AND AWAAAAAAY WE GO!
- Big Chief Barclay
- Apr 9
- 4 min read
OK, usually I remain apolitical, but the stuff that's been going on the past week or so, has really gotten me riled up - This is probably gonna be a long one, because I have a lot of pent up stress here!
Listening to Trump blather on about his tariffs...."They" didn't pay a dime, "they" will start paying, "they" "they"....... Uh....it isn't THEM that pay the tariffs, it's the importers, who in turn, fob those fees off on their customers, which are US.... Effective April 9th, anything brought in from China will cost 54% MORE, then if nothing happens, there will be additional punitive tariffs... does this guy think I'M going to just absorb the costs? Nope, it's going to get passed along, not only by people like me, but everybody...and just HOW is this not going to contribute to inflation??? I can hardly wait to see how much more Christmas stuff from Germany is gonna cost me now.....
Somebody has to explain to him, that you don't just lay blanket tariffs on countries in general, you have to pick & choose the items that might be eroding our industries....Like Christmas stuff....know why WE don't do it? We've had 150+ years to figure it out, apparently, we just don't have the skills or the mindset to do it... 10% on goods from the UK, so now the model paints I buy are gonna cost me 10% more. Again, there are NO US suppliers left, Rustoleum bought out Testor's, and discontinued all the Testor's hobby paints. 10% more, on a product I only make about a buck and a half on.... SO, now that he's "liberating" us, and re-inventing our manufacturing base, are they gonna give me the money or tax credits to run out and but all the stuff I need to make everything here? Nope, they'll just lay another 54% on me, and let me stand there with my thumb up my nose, trying to figure it all out....... Clueless, just clueless.....and the after hours market trading is already crashing.....The tariffs might bring in billions, but we'll crash the economy doing it. Does he actually think industry is going to magically come back? We can't even bend a paper-clip here anymore, and even if we wanted to, it takes a few years to re-arrange the supply lines....This might have worked 90 years ago, when we were still isolationist, and even then, tariffs took a lot of crap during the Depression, because they just made everything more expensive....like it's gonna be ANY different this time..... This is gonna be interesting, to say the least, especially now that he's raised the tariffs on Chine to 125% !!.....
Rough idea of how much more it's going to cost me to do business, or, how much more my customers might be paying: Christmas Ornaments: 10 to 125% more, depending on country....Advent calendars, Smokers, Nutcrackers, incense, and anything else I source from the EU: 10% more....Paints for resale, or for my use in production: 10 to 125% more, depending on country....Rubber that I use to make my molds: 10 to 125% more, depending on country....Mold making supplies, other than rubber: 10 to 125% more, depending on country.....Toys, like the tin wind-up toys and generic Lego sets: 125% more....Candles: 10 to 125% more, depending on country (and if it's from China, that 54% is on top of an already exorbitant customs duty of 114%)....tools and other equipment used in daily making of figures, like files, brushes, etc: 125% more......3-D printing resin, and other 3-D printing supplies: 125% more.....this doesn't even go into how much more everything else is going to cost, like packing tape, boxes, labels, even pencils and paperclips, 125% MORE...... I realize I'm not actually paying for this, it's getting passed on to the customer, but the fact is, it will make everything more expensive, and reach a point where sales will stall......is it too early to start thinking about retirement?
If you read the article linked above, Yep.... I'm holding off on ordering anything from my suppliers, they're not in China, but they're distributors who get a load of stuff from China.... The stats remind me of the position the Germans were in, prior to WW II: Two small villages in Germany, Lauscha & Sonneberg, supplied over 90% of the glass ornaments that were sold in the US. The rest was split among Poland, Austria, Czechoslovakia, and a couple others. After the war, West Germany scrambled to re-establish the ornament industry, because those two villages, and pretty much the center of the Christmas industry, were suddenly off limits, falling into East Germany. The tariff on China now stands at 125%.....un-effing-believable...... It's not so much China that will suffer, as it is the MANY small shops that depend on Christmas....Oh, let's not forget to ask how many toys come from China? And just how are people like me supposed to survive the impact, when all my paint brushes, and numerous other supplies come from there as well??
I'll do the best I can to hold the line on prices, but remember, I'm not WalMart over here, and there's only so much I can do!!
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