Trump’s 145% tariffs could KO tabletop game makers, other small biz, lawsuit claims The Trump administration's tariffs are famously raising the prices of high-ticket products with lots of chips, like iPhones and cars, but they're also hurting small businesses like game makers. In this case, we're not talking video games, but the old-fashioned kind you play at your kitchen table. On Thursday night, 11 small …
The difference between civil and criminal law is not only a thing in the United States. I don't know where you live, but chances are that it's exactly the same there. There is such a thing as private prosecution in many countries, But you can't do that just because someone has done something that harmed you financially, and where it's possible, it's often rarely done because it's extremely difficult. That's when it's against another person, not when it's against someone who can bring every lawyer employed by the US government to defend him. Also, it isn't even allowed for federal crimes, so look for a state crime and hope that state allows it.
> I don't know where you live
I can't state in EVERY post that I am from Germany. And I count myself among those regtards who most prominently, most often, really more than everyone else here, states his origin, and considers himself to be lucky to be there 'cause where you're born is not a free choice. I get a few down votes from stating that so often alone, I guess :D.
Regarding Trump and jail time: It is not the financial loss there, it is that he overstepped laws and his authority so freackin' many times that even I, from that distance, see how many basic protections and barriers against power abuse he overstepped. The financial loss is the result of him doing his "I am above the law" thing again, and those who suffer should be compensated from his private asset (he should have some leftovers from his stock-exchange manipulations this month, and can borrow some money from his dearest friend Musk).
Currently I see the history of 25 to 50+ bankruptcies, proven frauds, proven scams, failures, depending on how you count. But hey, those were only businesses going down, lets make a new one. Now he is doing the same failure on national scale. You cannot "close" a country with over 300 million people and "make" a new country.
Fair comment, Jou so please treat my OP as information. Even in the UK I'm not familiar with the Scottish system (we have 3 different systems: England & Wales, N Ireland which follows England & Wales; and Scotland). However the civil/criminal split is central to all of them and to the US.
I don't know about the US but in the UK privately prosecuting a criminal case is rare. We have had an ongoing scandal the Post Office doing that.
Knowing such details of the justice system is up to the people of the USA.
In Germany and the US, you have criminal law and private (civil) law. Criminal law sends people to prison, private law is for business, contract disputes, custody, etc, etc.
The only difference between Germany and the US is Germany also has "administrative law", which is for disputes between government departments or for a private person to sue the government. This is just a local choice to fork off a subset of private/civil law and again, noone is going to prison over it. I expect we'll get a German lawyer explaining it is actually different for <reasons> and I'm sure there are differences to how the courts work, routes of appeal, etc - but at a high level you've got criminal law and then "all the other stuff for settling disputes between parties" - and this split is basically common over most justice systems in the world, even if they use slightly different nomenclature.
For information (not criticism):
1. You cannot sue the President for official acts (however daft), you can only sue the US Government, which is what this is. If you try to sue in state court, the federal government will "remove" it to federal court.
2. Even if you win a lawsuit, no-one goes to jail. That requires a prosecution.
3. You cannot prosecute a sitting President; first, if the prosecution is in civil court, it will be removed to Federal court (like with point 1). And the United States (i.e. the US Department of Justice) will not prosecute a sitting President. And the Supreme Court in the case of United States vs Trump said that he's absolutely immune from prosecution for official acts, with no good definition of what constitutes an official act: theoretically, he could declare someone an enemy and order the military to murder them, and that would be OK. Yes, this is ludicrous.
4. The legal position is that the only way to deal with a lawless President is to impeach and remove him, and then a prosecution could proceed, but see last point: any prosecution would have to establish that the act for which a prosecution is being sought is outwith the bounds of a President's official actions, and there's no guidance for how to do that.
If *only* there were an American print outfit. If *only* companies could print on paper without resorting to China. Alas, clearly that's impossible, will never be possible, and to suggest such a thing is a direct, personal attack on those corporations who can't exist without China.
Guess we'd better sue the president of the united states for making foreign policy decisions that inconvenience them.
Sigh. Not that the current US president is in any way a decent thing, but seriously? These companies seem like the kind of incapable corporate entities that just need to disappear. The going gets tough, and the tough cry and scream and shout and sue the US government for its economic decisions? They're wasting $how+much on a lawsuit that will be thrown out of court for lack of standing? Oh, but surely the US gov will just adopt these small-time corporations' desired policies to save them a couple million dollars vs the government's economic policy attempt to improve the perceived hundreds-of-billions in overall economic woes.
I just honestly can't fathom how there are people so stupid (on either side).
If *only* there were an American print outfit. If *only* companies could print on paper without resorting to China. Alas, clearly that's impossible, will never be possible, and to suggest such a thing is a direct, personal attack on those corporations who can't exist without China.
The blog owner replied in the comments below the blog entry:
There is a game manufacturer in the US, Delano. Cartamundi also has a factory here. Both can pretty much only make printed components (mostly cards), but if they need custom tokens made of other materials (plastic, metal, resin, wood, etc), they source them from China. I’m not saying that’s a problem, but it shows that there are manufacturers who have made that long-term investment in US production, yet even they haven’t found a way (or a reason) to source those types of specialty bits and pieces at scale in the US. Is that not telling? And is that not okay in a global economy?
Isn't it telling?
The tariffs were needed long ago, to keep American manufacturing. Instead, the focus was *cheap*, and now the US is where the US is.
If you were completely convinced that the US economy is going down the drain, and the only way to stop it would be to bring some self-sufficiency back, how would you bootstrap manufacturing in the united states again? - don't take the view of "I wouldn't think that," because the person making the decisions *is*. (Well, probably not really, I don't think there's any thought at all there, really.)
In the only viable solution (against such a person) to sue until you get your cheap shit back?
"Instead, the focus was *cheap*, and now the US is where the US is."
One of the richest countries on earth, and the most powerful too.
On the other hand, those countries who had to focus on self-sufficiency are some of the poorest and most miserable countries on earth that can only survive by violence, robbery, and theft.
The question is, why are Americans so focused on the trade balance? That they get into a rage fit because others earn a buck?
I see parallels with the classical Roman Empire, which behaved more or less the same. They just weren't coy about it. Just like America, Rome wanted to expand consumption without expanding production.
Therefore, Rome just demanded tributes directly from their "partners". Tributes are the old name of "taxing other countries", which is what the Orange Emperor is calling tariffs.
In the words of the Orange Emperor:
tariffs will bring in enough revenue to "make America wealthy again."
When I look at "tariffs" as "tributes", current US policies make more sense. Extracting wealth from people is a core practice in US economic and politics. Tariffs are presented as a new tool to do so.
Tariffs are an ineffective tool to tax other countries though. They almost exclusively tax their own people, it hits Americans.
But that policy choice is simply incompetence and ignorance, two core values of MAGA. So that error was to be expected.
"If you were completely convinced that the US economy is going down the drain, and the only way to stop it would be to bring some self-sufficiency back, how would you bootstrap manufacturing in the united states again?"
Step 1: Focus on what, specifically, you need to be able to make there. Don't try to make everything. If you try to make everything, you're going to run out of ways to promote that capacity before you've gotten far enough. It's also a bad idea Because there are plenty of reasons why other. countries might be better at making something. Unless you need it, the place that makes it is an enemy, or there's some reason to think that you could do a lot better at it than you are right now, it might be better just to let it happen where it's already happening.
Step 2: Figure out who does make those things. Are they your friends or your enemies? Study them and figure out why they can do it there and can't where you are. The process forks after this depending on your answer, but to avoid writing too much...
Step 3: Get more of whatever they have access to and you don't. If you don't have enough skilled people, figure out how to encourage education of more. If they don't have a regulation you have that slows them down, consider whether the regulation is necessary (don't just eliminate it, consider it). If they have particularly rare people, figure out how to convince some to move to you.
Step 4: Determine whether any of those differences are unfair. If they are breaking an actual law, one that's been written down and you can point to and prove they broke in a court that doesn't already agree with you, pursue that. If it's an international trade regulation, there is the WTO to handle that, well there would be if the US hadn't been blocking it for several years, but it can do some things. Here's where you might use some tariffs, as punishments for specific and real problems.
Step 5: If the rest wasn't enough, here's where you have to hand out cash. Private companies won't do something if it's not profitable. Creating an environment may not be enough in those cases. You may need to pay them to start. After a while, it becomes expensive to move what they started, and if you were successful with the environment thing, they won't need your help anymore, so those subsidies can be temporary. Tariffs to block all the competition as an alternative to subsidies usually won't work, but they especially won't work if the environment problems are still there. Even if the environment is good enough, tariffs will make it difficult for anyone to start if they import anything. A car company could have access to people trained in engineering, a place to build factories, and regulations making it easy for them to make and sell cars. If they don't have any of the materials with which to make cars because there is a tariff on those, they still won't build that factory. This is why step 1 is so important; unless you already make a bunch of steel locally, tariffs on steel and on cars is likely to prevent you from starting a car factory.
