Business

Tariffs and the Industrial Distribution World

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That last tariff post sparked an interesting comment thread so I thought it would be appropriate to throw in my $.02 on the subject.

For those who may not know, I own an HVAC distributor, which is a subset of industrial distribution.

Almost all residential and light commercial HVAC products sold in the USA are touched by Mexico (if not made there entirely), and all are touched by other countries. No vendor in the space will be immune.

So far I have a bunch of letters from a bunch of vendors saying “hey man, we might have to do something about this” blah blah. I had one vendor that announced a price increase since a lot of their stuff is made in China, but they called me on Friday and said “nah”. One vendor gave me a “tariff surcharge” three weeks ago. I called them up and gave them the riot act and they removed it (since none of the tariffs had even taken effect).

Speaking of surcharges, we won’t accept them. We must have a general price increase to keep our costing and accounting in order.

I imagine most of the rest of the industrial distribution world will be facing these same issues.

We will have a mix of responses from our vendors. Some manufacturers will absorb part of it, some all, some none, etc. I’m expecting some supply chain issues as I imagine some manufacturers will “slow walk” production outside of the US if they sense a solution to the tariffs will be coming.

This is about the last thing my industry needed after covid, the onset of A2L refrigerants, and industry consolidation. But as always with any type of disruption, I look at this as an opportunity. But more hard work ahead.

DOGE is an Oxymoron: Unchecked “Democracy” is the Problem

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Unlike the private sector, where operational efficiency is necessary to survive, the public sector is and always has been inherently inefficient. But that’s not the main problem. Think of federal public polices justified as being in the “public interest” as a building. On the upper floors are the best of them, the merely inefficient. At the mezzanine level are those suffering from extensive waste, fraud and abuse. On the ground floor are policies and programs rife with self-dealing and crony capitalism. Down in the basement is the “temple of virtue” where taxpayers are sacrificed to multiple ideological isms.

DOGE is peeking inside the locked doors on all four levels. As DOGE exposes “Dirty Deeds, Done Dirt Cheap,” politicians cry foul, as “they were implemented (by us) democratically. To paraphrase Churchill, “democracy is less bad than totalitarianism,” but, he might have added “generally worse than competitive private markets.” At this stage in US democracy, DOGE revelations have lost some of their shock value as commonplace, and politicians emphasize their good intent. DOGE needs to demonstrate that “good intentions” often lead to bad outcomes, and do not justify corruption in any case.

DOGE alone can only win a few skirmishes against Congress and its massive army of rent-seekers feeding off their largess. With public understanding and support, the Trump Administration could bring about more permanent structural changes that provide greater voter control.

Life is a Competition

Americans love sports, from 5 & 6-year-old soccer leagues through high school, college and pro teams, where the competition to succeed is intense. Pro sports is a business, as the recent Luka Donic trade to the Lakers reminds us, with winners and losers. It is incredibly “democratic” as millions of fans choose what players to follow, games to attend or stream at the posted price, and owners respond continuously to fan expectations. The competition is subject to a massive set of complicated rules and limitations enforced by referees and judges whose integrity is subjected to coaches’ challenge, instant replay and fan fury. That reflects the system of checks and balances that a competitive private market incorporates.

Now imagine a pro sports league designed and governed by the most honest and altruistic national politicians. They would deem it unfair to pay some athletes more than others, or to exclude the weak or physically impaired from the competition. Winners would be determined by political deal making in smoke-filled back rooms. Prices would be determined according to “ability to pay” and ticket purchases would be mandatory whether or not attending the games, with revenues first flowing through party coffers. Fans would be told who to root for and losing teams and cities would be declared winners so as not to result in hurt feelings. Voting against this system would result in your team being designated the loser but you would still be required to buy the tickets. That’s a metaphor for our current “altruistic” federal democracy.

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Rare and Fine Books

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(A break today from matters political.)

Some time ago – as things are counted in internet time, which is sort of like dog years in that before the turn of this last century was pre-history, 2000 was kind of like AD 1, making the first decade analogous to the Roman Era. Anyway, along about the early Dark Ages-Internet Time, I became a partner in a Teeny Publishing Bidness, run by a woman who was the hardest-driving editor in the local literary arts community. We used to joke that Alice G. had been married three times, twice to mere mortal men, and once to the Chicago Manual of Style. She was also enduringly faithful to observing the Oxford Comma. Because of her serious night owl habit, she preferred self-employment, mainly as a freelance editor and owner/proprietor of the Teeny Publishing Bidness.

A mutual friend who saw to her basic computer needs, was also my sometime employer. In a mad stroke of business/matchmaking genius, he believed Alice and I would be an excellent professional fit … and so, it turned out to be. Among other things, our clients could contact us directly, any time of the day or night. Alice took me on as a junior partner, we shared the work, split the profits and got along very well in that partnership for five or six years. Alice had connections among the mildly well-to do and artistic in San Antonio and for almost thirty years had done quite well out of doing bespoke and high-quality books for businesses, institutions, and for local writers who had sufficient income to support an extensive print run through a lithographic press.

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Nothing Personal, It’s Just Business. Well, Actually, It Is All Personal. Because Business is Personal.

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For those who may not know, I own a business and our field is HVAC distribution, which is a subset of industrial distribution.

A few weeks ago I lost my largest customer. It wasn’t due to any fault of my company or staff. The order came from one of my manufacturer vendors, where the people and culture have developed into a gross toxic stew over the last few years. I’ll spare you the gory details, but to quote Goodfellas, “we had to sit still and take it. It was among the Italians, it was real greaseball shit“.

Which is to say, one of my largest vendors gave this order and no matter how hard I fought, or wanted to fight, it was over. So that was that.

The great part about owning your own business is that over time (I’ve been doing this for 35 years) you develop a sense of peace in the face of threats and you develop what many have called “steel”. I have faced unimaginable (to most) adversity being in business for this long. We have lost our largest customer before.

And while this is a short term shock to us, we have been here before and have been through worse. Kneejerk reactions always prove unproductive. Sitting in a quiet room and thinking about your company, where you are, and who your friends are and what you can do IS productive. Charlie Munger said:

The first rule of a happy life is low expectations. If you have unrealistic expectations you’re going to be miserable your whole life. You want to have reasonable expectations and take life’s results, good and bad, as they happen with a certain amount of stoicism.

Munger thinks that I shouldn’t spend too much time navel gazing over something that I had no control over. So what now? This customer was 12% of our revenue.

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Schadenfreudelicious

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Two weeks and a bit more after election day, and the meltdown, panic, and dismay among the progs, the establishment media, and the entertainment world continues. I’m taking an unworthy pleasure in reading reports of panic and back-biting among partisans of the Harris/Walz camp and the noisy laments of their cis-gender or bi significant others. I’m also taking a savage pleasure in reading about or viewing evidence of the dismayed realization among the managerial class in certain industries dependent economically on the choices of the general public – that conservatives and Trump voters buy shoes, too. Also movie tickets, newspaper and magazine subscriptions and other consumer goods.

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