What Do You Do With A Drunken Sailor?

Nineteen months ago President Obama was inaugurated. At this very moment leaders of the Republican party began to voice their concerns about the deficit.

We didn’t start spending money like a drunken sailor yesterday. We began ten years ago with the Bush tax cuts, passed through reconciliation. Now Obama wants to let the tax cuts for the richest 1% of the country expire and keep the tax cuts for the lower and middle classes. Is this unreasonable? Where else is the money to reduce the deficit going to come from?

Every economist agrees that if the tax cuts are allowed to expire that the budget deficit will be reduced by about 30%, 680 billion dollars over the next ten years. Otherwise, nearly all of this would go to those making more than $500,000 per year.

Is there anything we have on the table that could reduce the deficit so much? Their argument is that tax cuts is a bad idea given the state of our economy. Will the top 1% of the earning populace rush out to Walmart and Target if the tax cuts are extended or pocket the cash and put it in the bank?

Many so-called fiscal conservatives complained about the auto bail out. This is one of the most successful government programs since the New Deal. Detroit is back in business again. Many complained about the bank bailout but most of the money that the government laid out has been repaid.

When will the fiscal conservatives put their money where their mouth is? Allowing the tax cuts to expire will only raise the tax rate about 3% on the richest Americans, a rate that is identical to that during the Clinton years and lower than the rate during the Reagan years.

I may not be an economist but this is the biggest bang for the buck, deficit reduction wise, while causing the least amount of pain to those who can afford it the most.

Everything Old is New Again

So I am just back from Europe. A two week vacation got cut short when, at a fine Belgium Restaurant, a waiter dropped a croissant on my knee, shattering my meniscus cartilage. Actually, I tripped on a cobble stone curb. Why can’t they just pave their streets flat with cheap asphalt like we do here?

As women know, beauty takes effort. During my week long trip to Belgium I didn’t see any garbage, any homeless people, and the highways were beautiful stretches of road unpolluted by unsightly billboards. Okay, gas was twice the price but I’ll get back to that later. Everything was modern, even in a medieval city like Brugge. I remember traveling to Europe in the late seventies and having to make sure that I had toilet paper in my pocket should the need to use some occur. No more. Now Europe’s urban areas are more modern, cleaner, and human friendly than our cities, not to mention more beautiful.

How do they do it? As I flew out of Brussels I peered down and saw a nuclear power plant. I then thought about the fact that Denmark has become 100% energy independent (see http://www.neatorama.com/2008/01/01/energy-independence-how-denmark-kicked-the-foreign-oil-habit/). They taxed gasoline and automobiles starting in the mid-seventies and used that money to modernize their energy companies and to make their businesses and homes more energy efficient.

What did we do? We gutted the clean air act, put into place by that king of liberals: Richard Nixon. The clean air act was put in place so that when power plants modernized, they had to meet certain standards. That coupled with a lack of energy legislation ensures less efficient production of electricity. It also ensures a greater reliance on coal.

I don’t mind spending a little more for food if it’s better food. I don’t mind paying more taxes if they go to the right programs. When are we going to wake up and spend more money on our quality of life and less money on oil subsidies? When will we realize that we cannot depend on the combustion engine the way we have for the past 100 years? When will we cease rebuilding Iraq and Afghanistan and start rebuilding the US?

The time may come when I visit China again and find that their cities are more modern than ours. They are on their way. Unfortunately so are we. I hope the cheap gas was worth it.

IMPERFECT PITCH

Some time ago I sold a Coilmaster Jr. to a small printer in the south. This is our automatic, table top, coil inserter. I had been working with this client for over a year. She has an unusual business. She sells books that are printed in the US and punched in Korea (At first she told me China, which she may have thought Korea was a part of). She needs to bind tens of thousands of books per year and is loathe to send them out.

When she got a serious about placing an order I had her send me a sample of the book she was binding. It was a fairly straightforward job. It was a thin book, 12mm, with an oval hole. I told her that all was fine and I sold her the machine. The only thing that was unusual was that the book was punched at .248 pitch with an oval hole. I remarked that I had never seen that before. I sent her the article I had just written for American Printer: “Perfect Pitch,” which you can read here: http://americanprinter.com/binding-finishing/printing_perfect_pitch/index.html I also sent her a couple of articles about punching for coil.

I sent my technician there who said that there was some problem with the punching. I called the customer upon completion of the installation and she told me that everything was fine and that she was happy with the machine.

A couple of weeks later I called her to follow up. She told me that she was having problems. Her operator stated that the coil entered the book but stopped halfway through as it was spinning in. I remarked that this sounded like a pitch problem. Running coil with a wrong pitch has a cumulative error effect. Then she told me something that she should have told me right from the get go: She was punching inserts here in America that had to be put into the book. The book she originally sent me had no such inserts. I told her to send me a couple of these sheets along with some of the sheets punched in Korea.

I was flabbergasted. The sheets punched here had a different pitch: .2475. Now that doesn’t sound like much of a difference but get this: The margins were different. The distance between the first hole and the head of the sheet were different. That’s not all: The distance between the spine and the row of holes were different. So, she was fighting sheets punched with a different pitch, a different margin, and a different spine to hole distance.

She then asked the bindery who was punching her job if they could match the hole pattern that was being punched in Korea. They said no. They also told her that there was no such thing as a .248 pitch.