Governments aren't great at following this process. The current attempt is worse than usual at it.
"The current attempt is worse than usual at it."
Unless, of course, it is just taxiffs, taxes "in disguise", to increase revenue. And home shoring is just an excuse. That is what the Orange would be Emperor promised during the elections. The beauty of the idea was that he believed these taxes would be paid by foreigners!
His ignorance and incompetence, shared by his followers, or just lies, made this hair brained idea stick.
But tax revenues won't increase if you tank the economy. So this attempt to increase revenue is worse than usual.
In both interpretations of current Orange politics the same conclusion is reached: Bad and incompetent policies.
I sense a trend.
>"The tariffs were needed long ago, to keep American manufacturing. Instead, the focus was *cheap*, and now the US is where the US is."
Funny how those who had the greatest influence and financed Trump are the very same people who benefitted the most from the US off-shoring its manufacturing all those decades back..
America is the richest nation on the planet. Do they really need to reboot manufacturing again when they have concentrated on adding value and it's worked out for them?
The working class aren't going to get richer by working in sweatshops making garments or screws again. What they have is a wealth distribution problem, not a manufacturing problem.
There are already half a million unfilled factory jobs in the US. If you try to bring back manufacturing everything, who is going to do the work? You can automate a lot of it, but you still need people, especially for small volume bespoke manufacturing like this.
The US (like most Western countries) became wealthy by concentrating on high value manufacturing & services then outsourced the low volume consumer manufacturing. It is simply not possible to do everything & would be stupid to try. Would you rather your finite workforce be manufacturing board games or toasters instead of airliners and quantum computers.
All you would end up with is consumer goods that cost far more than the imports. Not that any sane company would even consider building a factory while the orange idiot is changing his mind on tariffs every other day. Investment needs stability.
"Would you rather your finite workforce be manufacturing board games or toasters instead of airliners and quantum computers."
With 300m people, quite some number are barely capable of "would you like fries with that" so I'd rather they were not being sent off to build airliners and quantum computers :-)
If you were completely convinced that the US economy is going down the drain, and the only way to stop it would be to bring some self-sufficiency back, how would you bootstrap manufacturing in the united states again?
By turning the vast spending power of the US Government to domestic production instead of "Made in China" MAGA hats. And ousting Friedmanite economics from the Treasury.
Now obviously we're all sensible people and if someone said "the key to fixing our economy is to onshore manufacturing even if it's more expensive than China" then (given the opportunity) we'd beat them around the head whilst shouting "Comparative Advantage! Comparative Advantage! Comparative Advantage!".
Fixing the economy is simple.
* Actually tax the ultra-wealthy. There's nothing wrong with being a successful business person. Doing well for yourself is fine. But the wealth (even on paper) of Bezos, Zuck, Musk, Ellison, Arnault, Buffett, Page, Brin, Ballmer, Gates et al is simply evidence that they either aren't paying their staff enough or that they aren't being taxed hard enough. Bezos could give $100k in stocks to each of Amazon's million US staff and he'd still be worth >$100Bn (and be in the top 15 richest people globally). There is no difference in your quality of life if your net worth is $500m, $1Bn, $100Bn or $200Bn. I'm not proposing to cap wealth, but the US has 15 fortunes >$100Bn, which is Gilded Age levels of nonsense and a signal of policy failure.
* Quadruple the size of the FTC's Anti-Trust team and set them loose. Want innovation? Stop the Silicon Valley crowd crushing every plucky startup immediately - not 10years after the fact.
* Unions. Have them, use them.
* Start a New Deal jobs & infrastructure programme. Build high speed rail across the US - bring mid-west cities within 90minutes of each other. Same with the Texas triangle. The US has locomotive manufacturers - place orders with them! This retains spending domestically, in preference to people buying German cars or Airbus planes. It creates US jobs - not simply in construction, but in operation and maintenance. Fares remain in the US (instead of people's automotive parts and service expenses leaving the US).
* Build trolleybus/tram/metro networks across any city >250k people. Same deal - if a family has one car instead of two, and is spending money on tram fares instead of BMW parts, then that's supporting more local jobs.
* Socialised healthcare. Or if you can't swallow that, then a German-style national health insurance provider (Fanny Mae/Freddie Mac equivalent) that all health providers are required to deal with. Ensure that generic therapeutics like insulin and epipens are available for pennies, not $200/shot. This improves the health of your workforce, reins in the excesses of abusive insurers and leaves working families with more in their pockets for discretionary expenditure.
* Where it is required for national security (e.g. specialist steels, castings, manufacturing, etc), domestic manufacturers are already mandated. If those businesses are not viable then nationalise them and give their employees that job security (see: Sheffield Forgemasters).
Basically, revisit all the infrastructure investment the government was doing in the 1960s when the economy was booming, people had job security and decent healthcare (these things are not a coincidence!).
Manufacturing is important. But it's an interesting obsession - the obsession with trade balance is silly. People are willing to send the US actual *manufactured stuff* in return for the dollars which you print in the Treasury, and of which there are a functionally limitless supply. Win! If only people would give me manufactured items in return for rg dollars or my business cards - what a life that would be! The problem is a lack of investment into local services and infra. Plus the relentless drive for "growth" which sees perfectly profitable and sustainable businesses enshittifying themselves to turn products into subscriptions to pad next quarter's figures. Or twisting the law to make (illegal) stock buybacks somehow pass muster, allowing shareholders to avoid dividend or income taxes but adding no value to the business whatsoever.
A return to actually doing useful, productive work and taxing profits for infrastructure investment is all you need.
"Basically, revisit all the infrastructure investment the government was doing in the 1960s when the economy was booming, people had job security and decent healthcare (these things are not a coincidence!)."
Apparently, there are many 1000's of bridges built back then in a very parlous state of repair. Dealing with that alone is probably quite a job generating infrastructure project that would also help the local steel industry :-)
On the assumption that your post was based on mere ignorance:
1) It's not "just" printing on paper. It's a variety of cast, turned, moulded and other things, plus printing and cutting, assembly and packaging. You've probably got a board game somewhere, have a look.
2) Right now, there are very few US businesses making these things. Certainly nowhere near enough to meet demand.
Starting up or significantly expanding a manufacturing business requires specialist equipment and skilled workers. That costs quite a lot and takes a long time.
It'd be at least a year before the first products would roll into a semi truck. Not "next week".
3) Borrowing the necessary money to buy those machines and hire those people requires convincing the bank that there's a stable enough market that it'll still be viable for the next five years or so.
Trump's behavior means no bank would lend, because the economic situation changes radically without any notice. Sure, there might be demand today, but it could be gone tomorrow in a whirlwind of word salad.
4) These orders were placed a year ago, for delivery now. They cannot be simply cancelled and switched over to some other manufacturer (even if they did exist), as that would be a breach of contract.
Perhaps the next run, for delivery in 2026 could be "Made in the USA". But the businesses won't exist to do that because the tariffs on this run will bankrupt them.
5) The plaintiffs have been directly harmed, which is the very definition of standing.
1) It's not "just" printing on paper. It's a variety of cast, turned, moulded and other things, plus printing and cutting, assembly and packaging. You've probably got a board game somewhere, have a look.2) Right now, there are very few US businesses making these things. Certainly nowhere near enough to meet demand.
Starting up or significantly expanding a manufacturing business requires specialist equipment and skilled workers. That costs quite a lot and takes a long time.
Funnily enough, all that stuff is something the US did, or could do, and is kinda the point behind the tariff wars. American companies that provided those services had to close down and lay off staff because the plaintiffs in this case, along with other businesses decided to offshore to China instead of supporting US manufacturing.
Rather than wasting money on lawyers, perhaps they should look at taking advantage of the situation, along with business development funding to build factories that can supply the US market. Labor costs might be higher in the US, but with robotic injection molding machines, less labor is needed.
5) The plaintiffs have been directly harmed, which is the very definition of standing.
Standing in a courtroom screaming 'It's not fair', rather than seizing the opportunity created to grab some of the market..
but with robotic injection molding machines, less labor is needed.
It's not that simple. You could fit all the mouldmakers in the USA in a small room, in China you'd need a stadium.
America can build all the factories it wants which would certainly help the construction industry but the factories once built would mostly be idle because you have lost the expertise to operate them.
