November 10, 2024: The Reality Of Tariffs In Tabletop Gaming

[SSlemmons]

Originally Posted by NeelyOhara442

Politics doesn't really have a place in gaming (and never really has).

All art is political.

[Mack_JB]

SJG taking the time to tell us (their fans and customers) what they are working on to hopefully avert the worst of this. I applaud them for doing that. It isn't necessarily political, as it will affect the bottom line of SJG and they are planning ahead as much as possible.

[johndallman]

Originally Posted by NeelyOhara442

And yet, this is not "art" it is blame-shifting. Meanwhile, I'll buy from other vendors.

[MODERATOR]
And with that, you've crossed the line into excessive politics. Calm down folks, please.
[/MODERATOR]

[JLV]

At the end of the day, Tariffs are protectionist in nature, and their intent is to level the playing field in the long run. Certainly, there are short term disruptions resulting from any new tariff imposed on any product or raw material, but the effect in a country the size of the USA is to provide significant incentive to increase (or commence) local production. Yes, it's true that local production will be more expensive overall than products produced in a command economy like Mainland China (slave labor is awfully cheap in the long run), but frankly I'm willing to pay a little more to make slave labor unproductive.

Having said that, there are also other factors to consider -- such as that local businesses generate local tax revenue which might reduce the burden on individual tax payers a bit, and local businesses generate local jobs, and so on. Never forget that any decision is never taken in a vacuum (at least, it shouldn't be) and that downrange consequences and outcomes should be considered too. I note in passing that the current administration kept the previous administration's tariffs in place in almost all cases -- which might tell you something about how they were working.

[Anthony]

Originally Posted by JLV

At the end of the day, Tariffs are protectionist in nature, and their intent is to level the playing field in the long run.

Well, no, their intent is to protect local businesses from foreign competition. There are a variety of reasons for doing that, but they only "level the playing field" is when they're retaliatory in nature (i.e. the foreign competitor is being granted an advantage, and the tariff is compensating for that advantage).

[Farmer]

This is a sound, non-partisan summary of the use and impacts of tariffs, with a link to the underlying peer-reviewed paper.

https://news.gsu.edu/2024/10/15/are-...r-the-economy/

I think it's a very good summary, particularly in that it highlights that short term tariffs, designed to protect an industry *whilst it makes changes to address the underlying imbalances* can be useful. However, ongoing tariffs where no changes are made have a net negative impact. Introducing tariffs without clear plans to restructure are not economically sound. They may have local political value (clearly, demonstrably, they do), but that's because that vast, vast majority of the public don't understand how they work and/or some do understand but don't care because they just want a quick fix with no effort that costs *someone else* money and not them (which is very short sighted and ignores the broader economic impact). All sides of politics are guilty of pandering to the short term political impact.