Is it too late to turn it around?

It happened again in my area. Two more printers, and I’m not talking micro-shops, but printers with 40″ multi-color presses, full binderies, etc. closed their doors. These were plants that just a couple of years ago were thriving, hiring people, buying equipment, and taking care of business.

What happened?

We all know what happened.

1. The US economy tanked. The US government, Banking, Financial interests, and Real Estate speculators combined to nearly drive us into full-blown depression.  The harm dealt to the printing business was both instantaneous and long-term. The instant effect was that companies, all kinds of companies, got scared. They pulled back their printing orders because that was the perceived easiest way to cut expense.
2. The banks got scared. They decided to circle their wagons and cut off loans to the printers. The printers, that are generally small businesses, have shallow pockets. In an economy of falling sales they needed the banks more than ever. Help didn’t come.
3. Direct mail campaigns were scrapped or delayed by marketers who turned to the Internet for cheaper CPM. Was this a wise move? We’ll see. Early wisdom points to DM as still a very viable tool. In comparison to the Internet, DM yields higher response numbers. Will enough customers return to save printing?

Is Printing a Bellwether Industry?

The United States IS heading toward becoming a third world economy.  If anyone wants to know what living in America will be like in fifty years, all they have to do is look at how the Chinese live now. This is the legacy we are leaving to our grandchildren. Think about it, manufacturing jobs have been fleeing our shores faster than a cat with its tail on fire. Our country has huge balance of trade deficits, and enormous national debts. It doesn’t take a genius to see that if you aren’t making any products, there aren’t any products to sell. Apparently the only products we can produce and sell are hamburgers and fries, and they don’t export very well. How long will it be before our citizens will have to go to other countries to seek employment?

This Brings Us to the China Question

What happens when we chose to buy from China, India, Mexico, or Pakistan?

1. We put American citizens out of work. I had a very kind, considerate person whom I have known for a quarter century, or more, say to me that Americans can find other jobs. Even if they have to work for minimum wage there are other opportunities. Maybe they are just lazy. Maybe they could. Just maybe they could go to work for minimum wage when they used to earn much more. What will they be able to spend their minimum wage salary on? A home — nope. A new car — nope. How about college education — no way. Minimum wage isn’t even enough to survive on, and barely surviving is what they do in third world economies. Every well-paying job that is eliminated hurts the entire economy and drags us step-by-step into inevitable decline. If you think Katrina was a disaster, just wait and see what a US economy will be like without a middle class.
2. What about Chinese families don’t they need to be employed too? Sure they do, and we all feel for them, but if we take the food out of the mouths of our children to feed theirs, our children will starve. Can you visualize it, a neighbor, or a relative’s children dying because the work they could have had went out of the country? We have a global responsibility it is true, but our first responsibility is to our family, then our neighbors, then our communities, then our states, then our nation and finally the world. We’ve been doing it backwards!
3. Isn’t it too late? Don’t we already drive foreign cars, wear foreign clothes, and shoes? Even Hershey chocolate is now made in Mexico. If we are already buying these things out of the country why not buy printing out of the country too? Anyone who accepts this line of thought needs to go back and read point No.1. This is the moral equivalent of saying that since murder is committed regularly in our cities it is all right to commit murder. No it isn’t. Just because a terrible thing has been happening doesn’t make it right! Moral people do whatever they can to stomp out wrongs, they don’t justify them and they don’t, for heavens sake, participate in them.
4. Business people who buy from China forget what they saw when China hosted the Olympics. The world was only allowed to see what the Chinese government wanted reveal. They even censured the Internet. What is China hiding? They wanted us to believe that everyone was happy. That the country was clean, prosperous, and healthy. Is it? The loss of our jobs and the expenditure of our dollars don’t go to the people who really need it. It goes to the upper class, just like it does in the US. We discovered that when we bailed out the big banks and they rewarded themselves with BIG bonuses! The difference is we are allowed in this country to see the disparity between rich and poor, but the poor in China are hidden by the government.
5. Don’t forget that Chinese businesses are guilty of serious crimes and injustices in their rush to grab all they can at the expense of their disadvantaged employees and helpless competitors.

