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PC Case Maker CaseLabs Closes Permanently (pcgamer.com)
U.S.-based PC case manufacturer, CaseLabs, announced on social media that it is "closing permanently" and will not be able to fill all current orders. "We have been forced into bankruptcy and liquidation," CaseLabs said in a statement. "The tariffs have played a major role raising prices by almost 80 percent (partly due to associated shortages), which cut deeply into our margins. The default of a large account added greatly to the problem... We reached out for a possible deal that would allow us to continue on and persevere through these difficult times, but in the end, it didn't happen." PC Gamer reports: CaseLabs is likely referring to the growing number of tariffs being enforced on Chinese imports by the United States government. China and the US are currently engaged in a trade war, causing many U.S. companies to lose money, lay off employees, or close entirely. CaseLabs went on to say that it won't be able to fill the backlog of case orders, but other parts will most likely ship to customers. "We are so incredibly sorry this is happening. Our user community has been very devoted to us and it's awful to think that we have let any of you down."
... that Trump has made for America!
Or, if China has such massive control over manufacturing that tarrifs on sheet metal kill companies, maybe it makes sense to boost the supply on our side?
FT company website:
"We are very sad to announce that CaseLabs and its parent company will be closing permanently. We have been forced into bankruptcy and liquidation. The tariffs have played a major role raising prices by almost 80% (partly due to associated shortages), which cut deeply into our margins. The default of a large account added greatly to the problem. It hit us at the worst possible time. We reached out for a possible deal that would allow us to continue on and persevere through these difficult times, but in the end, it didn’t happen.
U.S.-based PC case manufacturer
The tariffs have played a major role raising prices by almost 80 percent (partly due to associated shortages)
Can someone explain? The tariffs are designed to help American manufacturing, they make American products cheaper than foreign products. And as for shortages, a PC case manufacturer needs thin sheet steel, paint, plastic, and LEDs. Don't tell me you cannot get sheet steel in America any longer? Also, the margins on cases should be astronomical, 5 lbs of steel and a few LEDs, an ounce of black paint and a few plastic parts probably take 5-8 dollars in material costs. The only problem in the industree should be that China can make them cheaper which can be solved with the appropriate tariffs.
Troll is not a replacement for I disagree.
The tariffs have played a major role raising prices by almost 80 percent (partly due to associated shortages)
The ten percent aluminum tariff causes prices to spike eighty percent? Sounds like CaseLabs' suppliers ripped them off.
The default of a large account added greatly to the problem... We reached out for a possible deal that would allow us to continue on and persevere through these difficult times, but in the end, it didn't happen.
So, CaseLabs got ripped off by a client. This was a business failure, not a tariff problem. That's confirmed by the company's failure to secure financing to continue: even the bank knew that the owners sucked at running a business.
They made overpriced cases (seriously, $600 for a case?) and ran their business badly. They failed.
The way the media portrays it:
If a trade policy is implemented by a Democrat:
If a trade policy is implemented by a Republican:
The reality is that both are true. The press just likes to spin it in favor of or against the party in power.
Nope. They're designed to help American manufacturing by making foreign products more expensive than American products. That is, they protect American jobs, but do so by making the products you buy more expensive.
That's why I generally fall on the pro-open trade side of this. It's a Prisoner's dilemma situation, where if one side implements tariffs, they get a better result than open trade, while the other side gets the worst possible result. But if both sides implement tariffs, they both end up worse off than with open trade. The best solution for both sides overall is open trade.
Trump's rationale (which I partly agree with but mostly don't) is that China has been abusing our policy of open import of Chinese goods by restricting export of American goods to China and/or subsidizing some of their goods which the U.S. imports which artificially kills off U.S. producers, thus giving China the advantage in the Prisoner's dilemma (and puts the U.S. at a disadvantage). The best solution found thus far to the iterated Prisoner's dilemma is the tit for tat strategy. If one side abuses the Prisoner's dilemma, the other side abuses it right back thus signaling that it won't take such abuse lying down. And eventually the side which started the abuse backs down, and the other side also backs down, reverting both sides to the best possible strategy for both (in this case, open trade).
