Seeking Glimpses of the Future

I have my crystal ball out. It is sitting right in front of me on my desk. I’ve been searching its depths for some clue about the future of printing, publishing, and related industries. You know what I get? Nothing.

The only thing I know for sure is that things will change. This little prophesy doesn’t mean much, except to say that time is a river and we can either find a way to float with the current, or test our strength against it. (Pretty poetic wouldn’t you say?)

I’ve spent a lifetime, so far, learning all about offset printing. I now know quite a lot, but what is that worth? What is it worth really? When I think back, I can remember people who were expert typesetters and others who were great with scanning drums for four color separations. Their hard won knowledge became irrelevant almost instantly with the changes in technology.

I used to laughingly pontificate that someday Bill Ruesch Print Broker, would consist only of an equipment filled Winnebago. Customers would provide me with art files. I would drive over to the paper merchant’s warehouse, load-in the stock, and by the time I arrived at the customer’s dock the job would be completely printed, folded, and bound.

Book in a Box

That used to be my weird vision of the future. It made me and my customers chuckle at the absurdity. It isn’t so funny anymore now that the Espresso Book Machine exists. In one machine a whole book is created; from file to finished product in less than seven minutes.  Seven minutes–printed, bound, and ready to read. That is if you have hot pads. I understand that the books come out pretty warm and need to cool down a bit.

My vision of the future has come true. What do I see in the future now? I haven’t a clue. I think my predictor must be on the blink. I’d be willing to go out on a limb by stating, “It doesn’t matter what crazy, ridiculous, impossible notion we conceive, someone is probably already a step or two ahead of us, and are right this moment building something to make it happen.”

I’m prepared to be amazed. How about you?

I thought it was time to move off the China subject and go to something else, but there have been a rash of comments on this site and on my printing groups on LinkedIn that I’m going to post another China related blog in an attempt to address those other concerns.

Are American families, homes, and jobs worth defending?

Sometimes I can’t believe my ears. What has happened to America? Americans used to fight for their rights, but now our fight begins by laying down our guns. Our motto seems to be “why try; it won’t do any good anyway.”

Chinese printers market their low ball prices in the United States aided by two main things:

• Their costs are one-tenth of ours. How did I arrive at that figure? It was easy; I know how much minimum wage is in the US. Remember this wage is mandated by the government. Employers have to pay it. They also have to pay matching Social Security, so the real figure is much higher. I also read an article in Reuters that discussed how much the average factory worker earns in China. Without matching Social Security, they earn 1/10th.  Suppose you are a Chinese printer marketing to the US, how difficult would it be to come in at half the price when your labor costs are less than 1/10th? Who is making the real money here? The Chinese workers? Ha!

• China plays hardball when it comes to International Trade. They are members of the WTO, but you don’t have to look far to see filing, after filing, after filings of Chinese trade violations for anti-dumping and anti-subsidies. Some states have a three times you are out law to penalize career criminals. If we held China up to this same standard they would right now be serving several consecutive lifetime sentences. They can import some products to the US for 2-5% duties. We, on the other hand, have to pay some 24% to sell there. It is wrong, it isn’t fair, and it is killing the US economy.

Since our government won’t help, and the business elite are benefiting from cozy relationships with foreign countries, there is only one thing left to “we the people,” and that is our collective buying power. If enough of us refuse to buy Chinese, Pakistani, Indian, Mexican, or any other products made from cheap labor we can turn the tide.

Some say that it is unfair to blame these countries because it is the American consumer who really controls the prices. Of course I want low prices, but not at the expense of putting myself or my neighbors out of work. I don’t know about everyone else, but if presented with two identical items and one is made in the US and the other in China I would rather buy American, even if it was a little more. I would not choose Chinese industry over American.

What about the automobile business, didn’t the Japanese do the same thing? No — they didn’t. They didn’t compete solely on price, although they used price at first to get our attention. What they did is build a better vehicle than the crap being pumped out by Detroit. I hate it that we lost this giant industry to foreign competition, but we deserved to lose it. Not because of the workers but because of the fat cats at the top who left the office every day counting their lavish bonuses while steadily guiding their companies into bankruptcy. Bonuses for bad leadership — whoever thought that was a good idea?