• They pay very poor wages bordering on slave labor — pennies per hour
• They employ children. Impoverished children must work to help support their destitute families.
• They use toxic materials like lead based paints and inks. Remember the problem with Mattel and the recall of millions of lead painted toys?
• They substitute cheaper materials for the specified ones like in the wallboard fiasco.
• They have very foul working conditions.
• They have few, if any, environmental concerns or laws.

Is it moral to send work out of this country to benefit another, especially when you know that their workers are subjected to the rankest of conditions and living on poverty wages? They gave me a good price, and everyone else is doing it, aren’t very good excuses. Those American business people who are buying from the Chinese and are destroying the economic future of this country for a good price should hang their heads in shame. The karma they are creating will return, if not on them, then on their children or grandchildren. What moral person could live with that over their heads? I know couldn’t.

So is buying Chinese printing killing US printers? Yes it is, and it is killing our very way of life. Short term expediency will never justify the long term harm. Think about it. Think about it very hard and then choose to buy American. Our very way of life depends on it.

In my last blog entry Credit is Our Lifeblood, Usury is Our Deathbed I criticized the banking and financial industries for passing off PR statements as a  Customer’s Bill of Rights. I suggested some rights that I would like to see instead.  That got me thinking about my own business. What promises am I willing to make to my customers, and what should they be able to expect from me as a printing broker?

Bill Ruesch Print Broker’s Customer’s Bill of Rights

Whereas the customer and Bill Ruesch Print Broker are entering into an agreement to produce a printed product for the customer, the customer can expect the following:

• The Right to be Heard.  The Customer shall be treated at all times with respect and cordiality. All concerns and questions shall be answered promptly to the best of the Print Broker’s ability.
• The Right to Expert Assistance. The Print Broker will advise, consult, and assist the Customer in all aspects of the printing and mailing arrangements, using his experience, wisdom and common sense to place jobs with Vendors best suited to produce the work with proficiency, reasonable cost, and in a timely manner.
• The Right to Free Consultation. The Print Broker will draw on his experience and the knowledge of other professionals to make recommendations  toward improving quality, decreasing costs, and saving time. The Customer is not bound to act on any of  suggestions.
• The Right to be Fully Informed. A bid specification sheet will be prepared by the print broker for every job. The bid sheet forms the blueprint for the job and informs all parties to the scope of the work. It is the Customer’s responsibility to review said specs and make corrections, preferably in writing to keep the job on track and prevent misunderstandings.
• The Right of Mediation. The Print Broker serves as an intermediary between the Customer and the Vendors. While not responsible for the Customer’s debt, the Print Broker will work in behalf of the two parties to assure smooth financial transactions. In the event a problem occurs with quality, timeliness, delivery or any other Customer concern, the Print Broker  shall be available to mediate and mitigate the issue to find an solution acceptable to all parties.
• The Right to have Expert Access. The Print Broker is primarily invested in getting the Customer’s job done right, on time, and at a reasonable cost. At any point in the production or estimating process that the Print Broker sees a need to have the Customer interact directly with the Vendor or other sources of specialized expertise, acting immediately connect said parties.
• The Right of Friendly Support. The Customer has the right to assume that the Print Broker is working in the Customer’s best interest, and will continue to do so as long as the Customer’s demands are moral, ethical, and legal.
• No Surprise Fees. It is understood by the Print Broker and Customer that bid prices are subject to change. Any changes from bid specification sheet that become necessary in the process of the job will require adjustments. The Print Broker guarantees that all fees for his services will be included in bids, and charges for changes. The Print Broker is committed to a no surprise policy.
• No Long-Term Contracts. Unless otherwise agreed, Bill Ruesch serves the Customer on a project-by-project basis. The Customer is not obligated to hire him for future jobs unless it suits the Customer to do so.

