Latest news with #Ringer
Time of India
28-05-2025
- Business
- Time of India
Trump's China tariffs are having a 'massive impact' on small business
When President Donald Trump temporarily reduced tariffs this month on imports from China from the astronomical level that he had set in March, the stock market soared and economists said a recession was now less likely. But the emergency is not over for small business owners like Carina Hamel and Robby Ringer who import products from China. Hamel and Ringer's company, Bivo , sells stainless steel water bottles with a patented nozzle that allows users -- think thirsty cyclists -- to gulp drinks quickly. Before Trump's tariffs threatened the company's existence, the founders said, the nearly 5-year-old business, run out of a former corset factory in Richmond, Vermont, was growing fast and close to becoming profitable. Play Video Play Skip Backward Skip Forward Mute Current Time 0:00 / Duration 0:00 Loaded : 0% Stream Type LIVE Seek to live, currently behind live LIVE Remaining Time - 0:00 1x Playback Rate Chapters Chapters Descriptions descriptions off , selected Captions captions and subtitles off , selected Audio Track Picture-in-Picture Fullscreen This is a modal window. Beginning of dialog window. Escape will cancel and close the window. Text Color White Black Red Green Blue Yellow Magenta Cyan Opacity Opaque Semi-Transparent Text Background Color Black White Red Green Blue Yellow Magenta Cyan Opacity Opaque Semi-Transparent Transparent Caption Area Background Color Black White Red Green Blue Yellow Magenta Cyan Opacity Transparent Semi-Transparent Opaque Font Size 50% 75% 100% 125% 150% 175% 200% 300% 400% Text Edge Style None Raised Depressed Uniform Drop shadow Font Family Proportional Sans-Serif Monospace Sans-Serif Proportional Serif Monospace Serif Casual Script Small Caps Reset restore all settings to the default values Done Close Modal Dialog End of dialog window. by Taboola by Taboola Sponsored Links Sponsored Links Promoted Links Promoted Links You May Like Elegant New Scooters For Seniors In 2024: The Prices May Surprise You Mobility Scooter | Search Ads Learn More Undo The drop in tariffs this month to 30% from 145% on most Chinese goods was a relief but in the way that a flood is better than a tsunami. "Six weeks ago, 30% would have shocked the world and been appalling and hard to deal with -- and it is now," Ringer said. The duties on Bivo's bottles are higher than 30% because of the material they're made from and how they are classified by trade officials. Bivo bottles that are not insulated are subject to tariffs that add up to 47%, and the rate for insulated bottles is 37%. Live Events Trump has frequently said that foreign businesses that ship products to the United States pay the tariffs. But, in reality, importers like Bivo pay the duties to the federal government when goods arrive at a U.S. port. "It's still a massive impact to the cash, and it still requires reworking a whole new strategy," Ringer said. Bivo now estimated sales to be 30% lower than it had previously expected, in large part because many retailers, which buy around two-thirds of its bottles, are buying less outdoor gear as they try to navigate their way through economic uncertainty. Trump's tariffs are weighing on businesses of all sizes. Walmart's CEO said this month that the giant retailer probably would not be able to "absorb all the pressure" from the tariffs. Tariffs pose even bigger risks to small businesses. They typically don't have the deep financial reserves needed to weather economic problems, the heft to demand lower prices from suppliers and the sway to lobby the government for exemptions from tariffs, said Ebehi Iyoha, an assistant professor at Harvard Business School. "We should generally expect small businesses to be more vulnerable to trade shocks than large businesses," Iyoha said. The National Federation of Independent Business, an association that represents small businesses, regularly surveys its members about how their businesses are doing. In April, its members' expectations for future sales declined for the fourth month in a row. In a note accompanying the survey results, the federation said that millions of small businesses "acquire imported goods as inputs to their operations and those supply chains are currently at risk." The United States imported goods worth $439 billion from China last year, and many businesses -- including Bivo -- say they cannot get their products anywhere else any time soon. Things might have been a lot worse for Hamel and Ringer, who are married and live a few doors from Bivo's offices in Richmond, a trailhead town on the Winooski River. Expecting strong demand for their bottles, they had imported roughly 50,000 from China days before Trump first imposed his tariffs this year. "Dumb luck," Ringer said. But when