"A tale of things to come" Topic

Here is the future for English wargamers (Or for our European friends who import our products).

I put in an order with Art Miniaturen for some more Prussian Dragoons to help with @generalpicton and Captain Siborne's Waterloo project. 21st Dec all confirmed and paid via Paypal. Bless them, within 24 hours they had processed this and sent it to their distributor.

But today I heard they have had it sent back to them. Cannot be into the UK before 31st and we all know what happens then. (Actually we have no idea whatsoever re duty on imports etc).

This effectively means that trade between the UK and EU is almost frozen now….and maybe not just for Prussian Dragoons. Perry figures to Europe?

It's anybody's guess how the new coronavirus strain and restrictions will affect trade with the UK. We can only hope for the best (and a fast rollout of the vaccine).

Take care of yourselves.

I what will happen for those of us in the USA? I purchased almost nothing from continental Europe, but I do purchase gaming supplies from UK. What is the prediction of the value of the pound versus the dollar after January 1, and what about postage rates between UK and USA? With the new administration in USA, there may be better terms through the universal Postal union, reversing the previous administrations controls.

I what will happen for those of us in the USA?

GBP will devaluate very likely in the short term to make local products more competitive and give some breathing space to the economy.

Postage might rise up to compensate for rising oil costs.

I am not sure though about
a) strength value of the dollar after non stop injections of USD in the system, likely to continue under Biden
b) economic plan UK leadership has (or hasn't) in mind

"Exiters" in Europe are not against the idea of Europe, they are incredibly upset about the non stop arbitrages multinationals (and Finance jocks) are making to produce at the cheapest and lowest quality and sell at the highest the market can bear, destroying in the process local economies (obviously obsolete and unwilling to reform…)

A good example:
Amazon, destroyed local bookstores and pays its taxes in Ireland at a fraction of the costs they would pay in the country whose same bookstores they have destroyed.

To add insult to injury, those bookstores were paying in full their taxes locally…

So what people believe is cheap and convenient, they pay it twice later making Bozo a gazillionaire in the process.

Second example, France used to be the first agricultural exporter in EU, now they are importing more raw products because farmers cannot compete with global competition at lower prices (and actually lower quality due to climatic conditions).

Roughly speaking, southern countries in Europe are paying a high price their small scale, know-your-neighbor type of economies.

EU has been wonderful to multinationals, and cheaper labor. It's not going to be sustainable and it will take decades to rebuild the wealth that have been captured by a few cats and their cliques. If it ever happens once everything is in ruins.

The EU isn't "The World". We have been buying and selling wargames stuff around the world for decades. Countries have customs regulations and postage regulations. Stop bleating and get on with life.

I am actually neutral on Brexit and didn't vote because I thought both sides were being disingenuous. Brexit will be hard to find in future economic charts with the dates removed, just like WW1 is (counterintuitively) hard to find in mortality charts with their dates removed. That was even before COVID.

The UK has such a huge trade deficit with the EU that others will certainly rush to displace EU suppliers. Once that happens that market's gone for good, so those EU suppliers will likely press for and get a successor agreement out of their government. The mistake made on both sides of the Channel was to assume that the other side would capitulate before Brexit occurred. Brexiteers assumed the EU would be forced into a deal as above, and the EU thought Britain could be forced to cancel Brexit altogether by the threat of no deal.

I don't think there will be much impact on UK-US trade at our level because there was no deal in place between the EU and the USA anyway (IIRC), so Britain being out of the EU doesn't change anything. In the shorter term the people who are stuffed are French, Irish and British farmers. Most of the two former's production comes to or through the UK, and most of Britain's goes to the EU – previously tariff-free but not any more.

The pound sterling was pretty consistently at a dollar fifty in the years prior to Brexit, and has pretty consistently hovered around a dollar thirty ever since. This has made British goods more affordable here in the states, and it makes travel to the UK more affordable. Can't speak to the macroeconomics of that, but it influenced some of my personal buying decisions.

For myself, I will continue to import those figures that I consider the best from wherever they are, be it Spain, Italy or Estonia. Postage costs from USA makes getting figures from there a bit prohibitive, but that is not the fault of the manufacturers.