The above nine rights are flexible, in that if any of the readers have suggestions or recommendations for changes I would like to hear them. When my Bill of Rights solidifies I will keep it on my website as a continual promise. And that’s a promise.

Transparency is the word of the last couple of years and will probably be the word that defines the decade. Everyone is promising to be more transparent, but do they really mean it? Complete transparency would not be good.  I don’t want to know the minutia of a company’s operations anymore than I want to see a patient splayed open on an operating table.

Well there is transparency and transparency. The kind of transparency I’m talking about is really just another name for honesty. I want to know if the companies I buy from are committed to fairness. Recently our bank sent us a letter telling us that they were doubling our interest rate. In the letter were a half a dozen checks we could use just like cash. In the small print we learned that should we use one of these checks, we would be agreeing to triple the interest rate.  We called the bank and asked why they were doing this to us. Had we suddenly become a dangerous credit risk? No. Had we missed or been late on any payments? No. What did we do to deserve this treatment? Nothing. We were assured however, that it was all for our own good. Huh? How can these people, who are people just like the rest of us, peddle this lie and do it with sincerity? It’s like spanking a child in the morning because they might do something wrong during the day. Or this is more like it, you did something wrong and because somebody has to pay, you find a patsy to suffer the punishment. In the case of banks it is the consumer. They are making us pay for their foolish behaviors and bad gambles.

I found the following example of a bank’s idea of a customer bill of rights posted on the Internet. Do you agree with it? Does it provide real protections for the customer or is it more of a public relations white wash?

1.      Our customers are entitled to be greeted with a smile and treated with friendliness, courtesy and respect by all of our employees.
2.       Our customers are entitled to be served by employees who are people-oriented and have a passion for providing quality service.
3.       Our customers who prefer to use online banking are provided with a state-of-the-art, secure website.
4.       The following groups of individuals and organizations are entitled to receive checking accounts free of any monthly service charges:
*      ALL senior citizens
*       ALL United Way agencies
*       ALL churches, synagogues and mosques
*       ALL charitable organizations and foundations
*       ALL political subdivisions
5.      Our customers are entitled to receive prompt service. For example, thanks to local decision-making, our response to a loan request shall not exceed five business days.
6.       Our checking account customers are entitled to use any ATM, anywhere, free of service charge, up to six times per month.
7.       Our customers are entitled to free and convenient parking when conducting bank business.”

I’m not trying to pick on the bank.  I’m sure they issued their Customers’ Bill of Rights as a way of appearing to be open, caring and considerate. It bears the tracks of  a legal staff that wants to protect the bank’s interests. In truth, it is a pleasing lullaby and I’m pretty certain you can hear this song sung, or one just like it, in every bank in the country.

What is it really saying? We like you. We will smile at you. We offer free no-fee checking accounts for certain groups. We have a secure website. We will waive a small number of ATM fees each month. We make quick decisions on loans. And finally, we have convenient parking.

What would I like them to say?

• We promise to always engage in, and be guided by, the highest moral and ethical standards.
• We guarantee that our officers and directors will be fairly rewarded for superior performance but never at a rate that is more than 50% of their annual salary.
• At year end, no bonuses, stock options, or other remunerations will be issued if the bank has lost money.
• Our employees are all well-educated and highly trained. Nepotism is never practiced here.
• Never will the bank issue a loan to a customer who does not possess the means to repay it.
• The bank will turn its back on creative financing schemes because we know that they rarely work out in the long run for the consumer or the bank.
• Should an employee be found guilty of ethics violations, in or out of the bank, they will be immediately suspended, and subjected to dismissal pending a thorough investigation. This rule also holds true for officers and directors.
• Just because we are allowed to arbitrarily increase interest rates on credit cards, we promise to hold the line and increase them by the least possible amount and only when absolutely necessary.
• We promise to treat each customer according to their history with the bank and not punish one for the misdeeds of another.

I invite any reader to add to this list. A universal bank customers’ bill of rights is desperately needed. Let’s start a movement.

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