tariffs climbed to 145%, Bivo had to effectively stop importing because it did not have the cash to pay the duties. But it had committed to buying 30,000 more bottles from Haers, its supplier in Yongkang, China. Hamel, Ringer and their six full-time employees snapped into survival mode. Hamel went to Europe to see if the company could sell its bottles there, but she realised it would take too long to quickly sell many bottles there. During the trip, Hamel was at her lowest point since the tariffs were introduced. "I still feel super optimistic we can make it through this," she said from England, "but I think it's going to be really freaking hard." She did make some inroads. A German outdoor gear retailer said it would start selling Bivo's bottles, and Hamel found a warehouse in the Netherlands where the company could ship its bottles from China for distribution in Europe. After Hamel returned home, Ringer went to China to plead for better terms from Haers. Though the supplier would not cut the cost of the bottles, it did give Ringer more time to pay for them, offering Bivo some financial breathing room. Haers did not respond to a request for comment. When he was in China, Ringer asked to see Bivo's products in the warehouse, which is something he has done before to check manufacturing quality. But this time, he had to clamber over pallets in the aisles to see the bottles. The warehouse was crammed full of goods that customers had delayed shipping to avoid paying the 145% tariffs. On May 12, when Trump reduced tariffs on China for 90 days, Hamel and Ringer concluded that they could now afford to pay the tariffs on a small shipment -- 7,624 of the 30,000 bottles they had promised to buy. They will pay $24,436 in duties on the shipment, compared with an estimated $3,645 at the rates that existed before Trump took office, according to their calculations. Hamel and Ringer said they were not planning to increase prices on the bottles, which sell for $34 to $54. Bivo pays roughly $8 per bottle, before tariffs, and sells them to wholesalers for around $20. Critics of tariffs say they hurt entrepreneurs such as Hamel and Ringer. The two had come up with the idea for a stainless-steel bottle for athletes in 2019 while cross-country skiing on Mount Hood in Oregon, after noticing most sports water bottles were invariably plastic. They have put $500,000 in personal savings into Bivo and used their house as collateral for a line of credit for the business. Supporters of the tariffs, however, say China has subsidised many industries, including steel and aluminium mills, giving the country's manufacturers an unfair advantage over businesses elsewhere. Trump and his aides have exhorted American businesses to move production to the United States. Bivo has considered making bottles in the United States but determined that would push up the cost of manufacturing to at least $50 each. Hamel and Ringer said that, without significant government support, many businesses would not be able to shift production to the United States. "It's not laid out to set up U.S. manufacturing," Ringer said about Trump's tariff policy. "It is only laid out to, in theory, punish China, when it's really also punishing U.S. businesses."
Boston Globe
27-05-2025
- Business
- Boston Globe
Trump's China tariffs are having a ‘massive impact' on small business
The drop in tariffs this month to 30 percent from 145 percent on most Chinese goods was a relief but in the way that a flood is better than a tsunami. 'Six weeks ago, 30 percent would have shocked the world and been appalling and hard to deal with — and it is now,' Ringer said. Get Starting Point A guide through the most important stories of the morning, delivered Monday through Friday. Enter Email Sign Up The duties on Bivo's bottles are higher than 30 percent because of the material they're made from and how they are classified by trade officials. Bivo bottles that are not insulated are subject to tariffs that add up to 47 percent, and the rate for insulated bottles is 37 percent. Advertisement Trump has frequently said that foreign businesses that ship products to the United States pay the tariffs. But, in reality, importers like Bivo pay the duties to the federal government when goods arrive at a US port. 'It's still a massive impact to the cash, and it still requires reworking a whole new strategy,' Ringer said. Advertisement Bivo now estimated sales to be 30 percent lower than it had previously expected, in large part because many retailers, which buy around two-thirds of its bottles, are buying less outdoor gear as they try to navigate their way through economic uncertainty. Trump's tariffs are weighing on businesses of all sizes. Walmart's CEO said this month that the giant retailer probably would not be able to 'absorb all the pressure' from the tariffs. Bivo displayed their bottles from China in Richmond, Vt. HILARY SWIFT/NYT Tariffs pose even bigger risks to small businesses. They typically don't have the deep financial reserves needed to weather economic problems, the heft to demand lower prices from suppliers and the sway to lobby the government for exemptions from tariffs, said Ebehi Iyoha, an assistant professor at Harvard Business School. 