Blair was right about one thing: "education, education, education". The GOP has been degrading education for decades and you are now paying the price.
It's not that simple. You could fit all the mouldmakers in the USA in a small room, in China you'd need a stadium.
It's simpler than it used to be. So here's a thing-
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haas_Automation
and a Californian thing at that. There's another American thing called AutoDesk-
https://www.autodesk.com/uk/products/moldflow/overview
Optimise parts, moulds and processes
Analyse single cavity or multi-cavity moulds to identify part manufacturability, tool design, material choice and process optimisation. Model or import cooling systems and feed systems.
And thanks to a couple of bits of US tech, the software can talk to hardware, and once you've simulated your part, you can send the mould design to your CNC machine to make it. Well, with Autodesk, assuming the 'cloud' is working and you have enough cash to spend on AutoDesk's 'tokens' as well. AutoDesk's licensing model sucks like that.
So a different skillset than traditional mould or pattern making. But has some other advantages. Like toy 'manufacturer' can send their designs to CAD person, 3D-print prototype, then after a few iterations, make the moulds and start mass production. Potentially a lot faster than working with a Chinese supplier. Especially given tariffs are currently bi-directional and Chinese factories are shutting down because..
https://www.spglobal.com/commodity-insights/en/news-research/latest-news/refined-products/042525-china-likely-to-exempt-us-ethane-from-retaliatory-tariffs-industry-sources
China imported 1.39 million mt of ethane, worth $721.2 million, in the first quarter of 2025, all of which came from the US, according to Chinese customs data, up 12.3% year-over-year.
So some Chinese plastics factories are closing because they can't get feedstock. One of those strange bits of 'global' economics where the US went down the value chain rather than up. Plus certain sections of the far-left want to ban oil & gas, so there'll be no ethane in the US either <shrug>.
..but the factories once built would mostly be idle because you have lost the expertise to operate them.
Well.. why not.. find them again?
The GOP has been degrading education for decades and you are now paying the price.
It wasn't the GOP that got US schools churning out students who can barely read, write or do basic math. Or Universities that have much the same problem, but can graduate with worthless degrees and $250k+ in debt. Probably why the GOP is looking at education reform to get back to basics and ensure American kids do have a basic education. See also Mike Rowe and the stuff he does to promote tech & trade schools.
"Well.. why not.. find them again?”
Well yes there are plenty around, they just aren’t in the United States, so are you advocating for mass immigration?
"It wasn't the GOP that got US schools churning out students who can barely read, write or do basic math.”
OK maybe, but it’s not really relevant now is it? The reality is that now, right now, the US simply doesn't have the people with the required skills to operate the factories and manufacture the devices. Just like the UK, the US moved to being a services-based economy rather than a manufacturing one, decades ago, and if you want to change it back, then it will take decades, not years, certainly not months. to do this.
"graduate with worthless degrees and $250k+ in debt. Probably why the GOP is looking at education reform to get back to basics and ensure American kids do have a basic education”
Fine, yes I agree there are some fairly eyebrow raising degree courses (I heard of one on Golf Course studies*);
https://www.birmingham.ac.uk/study/undergraduate/subjects/golf-management-courses/applied-golf-management-studies-bsc
But again even if the GOP implements reforms ’now’, and said reforms actually work (by no means a given) how long will it take for those changes to filter through? What are you going to do right now, tomorrow, next year etc?
If it were desirable to encourage more manufacturing in the US, and that really isn’t obvious, then surely the way to do it is slowly, encourage it, tax grants (but tied to actual, demonstrable results), federal or state funding for degrees in ‘certain’ subjects, physics, chemistry, engineering etc. Study these and the course fees are covered?
The problem, of course is that these are all long-term projects, any administration that starts them won't be around to bask in the glory of the results - and that doesn’t seem to be the way that the western world works, alas.
So where are we? ‘Beautiful tariffs’, which do what? Long term (but see above), may, may encourage US manufacture but in the short term will, absolutely will result in empty shelves and small companies going out of business. It’s the classic example of trying to give a simple solution to a complex problem.
And this is where the downvotes start - Trump is, absolutely is, going to back down. He’ll have to. The sheer damage it will do to the American economy will force his hand, or possibly push his cabinet to invoke the 25th! Now, no doubt this back down will be presented as a great success, how all the other countries have capitulated and agreed; what turns out to be some minor concession.
* Yes, OK there may be some requirement for people with degree level expertise on the design of Golf courses, but I doubt there is a massive demand for them!
Well yes there are plenty around, they just aren’t in the United States, so are you advocating for mass immigration?
No, I'm advocating switching manufacturing from plastics to straw. You seem familiar with this material. Biden did however advocate for mass, illegal immigration. It isn't entirely clear if this was to try and get cheap votes, or cheap labour. But manufacturing closed down relatively recently in the US, there are people who would have been laid off and could be re-hired or retrained. If that isn't enough, I doubt there'd be much need for 'mass' immigration, just enough skilled people to fill vacancies.
OK maybe, but it’s not really relevant now is it? The reality is that now, right now, the US simply doesn't have the people with the required skills to operate the factories and manufacture the devices
Depends on what skills you think are needed, or how complicated you think running a production line might be. Installing it and setting it up needs more skills than picking & packing, if those can't be automated. Those blue collar jobs that Clinton's 'ordinary Americans' used to do before the Democrat's donors offshored them. Wonder how many votes the Donkeys would have got, if they'd had realistic proposals to bring those jobs back onshore? Instead, they let Trump seize that initiative and are now on the back foot and claiming that this is a terrible idea..
But again even if the GOP implements reforms ’now’, and said reforms actually work (by no means a given) how long will it take for those changes to filter through? What are you going to do right now, tomorrow, next year etc?
Well, the crazy thing is that pretty much every time there's a crisis, there are opportunities to go along with those. So basically do something now rather than wasting money on frivolous lawsuits or saying it's all too hard, it's soo unfair. But-
"Like many tabletop publishers (import code 9504.90.6000*), we started print runs of products before the President took office, and now we face an unprecedented $14.50 tariff tax for every $10 we spent on manufacturing with our trusted long-term partner in China," the tabletop game publisher said. "For Stonemaier Games alone (a US based company in which all 8 employees are US citizens), that amounts to upcoming tariff payments of nearly $1.5 million.
Presumably as part of their risk management strategy, Stonemaier paid attention to Trump ranting about China, then Biden, then Trump again and had contingency plans for supply-chain disruption. Especially after that coughing thing. But one of their upcoming games has the components listed here-
https://stonemaiergames.com/games/vantage/
And it seems mostly printed cards, dice, cubes and tokens. So not exactly complicated things to manufacture, and maybe the companies that make dice & cards for US casinos would be happy to take an order for a suspiciously convenient round number of $1m. And then they'd 'save' $1.5m, if products were manufactured domestically along with avoiding shipping costs from China. Plus it's apparently a $65 game, so unless margins are razor thin, could probably eat the cost, or just put the RRP up to $69.95 Especially as other businesses seem to be using this as an opportunity to raise prices & blame Trump because thanks to our education system and media, a depressing number of people seem to think tariffs apply to the retail price rather than the landed cost.
Oh, and-
https://stonemaiergames.com/kickstarter/book/
The key lessons Jamey shares in A Crowdfunder’s Strategy Guide, as inspired by his Kickstarter Lessons blog, are the culmination of Jamey’s experience and success with eight crowdfunding campaigns, totaling over $3 million in funding.
Crazy idea. Apply those skills and knowledge into crowdfunding a factory, perhaps spreading the cost around with other boardgame companies. Another thing about crises is money often starts looking for a home, so with an attractive business case and demonstrable track record, he shouldn't really have a problem attracting investors. But he seems to be a Democrat who would rather blame Trump than fix his business.
* Yes, OK there may be some requirement for people with degree level expertise on the design of Golf courses, but I doubt there is a massive demand for them!
Just as there's no longer a massive demand for DEI graduates to make sure businesses are filling quotas rather than orders..
This post has been deleted by its author
"Biden did however advocate for mass, illegal immigration."
Multiple sources all seem to agree, with varying numbers, that Biden during his 4 year term deported more illegals than Trump 1.0 did. Likewise, despite that publicity, Trump 2.0 seems to be failing to remove illegal migrants at anywhere close to the "promised" rates. Rates which have been falling since the initial fanfares and are still below the levels reported for the equivalent time period of Bidens administration.
You just made an extraordinary claim, so I'd like to see your extraordinary proof, with context.