One thing everyone here is missing is that U.S. Steel and Nucor Steel have been fighting every single exemption request companies have put forth to the U.S. Commerce Department. These companies want exemptions from the tariffs so they can continue to get steel at reasonable prices and/or quality and type they need.
Instead, the two largest producers of steel in the country have raised their prices and told the Commerce Department the exemptions are bogus because they can make the product, even though in at least one case, a company stopped buying steel from U.S. Steel because of quality control issues.
Of course politics plays a big role in all this:
In one case, a company stated “the sole U.S. producer of high speed steel material appropriate for cutting tools is not currently ramping up any production to expand this aspect of their business and has not shown any interest in quoting new business.”
As the tariffs take hold, expect prices of finished goods to rise substantially and more businesses to either go under or relocate out of the country. The largest nail manufacturer in the country has already laid off 12% of its workforce, cut hours for the remainder and is still on the brink of extinction, so it has to make such a decision.
Am I the only one who's exhausted by all this winning?
Just cruising through this digital world at 33 1/3 rpm...
Tip: We aren't.
Indeed. The root problem is that America consumes too much and invests too little. Tariffs will not change this, and by lowering wages and raising prices, make it even harder.
Fewer Americans will design smart phones. More will sew t-shirts.
But Donald Trump has made one change to America that may have long term positive effects: He has turned many liberals into champions of free trade.
This shows a fundamental lack of understanding of the shift of the world using the USD as the primary means of exchange to something else, like Keynes' Bancor or something similar. China has been calling for this for nearly a decade.
https://www.bis.org/review/r09...
At the end of the day, the problem is Congress. They have known for nearly 10 years China was going to pull the plug. This is the price we pay.
As well, I'm always amazed at people who say trade imbalances don't matter. Don't you study history? This is what World War II was about! What did they discuss when the UN was founded? Trade imbalances! They discussed nothing else of significance.
And this is where I'm just at a loss.
I'm a white male who grew up in the country hunting, fishing and driving pickups and working on farms, who's now upper middle class and headed into middle age. About to move into the suburbs.
I'm pretty much someone who should absolutely be a core republican voter. (Save for a little too much education.) Yet here I sit, repulsed at what the republican party has become. They lost me. For the entire rest of my life. Until everyone who was complicit in the last decade of cynical depravity by the republicans and their spawn has left the party, fuck 'em.
Now that my grandmother has passed, I'm never voting for another republican the rest of my life. The options are democrats or hopefully someone sensible. I just don't understand how a party could draw a hard social line that they know is going to alienate marginal voters for a generation. It's madness.
Velociraptor = Distiraptor / Timeraptor
I grew up in a time when knowing something about computer cases meant something. Machine tooling was expensive, so knowing the difference between one case that had been designed by a machining efficiency expert and another that had been designed by a wizened system builder was worth a 100-150% markup. Cheap cases were notable for having a layout where the motherboard was screwed down so far from the 5 1/4" bays that your leads from your cheap power supply wouldn't reach your floppy drive.
Computer cases have since become some kind of wealth signal for the PC builder prosperity gospelists. If you accept the desktop PC into your heart, you too can have an RGB-LED double aluminum liquid-cooled heaven right now on your fold-out table.
Incontrovertible fact #1: all PRs hide the chewy center. The default of a large account added greatly to the problem is the chewy center. Every business is accountable to its shareholders. If CaseLabs went out of business because they lost a primary account, they will definitely blame anything but that fact. That's why they are pointing to tariffs, which they have no control over, as a primary cause, rather than the possibility that they have been price raping a major client, who may have hired somebody who said "why the f-ck are you buying $400 cases?".
Incontrovertible fact #2: US companies that arbitrage Chinese trade markets are rent-seekers. They could employ 1,000 minimum wage+ employees, but they are not what you'd call "domestic industry". China knows quite well what industry looks like. That's why everything is built in China.
Incontrovertible fact #3: In the modern world, a Chinese child laborer who hand-solders an Arduino board has more skills than a union worker who ensures the "Made in the USA" sticker was applied correctly. If you're a producer, and you have no control over your production chain, you're a marketer.
Potato chips are a by-yourself food.