'We should generally expect small businesses to be more vulnerable to trade shocks than large businesses,' Iyoha said. The National Federation of Independent Business, an association that represents small businesses, regularly surveys its members about how their businesses are doing. In April, its members' expectations for future sales declined for the fourth month in a row. In a note accompanying the survey results, the federation said that millions of small businesses 'acquire imported goods as inputs to their operations and those supply chains are currently at risk.' The United States imported goods worth $439 billion from China last year, and many businesses — including Bivo — say they cannot get their products anywhere else any time soon. Things might have been a lot worse for Hamel and Ringer, who are married and live a few doors from Bivo's offices in Richmond, a trailhead town on the Winooski River. Advertisement Expecting strong demand for their bottles, they had imported roughly 50,000 from China days before Trump first imposed his tariffs this year. 'Dumb luck,' Ringer said. But when tariffs climbed to 145 percent, Bivo had to effectively stop importing because it did not have the cash to pay the duties. But it had committed to buying 30,000 more bottles from Haers, its supplier in Yongkang, China. Hamel, Ringer, and their six full-time employees snapped into survival mode. Hamel went to Europe to see if the company could sell its bottles there, but she realized it would take too long to quickly sell many bottles there. During the trip, Hamel was at her lowest point since the tariffs were introduced. 'I still feel super optimistic we can make it through this,' she said from England, 'but I think it's going to be really freaking hard.' Sam Noel received product from China in Richmond, Vt. HILARY SWIFT/NYT She did make some inroads. A German outdoor gear retailer said it would start selling Bivo's bottles, and Hamel found a warehouse in the Netherlands where the company could ship its bottles from China for distribution in Europe. After Hamel returned home, Ringer went to China to plead for better terms from Haers. Though the supplier would not cut the cost of the bottles, it did give Ringer more time to pay for them, offering Bivo some financial breathing room. Haers did not respond to a request for comment. When he was in China, Ringer asked to see Bivo's products in the warehouse, which is something he has done before to check manufacturing quality. But this time, he had to clamber over pallets in the aisles to see the bottles. The warehouse was crammed full of goods that customers had delayed shipping to avoid paying the 145 percent tariffs. Advertisement On May 12, when Trump reduced tariffs on China for 90 days, Hamel and Ringer concluded that they could now afford to pay the tariffs on a small shipment — 7,624 of the 30,000 bottles they had promised to buy. They will pay $24,436 in duties on the shipment, compared with an estimated $3,645 at the rates that existed before Trump took office, according to their calculations. Hamel and Ringer said they were not planning to increase prices on the bottles, which sell for $34 to $54. Bivo pays roughly $8 per bottle, before tariffs, and sells them to wholesalers for around $20. Critics of tariffs say they hurt entrepreneurs such as Hamel and Ringer. The two had come up with the idea for a stainless-steel bottle for athletes in 2019 while cross-country skiing on Mount Hood in Oregon, after noticing most sports water bottles were invariably plastic. They have put $500,000 in personal savings into Bivo and used their house as collateral for a line of credit for the business. Supporters of the tariffs, however, say China has subsidized many industries, including steel and aluminum mills, giving the country's manufacturers an unfair advantage over businesses elsewhere. Trump and his aides have exhorted American businesses to move production to the United States. Bivo has considered making bottles in the United States but determined that would push up the cost of manufacturing to at least $50 each. Hamel and Ringer said that, without significant government support, many businesses would not be able to shift production to the United States. Advertisement 'It's not laid out to set up US manufacturing,' Ringer said about Trump's tariff policy. 'It is only laid out to, in theory, punish China, when it's really also punishing US businesses.' This article originally appeared in .