@John Brown (no body)
"Multiple sources all seem to agree, with varying numbers, that Biden during his 4 year term deported more illegals than Trump 1.0 did"
I doubt that is surprising when Biden had far more flowing over the border. While we have heard the stupidity of sanctuary cities recently 2 judges have been arrested, one for harbouring an illegal who violated gun laws and one who tried to sneak an illegal past ICE agents. Another apparently refuses to take cases because she doesnt want ICE turning up to collect the criminals for deportation.
Fine, yes I agree there are some fairly eyebrow raising degree courses (I heard of one on Golf Course studies*);"
Yeah, those sorts of course tend to be a marketing gimmicks to attract students into areas that are struggling. A bit like the "surfing degree" a UK university offer)s|ed). IIRC, it included subjects such as fluid dynamics, materials science and business studies/management, essentially getting students into STEM courses who might not previously have considered them. I've no idea if it worked or not though. On the other hand, it could work for someone who is a bit entrepreneurial :-)
That it capitalism for you - mostly in conjunction with the enemy called communism
The former wants maximum profits which means the cheapest cost to purchase/manufacturer, and then that is by the latter as they do not care who makes it from their all for one resources or for how much and therefore it is the cheapest.
If the latter then sees an industry it wants to get into. Throw money at it, get it good and cheap and then start to sell abroad. Eventually you'll have really good products, me be market leaders and fuck all the capitalist suppliers in that industry..
Ring any bells
@AC
"If the latter then sees an industry it wants to get into. Throw money at it, get it good and cheap and then start to sell abroad. Eventually you'll have really good products, me be market leaders and fuck all the capitalist suppliers in that industry.."
Which explains the vast difference between those massively rich communist countries vs all us poor capitalist countries. Oh wait...
"I just honestly can't fathom how there are people so stupid (on either side)."
The other side is not stupid enough to unilaterally raise tariffs on all land masses and uninhabited islands in the world.
The other side is not stupid enough to fire essential government workers only to have to attempt to rehire them when their stupidity is discovered.
The other side at least makes an attempt to discover where spending can be cut and not resort to slash and burn.
The other side is not stupid enough to cut funding for basic research.
The other side knows that government grants to colleges are mostly for basic research that corporations will not do because there is not profit in it in the short term.
The other side believes in science, well mostly.
The other side does not use government law enforcement for revenge. Yeah I know you think they do but multiple jury convictions show that laws were broken which is why they were prosecuted.
The other side does not blindly follow a lying leader even when they know he is lying about almost everything.
The other side believes that only qualified people should be confirmed for all cabinet posts.
The other side listens to doctors not conspiracies and their spreaders, again well mostly.
The other side does not believe that the cruelty is the point.
The other side does not believe that proven corrupt supreme court judges should not be held accountable for their corruption.
The other side does not believe that the rich elite should pull the strings to run government, yet again well mostly.
The other side does not believe that corporations are people too.
These are just the most obvious, the full list is longer. I am on the other side although I became an independent when Clinton made it OK for democrats to be corporately funded. Luckily some of them have seen the error of that way and renounced it in thought and deed. To which I say to them, welcome to the other side.
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The other side is China right - because you're utterly deluded if you think Don Tariff is any worse than Genocide Joe or the Daily Bomber.
The Genocide has cost billions in direct arms and trillions in soft capital, the destruction of the figleaf of democracy has the most self-absorbed people in history (Academics) declining to work in the US.
That's Genocide Joe's doing,
It's optics, and so what, you think the US looks bad because Don Tariff is a supporter of Whisky leaks.
The problem you dont appreciate is that Americans want everyone else to work for nothing so they can slap a big commission for their part of the process. What they dont understand is one day the elevated advantage of the US dollar will disappear and they will fail because of the greed and laziness.
Americans bravely submitting their own kids to the coal mines rather than do anything “woke”.
It's not just Americans doing 'woke' jokes. Here's a classic-
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cjr7pge4ej5o
Ministers announced 55,000 tonnes of blast furnace coke arrived from Australia at the port of Immingham on Saturday and would be transferred by rail to Scunthorpe.
https://friendsoftheearth.uk/climate/judgment-whitehaven-coal-mine-september-2024-legal-briefing
Friends of the Earth and South Lakes Action on Climate Change have won their legal cases against plans for a controversial new coal mine Whitehaven, Cumbria. The High Court has quashed the planning permission granted by former Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Levelling Up, Michael Gove.
This result is a resounding victory for climate justice, and it shows the power of communities in standing up to the fossil fuel industry. It represents a serious blow to the fossil fuel industry.
Woo! Yey! Stick it to those evil fossil fuel companies. But-
Distance Whitehaven to Scunthorpe- 3h 25m (186 mi) via A66 and A1(M)
Distance from Newcastle to Scunthorpe 16,840 km
And that's a straight-line distance. By ship, it'd be longer and FoE don't care about CO2e from shipping err.. coals to Newcastle. There was nothing very controversial about the proposed coal mine in Whitehaven, other than it was to produce coking coal so we didn't need to ship that half way around the world..
It looks like the 'mericans want to eat their cake and keep it. Belieiving(1) America would be better off if more people worked in manufacturing but they personally would not be better off working in manufacturing. Belieiving US becomes richer and safer while at the same time saying Americans are getting cheated by U.S. trade agreements with other countries and Globalization and trade with other countries has hollowed out the American middle class.
If you believe all that it doesn't seem logical to stop trading internationally but to change something to allow the middle class and people working in manufactoring to benefit from the increased wealth instead of it going to the upper class. Tariffs will have a very different effect.
(1)https://www.cato.org/sites/cato.org/files/2024-08/Globalization%20Survey_2024.pdf
Icon as my viewpoint seems to be alien for at least half the US voters ==>
>If *only* there were an American print outfit. If *only* companies could print on paper without resorting to China. Alas, clearly that's impossible, will never be possible, and to suggest such a thing is a direct, personal attack on those corporations who can't exist without China.
You haven't read the article. Or, if you've read it, you've chosen not to understand it, in order to further your point. The people interviewed have very clearly explained why their problems cannot be fixed by shifting manufacturing to the USA. I'll synthesize the main problems, for anyone else reading (I don't think you'll pay attention).
1) Sure, you have printers in the USA. Do you also have time machines? They are getting taxed on orders which were placed many months ago. Some of those bills are crushing.
2) It's not just printers. For many game parts, the relevant manufacturers either do not exist in the USA, or they are so vanishingly few that they have nowhere close to sufficient capacity. Setting up a new small batches mould production line takes many months at best, a year or two at worst. What exactly is your small business going to do in the mean time?
3) Those production lines, once set up, take many years to pay for themselves. How long are the tariffs going to stay? Long enough to turn a profit on your new USA production line? Would you bet your whole business on it? Yeah, thought not. Because of this, the capacity that's not there will not appear any time soon.
4) Even after everything is sorted, the price of the USA-made finished product would be much higher, because there's no way manufacturing in the USA is as cheap as in China, not even close (unless something goes even more horribly wrong). You okay with paying 100$ for a basic Monopoly box? 250$ for Hero Quest? 500$ for Descent? Yeah, I thought not.
The most likely final outcome, unless something changes, is that a crapload of producers will fold, and those who survive will make games without minis and counters, and just make everything from cardboard, while still pricing them the same or more. Sure, you can say screw it, it's just games, and back when you were a kid you had so much fun with cardboard tokens anyway. Now project this to some sector of the economy you actually care about...
"Setting up a new small batches mould production line takes many months at best, a year or two at worst. "
And probably requires import of machines, components and/or raw materials that have to be imported and will now cost more because of tariffs. When you apply tariffs to supply lines you don't understand things will get very bad very, very quickly.
1 is indeed a valid point.
2-4 are arguments to maintain the status quo and do nothing. "(4) the price of the USA-made finished product would be much higher," and that is one of the points of tariffs to protect your local industry. "(3) Those production lines, once set up, take many years to pay for themselves." Guess the US had better invest in manufacturing and do whatever is required to keep it. Etc.
How would you suggest bootstrapping manufacturing in the united states?
What measures should be taken to ensure that US manufacturing remains available in the US, and isn't shut down because China can do it for 5% cheaper?
How will you achieve these things while ensuring that no one has to pay more (constantly mentioned point 4) , no organization defaults (one of the points of this article, point 1), and no environmental damage occurs?
Nobody said that you shouldn't boost local manufacturing, but this doesn't mean that running around naked and screaming should be lauded because it's "doing something".
First of all, you can use tariffs for this, but they have to make sense. You may notice that both the Biden administration and the EU levied tariffs against China, and while there was a lot of debate, as there should be, there was no massive disruption because of this. Make them targeted, make them gradual, couple them with local incentives, and so on and so forth.
Sure, this will take a long time to have an impact, but how could it be otherwise? Building capacity and restructuring supply chains takes years, building expertise for specialist sectors takes decades, and you still need widgets in the mean time. How could there be a quick solution?