We are experiencing a 10% unemployment rate in the United States right now, primarily because of a few bankers who used vast lobbying power to influence congress. Our government systematically deregulated the banking and financial institutions until we got chaos. Those who believe in free markets, take note, without some control everything goes to hell, quickly.

There is an axis of evil to coin a phrase from George W. Bush. Americans are being crushed economically by Wall Street Bankers, the US Congress, the Insurance industry, and unfair foreign competition. Until these four entities are brought to task it is going to do nothing but get worse. Do you hate 10% unemployment, reduced wages, and increased working hours? That is just a start. Over the next few decades we will see 25% unemployment, salaries cut to the bone, and typical working days of 16 hours. Once Wall Street has us where they want us, poor, starving, and desperate we will be competitive with China, because we will be reduced to their level. Welcome to the new America, the one world government, the one fashioned by the true axis of evil.

I was half-watching Stephen Colbert on television yesterday. It was his final show for this year. He spoke about the recession and at the top of his list of suffering industries was printing. Boing–he got my attention. Finally, the world has started to recognize how badly damaged we have been. In a way that is ironic, because printing created the Union and is the backbone of  history. And yet, when filling out a form or survey and the question is asked, “What industry are you in?” you won’t find printing. It’s like we no longer exist. I sometimes feel like Mr. Cellophane from the Broadway show Chicago. Hey world, printing is an industry. We do exist.

Printing, Publishing, and Observations

A friend called the other day. This is the same friend who introduced me to blogging almost a year ago. He said that my blog posts aren’t like other blogs. He finally figured out the difference, he says that I’m not writing traditional blogs, I’m more of a columnist.

Sometimes it is about the observations.

I’ve thought about it and believe he is on to something. My posts tend to be longer than what other bloggers do. I tackle subjects outside of my “stated purpose.” Maybe that is true, and perhaps the search engines get confused when they send out their crawly spider things, and they go back and report that my printing and publishing blog includes the economy, big business, and social injustice. It makes it hard to nail me down.

“Government of the people, by the people, and for the people.”

The last honest president?

I can’t help it. Maybe it is my maturity–I am sliding into senior citizenship quicker than I want to admit. After a certain age, you start realizing what you knew before, but only philosophically. You have seen enough, and experienced enough, to know that life isn’t fair. In my case, I truly know that life isn’t fair, but I haven’t given in. I still believe that it isn’t too late. I believe that if people gather in large enough numbers they can make the government listen. Is that naive? I suppose so, because millions of citizens contacted their representatives and the White House begging them to withhold TARP funds from ailing banks. Those millions had zero impact. For those financial institutions, the recession is over, and they can double their executive compensations, but for the rest of the country the recession they created continues. Mortgage foreclosures are still happening at an incredible rate. Is this “Government of the people, by the people, and for the people?” –Abraham Lincoln

We want it, but the government denies us.

We are still in the throes of health care reform. In survey after survey, the American public proved we overwhelmingly  support  the public option. The percentages range from 61% to 77%. The public option is a no-brainer. We want it. Why then do our representatives continue to insist that the public option is dead?

Do you smell the stink of sellout?

Let’s think about it–the citizens want it, congress doesn’t. Where is the disconnect? It stinks of sellout. Someone owns the congress lock stock and barrel, and it isn’t the citizenry–is it? I’m willing to bet everything I own that the final health care reform bill will do more to benefit the health insurance companies than the people. It’s just like the prescription drug plan. The government said it was for the old folks and it is, a little bit anyway, but the real winners were the pharmaceutical companies. It has made it possible for Senior citizens to pay the high drug prices with public money. How do the drug companies benefit? People who couldn’t pay for their medicines before, are now able to. They hit the jackpot and the pharmaceutical executives are smiling all the way to the bank with their bonus money, perks, and lavish lifestyles, while the rest of us are destined to pay more taxes. What, you don’t think you pay more taxes, you do, it is just deferred. It is called the national debt. Someday the piper will come calling, and then we’ll find out what deficit spending has really cost us.

The lucky ones are those who are gone before the collapse.

Like I said, I’m sliding rapidly into senior citizenship, and maybe, just maybe I won’t be around to witness the final collapse because of all this selfishness, greed, and foolishness.