New York Times
24-03-2025
- Entertainment
- New York Times
Leading Ballet Students With Grace, Mercy and Hard-Won Experience
'Y'all' is pleasant enough on its own, but to hear it more than a dozen times during a ballet class in New York City is a happy find. As in: 'I want y'all to move a lot more. If you fall off your pirouette that is ohhh-kay.' That voice, that word, that Southern sound — Jenifer Ringer is back in town. Ringer, a former principal with New York City Ballet, is now the director of the intermediate and advanced divisions and artistic programming at the company's School of American Ballet. As Ringer, 52, called out combinations in a recent technique class, starting with a simple plié sequence at the barre, she reminded her students of the basics: To press all 10 toes into the floor. To pull the legs together, wrapping their muscles for increased turnout. To contract the stomach into the spine. Preparation is important to Ringer: She likes to talk about where dancers should be holding weight in their bodies so that they can move in any direction. 'When y'all move, it's so much better,' she said. 'So much better.' As a teacher, Ringer is precise and firm, yet encouraging. She can get carried away. Before the class, she warned: 'I get very frizzy and red faced, so I'll lose my dignity, probably.' Her face did grow more pink, just as her smile became more joyful. She did not lose her dignity, but she did make her students want to dance bigger, bolder — to hear the music and to be on it. For her, musicality and efficiency matter. Ringer is part of a restructured leadership at the school, which is headed by Jonathan Stafford, who is also the artistic director of New York City Ballet. The school is now run by a team of three: Ringer; Aesha Ash, who is head of artistic health and wellness; and Katrina Killian, the director of the children's and preparatory divisions. The school, considered by most to be the country's most prestigious ballet academy, trains dancers for City Ballet — the majority of the company comes from the school — and beyond. Stafford decided to restructure after Darla Hoover's short stint as chair of faculty, a job she took on when Kay Mazzo retired. Stafford said that he realized it was too big a job for one person, that 'we needed to have multiple people leading different aspects of the school.' And after the pandemic, the school was going through a transition. Wellness has become a priority. 'This was a much broader effort,' Stafford said, 'to support the students at the school beyond the tendus and pliés.' Last year Stafford invited Ringer to be a guest teacher for a week. Simone Gibson, 16, described that time as 'a breath of fresh air because it felt like she really wanted to be there.' Gibson said, 'She was like, I'm coming here, I'm here for you, like, I'm ready to learn with you and learn about you as a dancer.' All the while Stafford had something bigger to pitch. 'I wanted to sit with her face to face and tell her that I really felt I needed her at S.A.B.,' he said. 'I wanted to work together with her at the school.' The job offer came as a surprise to Ringer, though she and Stafford know each other well. At City Ballet, they were dance partners, a relationship in which, Stafford said, 'a person's character is laid bare in those stressful, pressure-packed, vulnerable moments.' When he saw their names on a casting sheet or a rehearsal schedule, he would be filled with relief. 'I would internally celebrate,' he said. Ringer, whose romantic presence and musical dancing could bridge drama and humor with ease, never really thought of herself as a teacher. 'I wasn't one of those dancers that studied class,' she said. But her teachers at the school left important afterimages. She studied under the best, including Stanley Williams, Alexandra Danilova, Antonina Tumkovsky (or Tumi) and Suki Schorer, who still trains dancers at the school. 'All so very different,' Ringer said. 'Tumi worked on our strength and stamina. Suki worked on our precision and our presentation quality. Stanley was subtlety and control. And Danilova had the perfume and the magic.' Her own teaching career began gradually. After retiring from City Ballet in 2014, she moved to Los Angeles to direct the Colburn Dance Academy, and in 2017, she became dean of its Trudl Zipper Dance Institute, where her husband, James Fayette, another former City Ballet principal, was associate dean. Being at Colburn and caring for students over the course of a year transformed her ideas about what a teacher could be. She liked planning for them: 'What repertory is good for these students to learn this year?' she said. 'Knowing that I could have goals to work on — seeing them and saying, 'Oh my gosh, we really need to work on arabesque and planning that for a month.'' She also found she enjoyed digging in. 