Secondly, at this point there is pretty much no way for Trump, specifically, to make this work. The reason is point number (3) above. Building a factory takes years, turning a profit on it takes longer. Trump has changed the rules multiple times in a span of weeks, he is only there for three years and a half, he has made no attempt to make this even slightly bipartisan in any way, shape or fashion, a lot of people within his own party don't like this anyway, and he has already shown himself untrustworthy on his own trade deals.
If he said tomorrow that, look, sorry for the confusion, but here are the definitive tariffs; they will not change for the rest of my mandate, and they are unlikely to be changed quickly even if the democrats win in 2028, why on Earth would a business owner believe him, based on what we've seen so far? If I get a loan to build a resin mould production line and then Trump changes his mind and lowers China tariffs to 30%, I'll instantly go bankrupt. If Trump keeps still, but then the following administration does something similar, I'll go bankrupt in four years. I'd be insane to take that bet. Hell, the bank would be pretty reckless if they gave me that loan.
At this point, another President might find a way to do it, but Trump, on this, is already burned. He doesn't have enough time to regain sufficient trust.
Secondly, at this point there is pretty much no way for Trump, specifically, to make this work. The reason is point number (3) above. Building a factory takes years, turning a profit on it takes longer.
Only if you're incompetent. Building a factory should be possible in <1yr, give or take permitting. But that's where government and lobbying can help. So-
Solyndra received a $535 million U.S. Department of Energy loan guarantee, the first recipient of a loan guarantee under President Barack Obama's economic stimulus program
Of course like many Democrat 'stimulus' programs, that one didn't exactly work out too well. But they also got money from California because California lost a lot of blue-collar jobs as those were off-shored. But while the factory is being built and the machines installed and set up, start training future employees. Given US flexible labor laws, you can probably get stimulus funds for doing that as well, and probably wouldn't have to hire the people while they were being trained.
But then you'd perhaps be competing with-
https://tcsjohnhuxley.com/media-centre/tcsjohnhuxley-concludes-acquisition-of-midwest-game-supply-inc/
TCSJOHNHUXLEY today concluded the acquisition of Midwest Game Supply Inc (‘MWGS’), the recognized world leader in the manufacture and distribution of dice as well as additional product lines which include layouts and accessories.
and-
https://bicyclecards.com/custom-printing/
Any type of custom made playing cards for online retail or Kickstarter campaigns. Design the backs, faces, colors, and tuck. *Orders less than 2500 decks can be digitally outsourced but will not be printed on Bicycle card stock
Which is kind of the point behind the tariffs. Buy American, save $1.5m in tariffs. Might cost a little more than giving $1m to Chinese companies, but might also give you a shorter supply chain and more certainty & flexibility. Buy or build is a decision that any real manufacturer has to decide, but making the right decision can have a lot of benefits.
But it's interesting to see how the anti-Trump brigade show a lot of negativity and pessimism. It can't be done, it'd cost too much, it'd take too long, it's all Trump's fault. Waste money on lawyers instead of process engineers and coming up with a solution. Might not be easy, and would have costs.. But USPC's been making cards for 150yrs and trades on their quality and 'Made in America'. Owned by some Belgians now, but has been looking at diversifying into board games.
(It's one of those things that my information junkie brain went down the rabbit hole with. Went to Vegas, planning to learn Craps, ended up learning about how casinos get 'perfect' dice instead. In which I discovered casinos wouldn't let me have used dice because they, and cards are securely destroyed. And casinos go through a LOT of cards and dice given the frequency they're swapped out. Shops in Vegas do sell 'authentic' casino consumables, so I have a load of traditional clay poker chips because they just feel and sound better than plastic.)
"But then you'd perhaps be competing with-
https://tcsjohnhuxley.com/media-centre/tcsjohnhuxley-concludes-acquisition-of-midwest-game-supply-inc/
TCSJOHNHUXLEY today concluded the acquisition of Midwest Game Supply Inc (‘MWGS’), the recognized world leader in the manufacture and distribution of dice as well as additional product lines which include layouts and accessories."
Interesting that you chose to highlight a US based family business being taken over by a foreign (British) company, and ironic that they specialise in Casino supplies, an industry Trump would probably rather forget he was ever involved in :-)
Interesting that you chose to highlight a US based family business being taken over by a foreign (British) company, and ironic that they specialise in Casino supplies, an industry Trump would probably rather forget he was ever involved in :-)
Interesting that you manage to work in a bit of Trump bashing. Actually, that's becoming sadly normal for El Reg.
But it doesn't really matter if existing gaming companies are owned by Britain or Belgium. What matters is if they have the capability and interest in diversifying into board game supplies. Then what would be even more interesting is understanding the costs. So for a $65rrp board game, how much the Chinese elements cost, and how much it would cost to manufacture those in the US. Then understanding why US costs might be far higher than Chinese.
Louis Rossman dropped a video about a gadget maker who also got hit by tariffs. They did try finding US sources, but reckoned the cost was around double. Some of those costs were for stuff that could be highly automated, eg PCB creation. Other aspects could mean labor costs, ie populating the boards with components, but that's something that is also automated for mass-produced boards. Still some snags, ie a lot of the components wouldn't be manufactured in the US, so would still need to be imported. But a 145% tariff on a 2c component would have less impact than when it's applied to a complete product.
But there are other factors, like China is just really good at this stuff. A while back, some friends and I were interested in making sensor modules for home automation. There were a bunch of Chinese companies that would either take a circuit diagram, or just a list of requirements and could get to prototyping in <1wk. There are European companies that will do the same thing, but cost more and were a lot slower. I suspect that's a function of the numbers game, so China produces a lot of STEM graduates compared to Europe, and employing those brains is cheaper.
But back to dice and tokens. This is an interesting video about ammunition manufacturing-
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1RN2vDgLIY4
Where the factory has the ability to easily(ish) switch production lines from making different size & shape rounds. One day a line might be spitting out 5.56, another, 7.62. Swap tooling, load presets, make stuff. The tour didn't show a lot of staff, so if you're spreading that labor cost over a run of say, 1m rounds, it's not a lot. So set up a line that can produce d6, d20, d22 and away you go. Also curious why dice making shows a lot of injection moulding and if a different process might be cheaper/faster. So rather than injection moulding an assembly of say, 8 dice with steps for detaching and removing sprue marks, if it'd be possible to just stamp/press dice instead.
Which is again what Trump is trying to incentivise. Problem is it seems to be all stick and no carrot. With a wave of a pen, US 'manufactured' products like board games become 145% more expensive. But no carrot in the form of cheap money to establish US manufacturing instead. No idea if that's something that Trump could do at a Federal level, or if that money would have to come at the State level, or budgets approved by Congress. I know it's something that can be done, eg the Solyndra loan(s), or states dangling money/subsidies/incentives to build battery, semiconductor or bit-barns in their state.
I bought expensive american photo books (one from MOMA) that were printed in Ittaly, others in China. Sure China invented paper and Italy has a very long tradition in high-quality printed books, but really, coudn't they be printed in the USA?
Asserting that there could be no business bu ressorting to low paid workers in China and environment-unfriendly factories there because of easy profits, is the way to ensure Trump tribe keeps the power for very very long.
Sure Trump is doing what is needed in the worst way, damaging allies as well and raising tariffs withouyt ready alternatives, but USA put themselves in the deep hole they dug, since they used Taiwan and Hog-Kong as cheap sources in the 1970s.
Of course you could keep funnel billions to China - it won't say thank you when they decided they are powerful enough to make their own rules.
"but really, coudn't they be printed in the USA?"
Why would that be better? Americans produce and export things they do better, and import things others do better.
So all are better off. For decades, printing has not been a thing Americans are doing better.
The problem of the US is that they didn't invest in things to export and didn't train people to develop new things to produce. They simply banked on extracting money from the dollar's global reserve status.
But now they need more money to placate the demands of the commoners who are starting to rebel as they see billionaires prosper and not getting basic health and housing themselves.
Instead of doing the unthinkable, taxing wealthy people, they came up with the hare brained taxiffs to raise taxes without calling it taxes
It doesn't work. Instead of more revenues, taxiffs are causing a global recession or even an American economic depression.