Steve

I tried to warn my UK friends earlier this year and got blasted for fearmongering. "I told you so"… I was trying to get UK makers to see that there might be more profits in letting someone in North America produce under license and send royalty checks. After the pain of filling out the customs forms, adding to the totals for shipping, VAT, etc., the savings in manhours may be worth it to the company and darned better for the customer! (At least for North America and points west (OZ).

The idea should have been worth considering and not have been discarded out of hand as it was.

Maybe we should try like Lean Lease in reverse ?

terrible news – but this trade freeze is due to covid.
Otherwise I do hope there will be an agreement for trading under not that much restriction.

I remember to bad old days before UK was in the EU and I had to visit the custom office whenever I ordered some miniatures from the UK, what a waste of time.

I worked 3 years for the NHS – 1987 to 1990, very good experience.

On a positive note.

I heard some finance bloke on the radio. He pointed out that we buy eight hundred billion quids worth more stuff from the EU than we sell to them. If we have no deal and have to impose WTO tariffs he said think of all that revenue going to the UK government!

I've not heard anyone else in the media mention this…

I am doomed. The Esteemed Editor will sentence me to the Dawghouse for ever and a day for starting this

All I wanted to do was highlight that shipping from the EU to Britain (only of model figures or vehicles) is suddenly on hold. The 31st deadline says this is nothing to do with Covid. This is uncertainty about what additional tariffs might be payable after that date (in either direction). I did not want to spark a political discussion about the wisdom or sheer insanity of Brexit. Leaving the EU and raising trade barriers is a simply incredible (literally so) idea, just when a certain virus has already paralysed all of our economy anyway.

I must not encourage political discussion and can only be grateful Bill seems to have not yet pronounced thus. I will pay the duty on my German miniatures, but the hassle is just incredible. Anything from the US already gets stopped over here. "You must pay the duty" (OK fine) and collect from the postal office 12 miles away (OK) and pay our extra handling charge (ie we held it here for 24 hours) of £8.00 GBP…let us say $10 USD

I welcome this, although four years ago I bet money that this would never actually happen. We are getting our fishing grounds back and this truly makes it all worthwhile, or would, if we still had a viable fishing industry.

I think it's OK as long as it's not acrimonious…

I hope Bill agrees. Bet he ain't seen this yet.

Christmas break. We will be alright for while yet.

67 years ago I first qualified for what would prove to be an EU passport one day. To this day, I am still Grateful (not yet Dead) that I kept it

But on the main point of shipping and supply, while I don't expect permanent problems, between disease and politics it's probably prudent to order early and keep maybe six months of figures, paint and brushes on hand. My plan currently is to buy the last 28mm horse & musket figures I need in the first week of January. I may not paint them until July, but it beats not having them here when I do want to paint them.

I heard some finance bloke on the radio. He pointed out that we buy eight hundred billion quids worth more stuff from the EU than we sell to them. If we have no deal and have to impose WTO tariffs he said think of all that revenue going to the UK government!

Yeah, but we the consumer pick up the cost increases of those inbound goods. So in effect we end up paying that money to the treasury! And the flip side is that our outgoing goods would attract tariffs becoming relatively more expensive and less attractive. It also rather highlights our terrible balance of trade figures.

The worst thing is about 'duty' is usually getting to the Post Office!

One thing that I did pick up from your post is that you plan to have 6 months worth of paint and figures on hand. I admire your restraint!!!

I suffer from a terminal case of 'ooh shiney' disease, and currently have about 20,000 figures to paint. I am trying to curb my buying. I will probably appear on the local news as 'man found dead under 3 corps of the French army of 1812, and some Greek Hoplites', or on the tv series 'Hoarders'.

Steve

Oh, it's much worse than that, Redcurrant--and used to be much worse still. When I retired in late 2015, everything was under the same roof for the first time in about ten years, and I was stunned at just how much stuff I had overall--and especially how much which wasn't "gameable"--not a balanced army, not an opposition army and so forth. I sold, merged and rebased for four years until the Red Death stopped further progress on that front. The planned January purchases are the last troops to finish the seven "keeper" army and scale combinations, but I still need about six flea markets to get the surplus metals out of the garage. Quite a few will be sold unpainted.

