Only tariffs I've heard going into place are on steel and aluminum....Minimal amount of that material in a pinball machine. Should be a negligible affect.

Much of the machine is sourced in the US. I'm sure the wood comes from here? The milling labor is here? Playfields made here? Not sure how much if anything comes from China anyways.

I looked through all the proposed items for tariffs and not a lot of items seemed like they would be Pinball related. Most tariffs are targeting specific items and components for those items.

Still a small percentage of the overall machine, negligible affect.

If anything stern should be lowering prices after the huge tax break....

Not worried at all.

So far the tariffs have been pretty specific. Perhaps some LEDs or coils could get caught up in it, but it should be pretty negligible. I wish pinball was big enough to get noticed in a trade war.

yes please

LOL and I am sure you are telling your boss to cut your pay as you got a tax cut all is good

Pinball prices are already soaring to insane levels.

It could be an issue, leds, resistors, copper wire all included. It’s a uestion of whether prices can be passed on to the consumer. I don’t think there are substitutes domestically, but if there are, they will be more expensive.

Naw Stern would never do that

The new list is long, over 1300 items. Of course if those get put into effect, China will retaliate, so not sure where it will end. How much of a pinball is made from China parts or materials? I would bet a Lot.

Make Pinball Great Again!!

Wait, it is already Great.

Make Pinball Affordable Again!! -- and source from entirely US produced components.

No it won't.

Pinside will cause prices to soar.

PCB components are a pretty negligible cost to the overall machine. I don't know where Stern gets their PCB assemblies from, but there's plenty of competitive manufacturers domestically.

Most LCD displays come from Taiwan or South Korea.

That list is pretty damn comprehensive, heat pumps, generators, tool cabinets etc. Maybe it won't affect pinball prices so much, but things we buy to make those garages into game rooms are all gonna go up.

No Art, tax cuts are going to lower the cost of pinball machines.

And the idea of tariffs sticking are a joke. It's just part of the negotiating process. The reason its a bit shocking is that our government and politicians, left and right are F ing idiots, past and present, and are now getting schooled on how not to keep giving away the country.

Get all those Harbor Freight tools, lift tables, etc before the trade wars begin!!

I had wondered if this would somehow effect Dutch Pinball and TBL as hopefully they will be producing the entire machine in China now.

Amusements wouldn't be in the same category as most of the stuff talked about so far, and pinball machines are a sub-category of amusements in trade terms. So complete stuff, whether DP or HomePin is probably going to be unaffected immediately, as Stern's machines to China would be. Some Chinese components to Stern will likely get hit.

But, don't make the mistake of thinking that any of this will definitely go ahead; even the original metals tariffs. This is first and foremost electioneering for the upcoming midterms, and may well be dead and buried before the end of the year.

In general economic terms, there's no prospect of the tariffs directly rebalancing trade - reducing US trade deficit w/ CN. What they will do is damage the US economy more than the rest of the world (which will also take a hit), and devalue the $, possibly quite considerably. Indirectly, that may help US exports in territories where they haven't just been hit with retaliatory tariffs - and devaluing the $ was a stated goal earlier on for Trump. But there's no guarantee that the price sensitivity of demand for imported goods in the US will be sufficient for a dropping $ not to result in a worsening deficit.

Dangerous games.

as long as it doesn't affect beer prices!

Yer good as long as it doesn't pour out of a can. If it comes in a can, yer f'd.

Moosehead it is.

Yeah we are all learning a bunch of wonderful lessons. It's just great.

I'm kinda thinking present should be capitalized or something.

They come in wooden boxes too you know.

04A2E627-0ECD-4521-94D4-41D817D84A26 (resized).jpeg

Nice!

The big lebowski and thunderbirds were both being made in China, weren't they?

The price of aluminum has actually gone down since tariffs have been announced.

http://markets.businessinsider.com/commodities/aluminum-price

Yes it is Levi

NAFTA redo this month. China next

When you have a 500 Billion dollar trade deficit with China, a war that is already lost, who has the most to lose? It ain’t us

Lower tax rates lead to higher federal receipts. Happening now. Another wonderful lesson!

That just means Stern, Spooky, JJP get to make more $$$, hire more people and produce more packed and better pinball machines

See what you started Art

And now round three... all them Chinese play fields are going to skyrocket in price
so pinball machines are going up exponentially the hobby gonna crash people will burning their games in street dancin around singin songs playin guitars smokin weed stinkin up the place stoppin traffic runnin around naked.... oh sorry got little carried away.

Can someone please explain how these tariffs work. Say company X sells a good to China and they impose 25% tariff on imports . Who pays the tariff and who recieves the money . Does the export company pay the import company or there goverment .

Products come and go through customs, where the tax is levied. So if we levy a tariff on goods from China, when it hits US customs the tariff is paid by the buyer/importer. The idea is to discourage US consumers from buying Chinese goods in favor of US goods. Small orders, like a box of leds, I think can get through untaxed as they are considered deminimus. Uncle Sam gets the tax revenue.

So far the auto manufacturers are telling me the tariffs affect pricing on cars by about 150.

So I doubt pinball will change much.

And when people talk about raising the price of a cheese burger 5 cents so fast food workers don't have to live in poverty everybody shits.

So, basically similar price increases that we've observed over the last ~5 years?

how is that different that what we have seen form Stern in the past few years?

Almost 25-30% increase in NIb prices in the past 4 years...

Five Arby's Roast Beef Sandwiches with coupon for $5.95 went up to $9.95 after the buck/hour minimum wage increase in July 2014.

To add some unfortunate irony to this, most impoverished people get their meals and nutrition from fast food. So, by paying them more, the cost of the product and their meals goes up to maintain the business.

And I'm sure all that money is going into workers' pockets LOL

Also stop eating that garbage.

FALSE

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1570677X16300363

"We find little evidence of a gradient in adult fast-food consumption with respect to wealth. While adults in the highest quintile are 54.5% less likely to report fast-food consumption than those in the lowest quintile, adults in the second and third quintiles are no less likely to report fast food–food intake than the poorest. Contrary to popular belief, fast-food consumption rises as income rises from the lowest to middle quintiles. The variation in adult fast-food consumption across income and wealth groups is, however, small. Those in the wealthiest quintile ate about one less fast-food meal on average than those in the lowest quintile. Other factors play a bigger role in explaining fast-food consumption: reading ingredient labels is negatively associated while soda consumption and hours of work are positively associated with fast-food consumption."

The price of a new pinball machine has almost nothing to do with the cost to build it. They are charging as much as the market will bear, not marking them up from the BOM.

Will Gary blame it for the next price increase anyway? Probably.

The threat of higher labor costs is why McDonald's is rolling out ordering kiosks to all stores. So anyone that claims higher minimum wage doesn't cost jobs should take note.

Like MOST people - including the middle class, the poor, the rich (many of our presidents) I enjoy a guilty pleasure fast food meal on occasion, usually on the road.

I'm a sucker for Popeye's.

Probably shouldn't be a weekly or even monthly thing.

Ate at McDonalds today and there was an employee explaining to me on how to work the kiosk. Felt like a job orientation.

We’ve had those kiosks in Australia for a few years now at Maccas, people rarely use them unless it’s a store that is slammed with people at the counter. They will need to be voice activated, and quicker than a human before they threaten jobs.

It’s called fast food for a reason, anything that makes the experience slower doesn’t work.