>Americans produce and export things they do better
What would those be? I am not aware of anything worthwhile that the USA produces or exports. It produces dogshit food, pestilential poultry, mangy gmo-modified beef, and one of the unhealthiest populations of the planet. It exports coups d'etats against democractically elected governments (for close to a century), wars, violence and suffering. If there is anything else it might possibly be anti-democratic surveillance, extra-judicial murders, drone executions, food products and just to be sure ludicrously over-priced shite and US-controlled IT services. Whoo-hoo. Did we really need those fucking "exports"? They are a fucking liability. No country in their right mind wants to be associated with the US (or indeed Europe, whose approach isn't actually that different). Which is why China is the state hoovering up infrastructure and development projects all over the developing world (despite what we all know). How many times do you get shafted before you realise? You will always be the shaftee but munchkin Americans and Europeans claim they are honest, open and your friend. As they shaft you again! What the world needs to do is stop being shafted by the US, Russia, China, Europe and take them out. They are incapable of producing anything worthwhile in any arena: basics materials, basic industries, commercial products, IP, infrastructure, a future for humanity.
You have to look at an "reproducible build" for a product and work backwards to the "seed".
What is a printed, bound book - it's an output from a machine run. Where are the parts for that machine coming from? Where is feedstock for the ink coming from? How much woodstock is required.
Once you dig in, you find some enormous time consuming supply chain for some essential input which dominates the cost.
Now lets talk about labour how many skilled operators, installers, technicians are there for these book production facilities, a highly automated multi-colour press is a scary, noisy beast. https://www.komori.com/en/global/product/press/offset/advance/g40p_a.html
You have to power, light, cool, and dispose of waste - that's not cheap or easy in some parts of the US. the US is huge, transportation costs can be high for a diffuse population.
In short, it's not a fixable problem without Investing in people, and infrastructure over many decades.
"you could easily build and pay for metro systems in basically every single major city in the USA."
Does that include the training of the people to build and operate the metro and the cars riding it? And the people and factories to build the equipment to dig the tunnels and lay the tracks?
I assume the money will not be the problem, but getting people and train them takes years.
However, you could hire workers from China. They have built a lot of metro systems in the last decades.
AC: Does that include the training of the people to build and operate the metro and the cars riding it ?
cow: Of course it does. It doesnt take 10 years to learn how to drive a metro.
AC: And the people and factories to build the equipment to dig the tunnels and lay the tracks?
cow: America already has Caterpillar, they are the big y elloe machinary all over large building sites.
> cow: Of course it does. It doesnt take 10 years to learn how to drive a metro.
However, as we have seen in the UK when faced with a shortage of doctors, nurses, HGV drivers, …
The first reaction of the wealthy business owners is to whinge about about the problem is down to people not wanting to work for the low wages they are paying and poor working conditions. The second is to demand the government makes these skills an exception to the immigration rules, in the belief that foreign workers can simply step in and gladly take the low wages and poor working conditions. Thirdly, some increase wages and try and poach skilled workers from other employers. A few will actually do what is necessary and train new workers, but as these people tend to change jobs/employers after a few years, so why would businesses do that, training something the government should be paying for not business…
The other thing we in the UK have learnt, the problem won’t go away, it will be back in a few years. The current shortage of doctors is in a large part down to a lack of foresight dating back to the 1950s when successive governments failed to invest in medical schools.
However, as we have seen in the UK when faced with a shortage of doctors, nurses, HGV drivers, …
But also as we've seen in the UK.. You don't need drivers on a Metro. Take a trip on the DLR as an example, and can sit in the driver's seat. But there's also a 4th challenge on that one, namely unions. It could be a good thing to have a spotter sitting up front, but the DLR has managed for years without them and has a pretty good safety record.
(But metros in the US can be very strange. So Las Vegas and their Teslas in a drainpipe. And that network is being expanded for some reason rather than just building a proper mass-transit system)
But also as we've seen in the UK.. You don't need drivers on a Metro. Take a trip on the DLR as an example, and can sit in the driver's seat. But there's also a 4th challenge on that one, namely unions. It could be a good thing to have a spotter sitting up front, but the DLR has managed for years without them and has a pretty good safety record.
You need staff. Even genuinely "Unattended" systems (Grade of Automation lvl 4) like the Singapore or Copenhagen metros have station staff and a control centre of people monitoring the trains. If they go on strike, the trains don't run.
The DLR is manned. It's only GoA 3, which means there is a staff member on board who operates the door, checks the train is safe to dispatch (nobody leaning on the train, or with a skirt trapped in a door) and they can then provide directions and advice for onward travel to passengers. They're driver-trained and if necessary can take control using the panel at the front of every DLR train. The train doesn't move without them, and they're as essential as a driver, because they are the driver. Perhaps "operator" is a better work. A lot of people probably think they're just station staff travelling down the line for something at the next stop, not realising they're actually operating the train.
The problem in these respects are not usually the unions, but people not understanding what "driverless" means, or the varied - often invisible - safety duties are that the driver and guards do.
Making the train drive itself is child's play, but there's a lot that goes into preventing a repeat of the video which is shown to every TfL driver-candidate on day one of training, which is of a little boy being whisked down the platform, his coat trapped in a door to his ultimate messy and horrible demise at the end of the platform.
You're right, you don't need drivers on a metro - but only if the metro was built that way to start with (with platform screen doors, straightish platforms, gap fillers, etc). Getting a GoA1 system to GoA4 is a total rebuild and often impossible.
The DLR is manned. It's only GoA 3, which means there is a staff member on board who operates the door, checks the train is safe to dispatch (nobody leaning on the train, or with a skirt trapped in a door) and they can then provide directions and advice for onward travel to passengers.
I've been on it many times when there were no staff onboard. Including a time when 'I must have dozed off' and stayed on a train at the Bank just so I could see what was down the tunnel at the end of the line. Which wasn't that exciting and no staff appeared to notice. But I agree that there should be 'guards' on board, but it seems like a lot of that is being done remotely via cameras on platforms and in the train.
You're right, you don't need drivers on a metro - but only if the metro was built that way to start with (with platform screen doors, straightish platforms, gap fillers, etc). Getting a GoA1 system to GoA4 is a total rebuild and often impossible.
Yup. I also had fun with those screen doors when they were being installed at Canary Wharf. But Biden et al promised billions in things like their ironically named 'Inflation Reduction Act' pork barrels, so if the US is serious about infrastructure, they could build systems correctly from the start. Places like NYC.. well, that's a whole different challenge. Or Vegas again where their drain system* is being expanded to drive Teslas through it rather than building a proper metro system instead. Hell, even try a more integrated system that can fit a bus down the drain pipe and link that into their existing bus network.. And just pretend that bus battery fires have never happened.
*Drain system because Vegas floods fairly often in their rainy season.
I've been on it many times when there were no staff onboard. Including a time when 'I must have dozed off' and stayed on a train at the Bank just so I could see what was down the tunnel at the end of the line. Which wasn't that exciting and no staff appeared to notice.
Which is very odd. Because it requires a staff member to close the doors and dispatch the train, and TfL state that a staff member ("Train Captain") is on board every train in their accessibility information.
They may have dabbled with it guardless in stretches that have PSDs, but on balance they need staff about for safety and accessibility. It was never designed as GoA4. I suspect the DLR could - unusually in London - be upgraded to GoA4, but it hasn't been, and staff strikes will stop the DLR just as surely as the victorian lines.
Which is very odd.
Odd would have been finding Vinny Jones with a meat cleaver at the end of a dark tunnel. Luckily for me, that never happened.
Because it requires a staff member to close the doors and dispatch the train, and TfL state that a staff member ("Train Captain") is on board every train in their accessibility information.
No idea, but been a customer and worked with TfL often enough to know that what they say and what they do can be very different beasts. Plus Docklands being bit-barn central, was on the DLR often enough to have been on both empty & sardine filled trains. Maybe it was times when they were short staffed, maybe it's because their technology allows them to be unmanned and they experimented with that sometimes. Combination of CCTV and call points makes that a possibility, especially for any city thinking of investing in new mass transit systems.
If theres one thing that London like my home country of AU has is far too many spokesmans, managers and other bullshit positions.
Everytime theres a complaint about the train drivers here, theres not one but several spokemans and manager of this and manager of that speaking the media.
The reason everything costs so much these days is because there are far too many of these people. There are literaly buildings after buildings of them.
jelly: I've been on it many times when there were no staff onboard. Including a time when 'I must have dozed off' and stayed on a train at the Bank just so I could see what was down the tunnel at the end of the line. Which wasn't that exciting and no staff appeared to notice. But I agree that there should be 'guards' on board, but it seems like a lot of that is being done remotely via cameras on platforms and in the train.
cow:
Idiots think that paying a driver is a monumental cost. There are always far more managers who earn far collectively and individually compared to a driver in any train system.
Its just a distraction, too fool simpletons who dont know how to look around at the total system and its costs.