'That's where I think I started to find the passion,' she said. 'That's where I really got a lot of my understanding of what it means to be a teacher.' Ringer loves that at School of American Ballet, 'it's a given that we're going to attempt excellence,' she said. 'I remember the feeling of being one of these students. I remember wanting to please these teachers more than anything. And now being on the other side and being one of the teachers and knowing how hard they work and how much they care, I find it very touching. And I know that I ask a lot of them.' But she also knows that they want to be pushed. Kai Perkins, 16, said that Ringer focuses on building strength. 'If we're doing an adagio step, she'll tell us how to be on our leg before we do the combination,' Perkins said. 'So we go in and do it, already knowing how to approach the step. Which I think has actually helped me in all my other classes, too.' Killian has known Ringer since they both danced at City Ballet. 'Her spirit is exactly how she danced,' Killian said. 'Which I think is so unusual. Some people are gorgeous dancers, but the way they interact with people is difficult.' Before she was offered the job, Ringer and her family — she and Fayette have a daughter and a son — were living in Charleston, S.C., having left Los Angeles in 2021 to spend more together as a family and to be closer to Ringer's parents. (Ringer grew up in Summerville, S.C.) This year she has been living in a studio apartment in New York and commuting to Charleston on weekends. Her family will join her this summer. Fayette, she said, can't wait to move back, which says a lot. In 2013, he was stabbed with scissors while protecting his toddler son from an attacker in Riverside Park. Recently, as a family, they returned to the site. 'We're building positive memories,' Ringer said. 'There's so much to love about the city. And obviously there's other stuff, too.' At City Ballet, Fayette was one of the company's finest partners, and Ringer, a marvel of versatility. Always glamorous, with eyes bright enough to shine up to the fourth ring, Ringer could act. She could be magnificently deadpan, puffing away at a cigarette in 'Namouna,' in a role created for her by Alexei Ratmansky. But her career didn't always go according to plan. 'I didn't have a meteoric rise in the company,' she said. She joined as an apprentice in 1989, and 'it was five years to make soloist and then another five years to become principal,' she said. 'And in the midst of it, I was let go.' She suffered from eating disorders. 'I felt very much like a failure within the perfectionism of the dance world, and so I got to the point where I really couldn't function,' she said. When she left in 1997 — her contract was not renewed — she didn't imagine she would return to dance. But during her year off, she found her independence outside of ballet and eventually made her way back to dance — and to her job at City Ballet — in 1998. For the remainder of her career, ballet was a choice. But in 2010, a reminder of her former struggles came when, in a review of 'George Balanchine's The Nutcracker,' Alastair Macaulay wrote in The Times that Ringer, as the Sugar Plum Fairy, 'looked as if she'd eaten one sugarplum too many.' It caused an uproar. Ringer, who had always been open about her eating disorders, ended up on 'The Oprah Winfrey Show.' Looking back, she said, she can see how it initiated some good dialogue. It also showed her how healthy she had become. 'By the time all that happened, I had gone through my stuff,' she said. 'It was bizarre. I mean, I got to meet Oprah.' For Stafford, the way Ringer has faced her own problems means 'there's a realness to the conversation she's going to potentially have with a student who might be going through the same things,' he said. 'She can speak from real experience.' Beyond helping her to be a better teacher, Ringer hopes her experiences have allowed her to be 'a better overseer of a student body,' she said. 'It's really important for us to care for them as humans within that framework of a ballet school. I just think life is messy, and life is hard, and ballet is beautiful, and ballet is hard. There's just a lot that goes into crafting an artist. And usually the best artists haven't had it easy.' She added, 'There is a reality to the dance world. But there also needs to be grace and mercy.' Before the recent S.A.B. Ball, Ringer worked with dancers on their entrances. Sometimes she tells to them to walk onto a stage, stand and say their name in their heads. 'Anybody who's ever been my student, they know that entrances and exits are really important to me,' Ringer said. 'I want them to come out and say, 'This is who I am.' That's what we all want to see.'
