The Four Threats…..and tariffs

I’m actually not too worried about tariffs. Not because I don’t think they are harmful, but precisely because I believe they are harmful. I can repeat what I said already some time ago on the Film Score Monthly Message Board. Tariffs are of course a political instrument, which can be sensible or beneficial or not, depending on why and how they are implemented, but they should be implemented with caution and for a specific time and for specific things. The current situation, smacking tariffs on everything across the board, is foolish, it’s stupid, and therefore is likely more of a short burning fire. I don’t think — at this point — that we’ll have long lasting super tariffs across the globe… as that would benefit no one, really. Not the EU, not the US, not China, really nobody. That’s why they won’t last. It’s just economic “saber-rattling” right now, it’ll pass. In fact, since I wrote these last words on FSM, ALREADY the US has done a sudden U-term and stopped the proposed tariffs for 90 days. Possibly because it’s already become clear how much economic damage this would do. The key to prosperity is global international free trade, with clear and specific rules, not isolationism. It’s okay to restrict certain things for certain reasons, but nobody, really no country at all, benefits from a trade war tariffs.

In all fairness, I am sure it wasn’t Music Box who did the punishing. After Brexit, sending something commercially the UK from Europe became a costly bureaucratic undertaking, that many companies simply (and understandably) said “f$%! that”.
The other way around, too, which is why I don’t order anything from the UK anymore. Ironically, it’s cheaper for me to order Varèse Sarabande CDs from their US store than it is from the “international” (but in reality only “UK”) store.

I have no idea why and how Norway would be effected by all of this, I’m just pretty sure the culprit in most cases is not the actual store. I’m sure they don’t mind selling CDs or anything else to Norwegians or Norway just out of spite. But I understand that it’s annoying if you don’t even know what these “restrictions” are.

This may be, but the question is why they refuse to ship to the UK. I know at least from one seller (but not CDs, clothes) who stopped selling to the UK completely. Why? Because she didn’t feel like it? No, but because the hassle wasn’t worth it. Apart from the considerable additional paperwork that was allegedly necessary (I didn’t dig into that, so I don’t know), what happened a lot with UK shipments was this: Items shipped, entered UK, stuck in customs. Customer did not pick up package to pay additional fees. Customer demanded refund because he never received the item. (Easy to do with Paypal.) Seller maybe (or even maybe not sometimes) received back the package. Stuck with a lot of hassle, a lot of expenses, and maybe even with lost merchandise. Once that happens to a seller a couple of times, he is likely cross the UK from the list of countries he’s selling to. Stuff like that seems to have happened a lot after Brexit.