Whilst unions were a problem, the bigger problem with DLR was the public, people were reassured by the presence of “operators”. Obviously, give the trials of self-driving vehicles in places like Milton Keynes, Joe Public is probably more accepting of riding in vehicles without a visible human “
> and has a pretty good safety record.
I should hope so!
As the designer of the first train movement control system for DLR back in the 1980s, we put a lot of effort into ensuring the software (written in assembler) was bulletproof and fail safe.
AC: Whilst unions were a problem,
cow: Unions are not the problem.
THe problem is there are too many manager of this and expert and consultants that earn individually far more than any of the people like drivers, or cleaners or station staff who actually make the system run and help the public when there is a problem.
cow: Of course it does. It doesnt take 10 years to learn how to drive a metro.
roland: However, as we have seen in the UK when faced with a shortage of doctors, nurses, HGV driv
cow: Shortages of Doctors and nurse is different from metro drivers because the former two roles are very skilled and require significant education. A metro driver should be far simpler to find and educate as necessary.
~
roland: The first reaction of the wealthy business owners is to whinge about about the problem is down to people not wanting to work for the low wages they are paying and poor working conditions.
cow: Exactly as i stated in other posts of mine, there are too many parasites in the system.
CEOS and management who do nothing want to be paid crazy multiples of the people who actually do the work
When France had a king eventually the burden of his excessive royalty and his mates was too much and the country was hungry. America is no different, the weight of the management cost is far too much and thats why theres no money left to pay ordinary Americans to do their jobs.
~
"Of course it does. It doesnt take 10 years to learn how to drive a metro."
But you have to dig the tunnels first, and lay the tracks and wiring and install the traffic control. All these have to be maintained. Drivers are only a fraction of the workforce needed to run a metro system. And they are not involved in building it.
"America already has Caterpillar, they are the big y elloe machinary all over large building sites."
You need quit specialized equipment to bore tunnels and lay tracks. I assume Caterpillar has no bigger workforce than they need now. They will have to expand to build some hundred metro systems. That does take time.
You need quit specialized equipment to bore tunnels and lay tracks."
I'm sure Mr Musk and his Boring Company would more than willing to help out with that for an obscene profit, some (more) tax breaks and a huge reduction in regulations :-)
I think he's already taken care of the latter himself.
AC: You need quit specialized equipment to bore tunnels and lay tracks. I assume Caterpillar has no bigger workforce than they need now. They will have to expand to build some hundred metro systems. That does take time.
cow: For being an expert you should also know that Caterpillar dont build tunnel boring equipment. Secondly not all trains or metros need to be in tunnels. Its basic knowledge to know that tunnel boring machines come from places like Germany and Austria.
I simply mentioned C because i was talking about general purpose building of metro or trains.
>you could easily build and pay for metro systems in basically every single major city in the USA.
No, you couldn't. It's not about money. There are not enough digger machines, there are not enough factories that build digger machines, there are not enough train manufacturers, there isn't enough trained personell to operate all of that, and nobody is going to build/train those on the assumption that Trump won't change his mind the next month.
You could build metro systems in every single major city in the USA by throwing money at the problem, but you can't do it in a President's mandate; you'll need a program that everyone can count on to remain stable for decades. "Stable for decades" is exactly the opposite of what's going on.
The world does not run on money, it runs on trust. And Trump is bankrupt.
No, you couldn't. It's not about money. There are not enough digger machines, there are not enough factories that build digger machines, there are not enough train manufacturers, there isn't enough trained personell to operate all of that, and nobody is going to build/train those on the assumption that Trump won't change his mind the next month.
Yeah... you could. There's no shortage of civil engineering contractors and machinery about for geenral public transit works.
What you're building would depend of course. Metro has quite a specific definition (high throughput, >20,000pax/hr/per direction, dedicated running path - not sharing with other rail lines or anything). Tunnelled metro calling for TBMs is a bit more specialist. That'll take some time - but actually your plant machinery manufacturers have a couple years lead because you need to plan, survey and compulsory-purchase station sites, etc anyway. So that's not an issue.
And a lot of US cities need that, but there's a lot that also needs doing that isn't technically metro, even if the mayor would want to call it "a metro".
Trams can be run on existing roads, either with traffic or by taking a couple of road lanes and dedicating them to trams. This usually makes traffic better because you take more demand off the road than you lose to tram lines. Or you can use existing median strips and not lose any capacity. Manhattan could easily augment the subway with some tram lines - most Avenues are 4-6 lanes. Just pick a couple of quieter ones and turn them into regular two-lane roads with a tram line down the middle. Most Streets are only two lanes, but some like E14 have already been made bus-only (at least in part), so it'd be no bother to run trams on there.
In many smaller towns and cities (250-400k), trams would do the ticket and don't require any tunnelling. Just pinch a couple of lanes off the 6-lane highways (or the median). There are loads of civil contractors who build roads and bridges all day who could easily complete this work using existing resource - this doesn't require particularly specialised equipment.
The same would be true of some suburban rail. And in a lot of the USA's low-density cities, any underground segments could be cut-and-covered, using pre-cast sections. No need for TBMs.
The bigger challenge might be the electrics and substations for the overhead lines, but since tram/train projects would take a couple of years to plan and survey before you broke ground (and another couple of civils), you've got a clear 3-4years of lead time for your electrical contractors since those are basically "final fit".
No, you can't build a bunch of metros this year but if you announced secure funding, you could do a lot (not all) of it in 5-10. Business can invest in capacity given firm orders.
And Trump is bankrupt.
No argument there.
Manhattan could easily augment the subway with some tram lines - most Avenues are 4-6 lanes. Just pick a couple of quieter ones and turn them into regular two-lane roads with a tram line down the middle
I'll take Manhattan and raise you a Milton Keynes. Odd place. Built on a nice grid system. With increased traffic volume, now a grid-locked system. Partly caused by people driving through MK to get somewhere more interesting, and partly caused by lots of new housing. But when it was built, a lot of the roads were laid out so additional lanes could be added. That never happened, so at least there's lots of green stuff to admire while stuck in traffic. But one of those places where using the land set aside for car lanes might make more sense for trams, or 'smart' buses.
>” Look at the US Miitary. it would only take a few years of cutting the budget in half and you could easily build and pay for metro systems in basically every single major city in the USA.”
Republicans, like Conservatives only really make savings so that they can make tax cuts. So whilst the US military budget will certainly be reduced by Doge, don’t expect there to be any new government investment of any significance.
> The US military only exists because it doesnt defend freedom, it protects rich people and their assets.
I agree here, at least for > 100 years, or even > 200 years.
> Enemies only invade to take riches from other rich people they dont invade to steal from homeless or poor people.
But think: Invasion on United Stated of America ground? The last war on US ground, or on a direct US border, ended 1848. And guess who invaded. All other wars on US ground after that were internally. And that attack on Pearl Harbor, 4000 miles off US coast, was not exactly an invasion, more a terrorist action...
I don't disagree with you here too, just keep in mind which country, especially after 1945, started more wars than any other country in the world to keep it's military–industrial complex busy. Sadly the US education system lacks in history teaching, especially failed wars or "police action".
Jou: I don't disagree with you here too, just keep in mind which country, especially after 1945, started more wars than any other country in the world to keep it's military–industrial complex busy. Sadly the US education system lacks in history teaching, especially failed wars or "police action".
cow: Im not discussing or defending other countries. What they did or did not do, its a separate discussion and in now way changes my observation.
The US military has a big advantage, its quite clear that it only serves the rich and not the poor. The media brainwashes the poor so enough join to do their duty, something that rich people always avoid. They know how the game is played, they know they can leverage th emilitary to help them etc.
America only starts wars against pathetic enemies who have only the most basic of military eg Afghanistan, Houthis etc.
Even today its too scared to bomb Iran. WHY because just like Russia n China they are scared of showing their own incompetancies, aka just look at the USS Truman and the F16 they keep losing.
Russian military types arent the only idiots in the world.
America is scared to show how good or bad they are, and so they are scared to bomb Iran. Israel will probably do the dirty work in the end if it comes to thata.
They cant be printed in America, because America wants to continue paying billions for leadership.
There are many examples of American companies cutting costs so they can save on labour, but they never cut the cost sorry bonuses on leadership.
The only way to bring back manufacturing to America is to cut the America love affair with pretending that leadership is it and deserves the rediculous parasitic bonuses.
Do you need any bits of your PC, outside the exempted CPU/GPU ?
The case and power suppler makers don't have the lobbying power of Intel or NVidia so aren't going to get a deal.
Expect $200 budget cases and $500 PSUs. If you can get them, because nobody is shipping components right now not knowing what the tariff will be in a month when they arrive, or in 6 months when you sell them for back-to-school or Christmas
Kind-of. Tangentially related.
