constructive.

I’ve seen plenty of crowdfunding projects post something to the effect that

(a) tariff situation is too unstable to make any sort of decision
(b) delaying shipments to the USA is the most practical short term solution until stability is achieved
(c) GameFound has a ‘stable pledge’ construct, which allows backers to get a refund if costs get too high (it makes GameFound relatively ‘safe’ compared to kickstarter where you are at the mercy of project owners). With possible tariffs of 100+% that’s a safety option some will want to use if things don’t change for the better.

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