And I'm keeping footlockers full of unpainted soft plastics. No one would pay me enough to make them worth transporting, I'll always have something to paint, and I won't worry about my son tossing them in a bin when I die.

Forgive a basic question, but in the UK, do you have to go to the Post Office to pay the customs duty before you can receive your package?

@ 9-pdr

If there's duty payable, instead of getting your parcel delivered you get a card through your door saying there's duty payable. You then pick it up from the sorting office and pay the duty. It may be possible to pay it by phone and have it delivered, I think it depends on the carrier.

Rather irritatingly they levy duty on the entire parcel value including the postage. This can work out expensive.

There's no duty due if it's a gift, which is why people sometimes ask you to put that on the customs declaration.

Much of what I send overseas myself is second hand model kits and the like that I've swapped or done as 'free to a good home', so rather than putting 'gift' (which isn't true), I normally put 'plastic model spare parts' and value $1 USD (which is).

WetPatch…

Again, there may be an upside. We keep being told that UK households have an unsupportable level of personal debt. If imports from the EU become more expensive it may cause some people to cut their spending. I'm thinking big ticket items, like BMWs and stuff.

Basic stuff is dirt cheap anyway. A bag of Dutch carrots is about 20p in Tesco. A price increase of 25% isn't really life changing!

I've no idea what will happen, but I keep thinking positive thoughts. Oddball would be proud! It seems that the media has been loudly predicting some new form of Armageddon for as long as I've been alive, probably longer. And yet, here we all are, living a life so easy we can spend some of it playing toy soldiers…

Basic stuff is dirt cheap anyway. A bag of Dutch carrots is about 20p in Tesco. A price increase of 25% isn't really life changing!

Food import tariffs seem very random cheese is up 40%. But prices rises in essentials could well kick off inflation like we've not seen in a very long time, which also feeds back to the issue of our personal debt mountains and mortgages. And if we slow down our consumer spending our economy could tank further (too much dependence on the service economy).

Though it looks likely that some form of trade deal is imminent. Whether or not it would cover wargames figures I've no idea!

I heard some finance bloke on the radio. He pointed out that we buy eight hundred billion quids worth more stuff from the EU than we sell to them. If we have no deal and have to impose WTO tariffs he said think of all that revenue going to the UK government!

Your finance bloke seems to have neglected to say who ends up paying all this extra revenue to the government. And it's not the exporter.

Basic stuff is dirt cheap anyway. A bag of Dutch carrots is about 20p in Tesco. A price increase of 25% isn't really life changing!

Tell that to the 1.9 million people who had to access a food bank in the UK in 2019/20.

That would certainly make you conscious of what you are paying. We are fortunate in not paying duty on imports from the UK of less than $800. USD Shipping prices have trended slightly downwards over the years, once you adjust for inflation. The VAT exemption helps a lot, too.

Food banks are a different issue, unrelated to the price of basic foodstuffs.

Take your pick from an overly-complicated and inefficient benefits system, lack of affordable housing, the rise of the gig-economy, even (whisper it) poor life choices. Mix and match any of these and more, but 5p on a bag of carrots is neither here nor there…

but 5p on a bag of carrots is neither here nor there…

5p on a bag of carrots, 5p on a cabbage, 5p on a bottle of milk, 5p on marg is individually not that much but combined it might mean one less bag of spuds per shopping trip. It is always those at the bottom who suffer whilst we have the luxury of grumbling about the price of paint for toy soldiers.
Being Irish I can sit back and watch the train-wreck because personally it will not effect me that much as I still have the ability to travel anywhere in the EU/UK without hinderance. It looks like my kids are going to claim their Irish passports to enjoy the same freedoms.

Since the Brexit deal is now done, let's see how the 2000 page agreement document deals with gaming figure distribution.
Season's Greeting to everyone!

Since the Brexit deal is now done

Optimists? gotta love how they do not let experience cloud their outlook!

Season's greetings as well. Hey Allen F, isn't Santa or his other forms a prime example of an importer and how will that play out?

As long as he brings me a couple of different marks of M4, a GMC truck with a separate Bofors to create their unique marriage in 1/72 (as an AA weapon of course) and some brass work, I will be content.

I believe.

