Good morning!
Here are today’s highlights:
Will there be any small, inexpensive cars for sale in the U.S.?
A bill designed to create housing is doing the opposite.
A public/private partnership in Philadelphia is giving businesses free retail space.
The head of a fractional marketing firm says it’s time to go headless.
THE TARIFFS
Instead of retiring, this owner has had to list her own home on Airbnb: “Joann Cartiglia runs The Queen’s Treasures, a toy and doll shop in upstate New York. She said tariffs have upended her plans for the future. ‘My husband got a plow truck and was plowing driveways for extra money — he’s 67. Our life has done a 180,’ Cartiglia told Marketplace’s Sabri Ben-Achour.”
“We design everything here, and we use factories in China to manufacture. We do dolls with hand-painted faces and hand-sewn bodies, hand-sewn wigs. We do all kinds of doll accessories. We do historic-based toys, very high quality — the ones you put in the attic for the next generation, not throwing in a landfill.”
So, how big was your tariff bill over the past year? “It was not as big as it would have been, because I was unable to go into production. I did not have a cash reserve of an extra 30 percent — on top of my cost of goods — to pay the government. A toy company is an interesting model because we lose money every month of the year, except for November and December. So I brought in only what I knew would sell through. With the volatility of tariffs, everybody was waiting for it to settle down. So everybody that had Christmas-related sales waited to ship, and then there was another mini shipping crisis.”
Are you confident that you will get the refund you’re looking for? “In this business environment, I am confident of nothing. You know, we are at 10 percent tariffs again. I’m told he’s going to re-up that. I’m told they’re going to raise it to 15 percent — which is the most that he can levy. I’m doing this 20 years, and before that I had a gift company. I’m old. I’ve seen it all. I’m going to be 65. I’ve never in my life felt so unsure about owning a brand.”
You were thinking about retirement: “That’s been kind of taken off the table. You know, I have an Economic Injury [Disaster] Loan that the government was wonderful and gave out during the shipping crisis post-Covid. This EIDL loan that I have is a personal guarantee. So even if I declared bankruptcy, I will have a judgment and owe the government more than my Social Security check would be.
“I am in the scariest financial situation of my life. I’ve never been late on a payment. This month, I’m a little late on my EIDL loan — I’m not in a 30-day period, but I need some money to come in. And my husband and I are doing absolutely everything we can to cover our expenses. So I Airbnb my house, my beautiful home. My husband and I sleep in the camper in the summer that we planned on hiking our way into retirement.” READ MORE