Board gaming is something of a niche, and it's one where a lot of "nerds" engage - or, many of the constituents of the niche are "nerds". Nerds and tech go together.
So, tangentially. There have been a lot of board game articles before, and ArsTechnica actually had a board-games-of-the-year piece running for a few years. (They also do "Best streamed shows of 20xx," too, which... bleh. Streaming is tech, though?.. and they also do the Wheel of Yada series, which is a book series appreciated by .. book nerds?)
This piece is kind of political, but as long as such features aren't so frequent that they attract crews from elsewhere solely with an axe to grind, it's maybe ok.
* This is my personal take - it may jibe with you, or you may feel differently.
Back around 2000, tech wasn't involved in politics. No one likes that game.
Around 2000, the anti-trust lawsuit against Microsoft started. Toward the end of it, there were mumblings, "Microsoft didn't contribute to the right political parties."
After the Microsoft trial, tech started making real campaign contributions - no one wanted to be next. The shakedown worked. It didn't used to be this way...
Tech is basically Military and Business.
One way or another these things have outsized impact on our profession which cuts across all of these things, we have amongst El-Reg's regulars - Forensics / Drone Makers / Forces / Robot manufacturing / Electronics / Media / Communications / Security
all of which are affected.
Inflation and cost of living was used as an excuse after covid by major companies to increase prices, because they could get away with it.
Expect it now as well, irrespective of the fact if they actually incurred costs.
Note: I'm not claiming it is the case for the claimants in this article.
Indeed. Imagine you run a manufacturing company in the US. The prices of competition have just been raised by tariffs, Do you;
1. Just increase production to the limit of your existing capacity?
2. Increase production as in 1 but also invest (borrowing as needed) in increasing capacity?
3. Increase production as in 1 and increase prices to match what the competition now has to charge, taking a profit for as long as the situation lasts?
Now imagine you're a customer of that company.
Where do the spare parts for your AC or your water systems or trucks come from?
How many of those parts are made in China? How much spare stock do you think the contractors are buying now and paying 145% tax upfront and hoping that nothing political will change in 6 months before they can sell the part and recover their money.
During Covid we had several weeks of "boil water advisory" because they couldn't get a part for our small town's antique water-treatment plant. Since our municipal works dept hasn't gone full Maoist and created backyard foundries and water treatment filter making operations - I assume the supply chain is still pretty remote.
Once local supply houses are out, we are all going to be paying tariffs + whatever the maker demands + express airfreight for everything to keep homes, services, factories, offices, running this summer
Exactly. US have build a huge dependency on the country that became is major geopolitical issue.. And if they wish, they could put US in a very bad position.
Think what would have happened in the 1980s if US had shifted most of its manufactuing to CCCP because there the workers were cheaper, and rules could be ignored just paying enough the controllers.
USA put itself in a deep hole because grred is always the worst advisor. Now getting out will be very, very hard, and Trump & C. have no clue how to do it the best way, because they are driven by greed as well.
Brave though it is to take on the government, elected politicians can usually ruin your business and make you poor if they choose to. There is always some woolly phrase somewhere that lets them get away with it. It happened in the UK with Brexit (fishermen, almost anyone dependent upon unencumbered imports/exports or migrant labour) and it will happen in the US.
Trump's historic MO is to break something, get some headlines, walk back a little after bagging some goodies, declare victory, and move on to persecute and impoverish someone else.
Companies may have to go on hiatus and wait to see how things work out. Some form of normality may return. If it doesn't, sell the relevant assets, shut down and move on. You are not the first victims of your government and you will not be the last.
Governments consider themselves to have the right to control what you can and cannot do, and to end it on a whim. They consider themselves to be the farmers and us to be the livestock. And the law is configured to make it so. The democracy stuff is good PR but doesn't mean much when push comes to shove. They all behave like dictators and do whatever they can get away with.
Congress has the power to impeach him - no doubt he's already given adequate grounds. They don't want the insurrection they suffered 4 years ago. If the pitchforks and torches are being waved outside the White House instead they may feel able to do that, especially if they feel their own majorities are being threatened.
Trump is in an unusually safe and cushioned position, he can simply retire to Mar-a-Lardass and no successor would try to stop him from whoring away what's left of his life. Contrast with Putin, who if he announced his retirement today would be dead by the end of the week.
It's part of the democratic bargain.
Trump brain drain starts global tug-of-war for the best science minds
“I’ve got the best guys in the best universities in America all saying, ‘When can we move?’”
"Do the thought experiment. You’re an outstanding scientist. You’re sitting in an American institution. Things are not looking good. You know for sure they’re going to be bad for four years. They’re probably going to be bad for eight years. It’ll take another four years to get the thing back on its feet.
“If you’re a great scientist in your late forties or fifties, you’re not going to sit it out, are you? No way."
Universities and research labs outside the America is in a crossroad: Piss off Donald J Trump by headhunting some of America's (soon-to-be-unemployed) best-and-brightest scientists, engineers, researchers, physicists, etc or helplessly watch other countries (like China) snatch them from under you.
Unemployed talent cannot wait eight long years for America to sort itself out.
Big "body shops" could build their talent pool because something is going to have to give when gutted public service agencies will need talent urgently. This way it serves White House and DOGE very nicely, i. e. Public service headcount is "down" but, quietly, growth private contractor population goes supernova.
The worse thing about history-repeating-itself is when we do not learn from the mistakes of the past: US Congress made the mistake made by "de-funding" of the FAA in the early 2000 (after strong lobbying) which resulted in Boeing MAX crisis. Fast forward twenty or so years and the US Government is "de-funding" nearly everything and everyone and (may) hand over work to private companies. What could possibly go wrong with that?
Make American Business Great Again, baby!
Start billing your customers the extra, from the sound of it *every* supplier of these products will be hit so all of you will be raising your prices together and no one specifically loses out.
And it might remind everyone who actually pays tariffs ie. it's not a way of bring new taxes in from outside (which at least one important person doesnt understand). Only thing it generates sort term is price inflation.
As a final thought these must be truly tiny businesses if they're talking about $1000 or $3000 bills. Not being harsh but that's hobby scale and while morally fighting might be a good idea in reality the lawyers are going to cost you a disproportionate amount of money you won't see back. Keep your head down, pause your operations, let the big players pay to fix it as they'll be hurting exactly the same.
You could pass it on if you knew it was permanent.
But right now you order stock from China, it takes a month to arrive, the tarrif on arrival might be 10% or 145% or it might be a $1M if the ship was built in China.
But the tariff might be dropped next month and your product now costs 250% more than your competitors who didn't order or who got an exemption
So you wait, turn down sales, and hope.
"But right now you order stock from China, it takes a month to arrive, the tarrif on arrival might be 10% or 145% or it might be a $1M if the ship was built in China.”
And therein is the issue, it’s the instability, open day the tariffs are 100%, the next day they are 150% and the day after they are 30%. Businesses can cope with whatever you throw at them as long as it is consistent. It won’t be tariffs that kill small businesses, it’s the uncertainty. The not knowing what the situation will be tomorrow, because it does look as if Trump has no overall policy but just wakes up each morning and throws a couple of dice, the outcome of which determines what he posts on Truth Social and so becomes official US policy.
Lean times are a'coming, unfortunately, but we're all going to have to endure the pain before we can exorcise this demon for good. Its not just Trump, unfortunately, but a whole coterie of followers that live in a world of their own oblivious to the problems and suffering they cause others.
In a sane world the Legislature would have reminded Trump by now that no only ia his authority to set tariffs is questionable at best but also there's a very good reason why you don't thrash around making impulse driven trade and economic policies. Economics tends to have long lead times so, for example, the effects of these tariffs haven't really been felt yet by the consumer but based on information about trade volume declines in our ports they're going to hit in the not too distant future. Its got the big retailers well concerned which is likely why Trump's trying to back off his insane policies, describing them as a "bargaining position". Unfortunately it takes two to trade and our posturing has prematurely tipped our hand so not only are countries like China disinclined to let Trump ^ Co. off the hook but its telegraphed to the rest of the world that the US (and, by extension, its "allies" -- that's you, UK) that we're thoroughly unreliable and that any agreement reached with us isn't worth the paper its printed on. As the saying goes, "the toothpaste is out of the tube" -- and its not going to go back in.
Take a look at what's been going on -- trade and tourism -- between Canada and US in the last couple of months.
And based on the current behaviour of the administration, they'll lose the case, the courts will order them to rescind the tariffs and they'll ignore the court order, wipe their collective arse on the Constitution again and nothing will change.
The only upside to this is that civil litigation can't land you in jail but contempt of court can.
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