He must be looking after me and maybe put in a good word with Bill, the editor. Indeed, they may be one and the same bloke?

this is too depressing, the ordinary bloke will as usual suffer and pay the bill, i move on.

Just wondering if the negotiations concluded today was easier than the Congress of Vienna.

Remember the Congress of Vienna was interrupted by "The" Napoleonic War (admitting that there were of course a few skirmishes before 1815).

Will the Corsican Ogre reappear any day now?

I always wished that the US, UK, and other English-speaking (sort-of) countries (Canada, Oz, Eire et al) could somehow unite.

Donlowry:

'I always wished that the US, UK, and other English-speaking (sort-of) countries (Canada, Oz, Eire et al) could somehow unite.'

We were united – it was called the British Empire!!.

Joke going round certain people in UK, we should change Donald Trumps hat to say MAGBA – Make America Great British Again.

"Drut" must be the first term I have ever heard on TMP that I had to refer to the Urban Dictionary to decode.

"GBP will devaluate (sic) very likely in the short term to make local products more competitive and give some breathing space to the economy".

Actually, the British Pound has climbed considerably in the last month or so against the US Dollar, sadly for those of us living on the left side of the pond.

Tricky one that.

I always thought devaluate was something someone did to the currency (as in Harold W and "Of course this will not affect the pound in your pocket") but it is acceptable as used, it seems.

The pound not devaluing against the dollar, indeed the converse, should be great news for us…except we cannot cross the Atlantic right now. How I wish.

Thresher01 is guilty of Southernhemispherism and totally ignores the perception of the Polar Bear, who would see the US and Canada as on the right side of the pond.

When McMillan did it, Bretton Woods was still in effect, the US was still on the gold standard, and the rate was set by government decisions. Today, it's determined by market forces, so the push or pull of government decisions are analyzed and priced by the mechanism of trading, rather than simply following from those decisions.

I can remember one of my teachers bringing in old gold and silver certificates she had kept: looked exactly like dollar bills, with only trivial differences.

We were united – it was called the British Empire!!

If we had been offered seats in Parliament, or some kind of federation, we still would be there, I think. "No taxation without representation!" was the battle cry. (Would that also be the reason for the Brexit?)

Agreed totally.

And Art Miniaturen are still unable to offer any shipping to the UK, 12 days into this Nirvana. Heartbreaking as the have suddenly released (re-released?) their Prussian Hussars at rest. I want about £100.00 GBP worth…..but they seem to be sitting there inactive.

Strange – I got my Endevour Morse DVDs without any problems, I am waiting for the lovely Perrys of 1806 armies, due to my request Alan sculpted them with detachable masks, so it should be ok for them to cross the border.

I agree we need hobbies more than ever.

All I know is I still cannot get any shipping from Germany for my Prussian Hussars and I do fear what would happen to any order for decals/transfers from Brussels or Paris, if intercepted by our esteemed Customs and Excise.

Ha! Reminds me of this…

YouTube link

Look, I appreciate that the whole thing is totally insane.

Just ask a Scottish fisherman who thought this would transform their industry and now realise how it surely has.

With apologies to our fortunate brethren over the pond or elsewhere who have no idea what the heck we are on about. Or to our Editor who says no politics.

I started this to highlight the problems I have, as a resident in the UK (even though I still have an EU passport 67 years since my birth), in importing figures from Germany. I wonder if an Albanian can gain access to Perrys' work?

I did not wish to express any personal opinion on Brexit (and just think, that was before COVID 19).

That's maybe because nobody knows, still, how the trade situation will pan out.

Short term bugs in a new system have to be given time to iron themselves out, and then you have massive curveball of Covid which is causing trading problems worldwide.

In addition there is the confusion being caused by the new VAT regulations. This is actually an EU thing that was originally set to come into force on January 1st this year, but has been delayed until July because of Covid. However, the British Government has implemented the changes on the original January date, claiming that they were legally obliged to do so by some sort of International agreement. It all seems to be as clear as mud…

I would imagine that once all that lot sorts itself out in a year or two's time, and businesses have got used to their new procedures, it should be a lot simpler from the consumer's point of view.

Well I think we shouldn't worry about it as we all will be dead from COVID in a years or two …