Boston Globe
12-03-2025
- Business
- Boston Globe
Spotify signs Bill Simmons to a new deal
'I've been in enough work situations at this point that you just kinda know when you're in the right spot,' Simmons said in the statement. 'I think all of us are motivated to do something pretty special in the talk and video space.' Get Starting Point A guide through the most important stories of the morning, delivered Monday through Friday. Enter Email Sign Up Simmons joined Spotify in 2020 when the streaming service purchased his company, the Ringer, for about $250 million. Chief Executive Officer Daniel Ek was expanding Spotify from music into new kinds of audio and spent more than $1 billion acquiring podcasting companies and the exclusive rights to hit shows like The Joe Rogan Experience and Call Her Daddy. Advertisement The investment attracted tens of millions of listeners and turned Spotify into one of the most powerful audio platforms in podcasting. Spotify also spent a lot of money on shows that didn't deliver a large audience and has since scaled back its investment. The founders of many of the companies Spotify acquired have since left, including Parcast's Max Cutler, Gimlet Media's Matt Lieber and Alex Blumberg and Anchor's Michael Mignano. The Ringer stands out as one of Spotify's more successful acquisitions. The company makes several popular sports and pop-culture shows that cost very little to produce and have large audiences, including The Bill Simmons Podcast and The Rewatchables. The Ringer continues to add new programs that broaden its portfolio, including Derek Thompson's current affairs show Plain English and a forthcoming podcast from actress Amy Poehler. The Ringer is now rolling out video versions of many shows, including Simmons' podcast. Spotify hopes adding video will bring in more advertising dollars and increase the amount of time users spend in the app. It faces competition from YouTube. Advertisement Spotify was among the top-performing media stocks last year, rising 138%. The shares have continued higher this year, fueled by better-than-expected subscriber growth and the company's first-ever annual profit.
BBC News
25-02-2025
- Entertainment
- BBC News
Consett Empire reduced hours 'protects venue'
Cutting the opening hours at a theatre and cinema will protect the venue's "long-term future" and ensure public money is not wasted, a council has Empire in Consett will trade one day fewer each week under proposals from Durham County and opposition councillors have criticised the plan, pointing out £470,000 was spent last year on roof repairs and describing the venue as "an asset, not a problem".But Liberal Democrat councillor Elizabeth Scott said increases to national insurance and a "very low take up" for some shows meant changes were needed. As well as being a theatre, the 500-seat venue shows new films with the nearest alternative being 12 miles (19.3km) away in cinema and café currently opens from Tuesday to Saturday between 10:00 and 15:00, but under the council's proposals it would shut completely on Tuesdays and open for an hour less on the other days. Empire customers Janice and William Ringer, from New Kyo, Stanley, said they feared reduced opening was a step towards a complete Ringer said: "Think of the money they've just spent doing it up and they [the council] go and do tricks like this... it's criminal."Ms Ringer said the venue was "always busy" as it was currently able to show "some really good shows".She added: "It's disappointing because if it does close, it's something lost from the area." 'No-one visits' Scott, a cabinet member on the authority run jointly by independents, Conservatives and Liberal Democrats, said the council had "invested hundreds of thousands of pounds to make sure that we can continue to offer a fantastic programme of shows and cinema at The Empire"."We've actually just had the most successful pantomime ever at Consett Empire".She claimed "most theatres" in smaller towns were not open every day, but blamed "massive hikes" in national insurance under the Labour government and low audience numbers for some events on the decision."We are doing the right thing to protect the long-term future of the theatre and ensure the council isn't wasting taxpayers' money opening the venue on days when no-one visits." Labour's Kevin Earley said the council should "look for different ideas" and explore all options to "make it viable" instead of reducing its hours."It's a much loved, cracking little theatre for the community and it has a very good reputation," the opposition councillor for Benfieldside said."If it starts getting less people going through the doors it becomes more difficult to justify what you're spending keeping it open."The budget issue doesn't mean just give up and cut, you have to look at this and say this is an asset, not a problem." Follow BBC North East on X, Facebook, Nextdoor and Instagram.