What is a body to do? How much preparation can a salesman offer a prospective client? I would like to hear your comments. If you are interested in receiving any of the articles I had sent this customer, please e-mail me.

The Art Of Binding

Even before Gutenberg invented the printing press, books were being, written, painted and bound for hundreds of years. Books were made of stretched parchment and bound by sewing. The tradesmen of the middle ages, Coopers, Harpoon Makers, etc. are long gone but the Bookbinder is still around.

I just visited an exhibition at The Metropolitan Museum of Art: “The Art of Illumination: The Limbourg Brothers and the Belles Heures of Jean de France, Duc de Berry.” Books of the Hours were prayer books written and drawn for wealthy laymen. This is a fine example of just such a book. It is normally on Display at The Cloisters, a branch of The Metropolitan Museum of Art. At the Cloisters, the book is bound, here it is unbound so each page can be viewed.

Also being shown was a short film made by the Getty museum for their current exhibition “The Making of a Medieval Book.” It seems that the medieval bookbinder bound books much in the same way that hard cover book binders bind books today. Once the writing and illuminating had been completed, the parchment sheets were folded and nested into groups called gatherings. The gatherings were ordered in their proper sequence and sewn together onto cords or leather thongs that served as supports. These gatherings were the forerunner of the signature.

It was a marvelous show and the illuminations are strikingly well preserved. But if you can’t make it to New York, visit the Met’s web site to see what is in the exhibition: http://blog.metmuseum.org/artofillumination/about-the-exhibition/

Further explanation and a video can be seen here: http://www.getty.edu/art/exhibitions/making/

I have three words to say about this year’s On Demand show: Busy, Busy, Busy. We had more traffic at this show than any other in recent memory. While we had a few out of towners, most every attendee was from the east coast, northeast and mid Atlantic area. The buzz was about the new digital presses (as always) and, I am pleased to say, perfect binders.

Our company won the Best In Show award for our new Sterling Doublebinder, layflat perfect binder (http://www.spielassociates.com/DoublebinderVideo.html). This machine binds books so strong that no attendee could pull the sheets out of the book—And each one tried! There was a vast array of perfect binders at the show from the usual suspects (save for Muller who didn’t exhibit), Horizon, Duplo, and Graphic Whizard.

I am pleased to say that none of the books made on the other machines matched the pull test strength of The Doublebinder, including the new Duplo PUR binder, that sells for about four times the price of The Doublebinder. Other highlights included new digital presses. Konica won a number of Best In Show awards for their new C8000 digital which seems to be giving Xerox a run for their money. MGI also demoed a new digital press that uses no fuser oil.

It seems that the prediction of the demise of the Print Industry has been greatly exaggerated.

A New Lease On Strife

I sold a used punching machine to a customer of mine, or did I? We agreed on a price of $45,000 for a used Lhermite EX-380 with a few dies, some modifications, and installation. My customer sent off his first and last payment to the leasing company. The leasing company sent me forms to fill out, which I dutifully did. I included a picture of the reconditioned machine which you see above you. My customer’s lease was turned down, not because he didn’t have the credit but because it was a used machine.

My customer told me that he could not get a lease on a used machine from any of the leasing companies he normally deals with. Does this make sense? This machine is worth $45,000. In a few years it will be worth somewhat less. My customer had asked me to quote him on a new punch with all the accessories and the price came out to be $65,000. Should he purchase a new machine, what will it be worth in a few years, $50,000, $45,000? The depreciation is much greater on new equipment.

So at a time when businesses are strapped and turning to more used equipment, the leasing companies are turning them down. Nice, huh? It seems that the leasing companies are even more cowardly than the banks—Not to mention foolish.

Are you having trouble getting a lease? Call me up. I’ll sell you the machine AND lease it to you.

The Slow Death of Regional Shows

I used to love regional shows, The Charlotte Show, The Texas Shows, Gutenberg, and the only one left—Miami. They are generally more relaxed than the cauldron of McCormick Place or The On Demand show. Setup and break down was certainly easier. I miss swimming in the pool at the hotel at Gutenberg and the Cajun food at the Charlotte and Texas shows.

Why did they die? The answer is a chicken and egg problem. Low turnout caused less exhibitors to show their wares but which came first? I remember visiting customers in southern California and attempting to get them down to the show. Few did. I venture to guess that the closer a bindery or printer’s facility was to the show site, the less likely they would show up.

The few customers who attended this year’s Graphics of the America’s show in Miami said that it was dead. One machinery dealer I know said that it was fair. Our company used to exhibit there every year. Then we dropped years when we attended DRUPA. Now we’re down to every other year. Last year we didn’t do enough business to find it worthwhile.

Another dealer I know recommended that the show move to Orlando. Orlando has a bigger print industry than Miami. Miami, of course, draws many printers from south of the border. But how serious are they? Often I have felt that our cousins to the south use this show as an excuse to visit friends and relatives, and then think about going to the show.

Perhaps the best solution would be to rotate the show every other year between Orlando and Miami. Then printers could bring their families to Disney World or Universal, and attend the show for a day or two. Then after I sell all the machines in my booth I can declare; “I’m going to Disney World!” Food for thought.

Since this original post, Graphics of the Americas has chosed to hold their 2011 show in Orlando. Hooray for our side!