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I, Sharpie

(www.commonplace.org)
48 points delichon | 1 comments | 15 Oct 25 23:57 UTC | HN request time: 0.223s | source
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righthand ◴[23 Oct 25 02:33 UTC] No.45677556[source]▶
Wait we had the power to incentivize America’s industrial base all along, but the main driver for pushing the industrial base over to China was to extract maximum capital. This has been touted as “consumers want lower prices”. What is stopping this brave marker company from profit maximizing again?

It seems the main argument here is the pandemic and supply chain, even though the author is invoking other modern issues from an attempted bipartisan pov.

They mention tariffs but that’s not going to solve the profit maximization desires and shift the costs, it’s just going to make sharpies more expensive in America.

I mean good for American industrialization that we can make our writing utensils here. It’s just pitched in a weird “not trying to be political (but really am being political)” way.

replies(1): >>45679308 #
1. anon7000 ◴[23 Oct 25 07:47 UTC] No.45679308[source]▶
I think it’s all about short term gain vs long term sustainability. Most companies these days seem to be hugely focused on extracting as much profit as possible, and shoveling to executives and shareholders in the form of stock grants and buy-backs. A real bummer for society, to be honest.

Other companies (seemingly Sharpie?) seem to have the correct, longer view that investing in your employees and controlling your supply chain locally will protect you from potentially disastrous risks overseas. (Be it tariffs or natural disasters.) As the essay mentions, they wanted to invest into making it work domestically before another crazy supply chain shock happened again. Tariffs are a risk because if your product is more expensive and easily replaced by something cheaper, you loose money.

It’s honestly shocking how short-sighted boards are when it comes to employee wages. It’s purely self-serving — get a huge bonus this year by saving costs, company goes downhill, and move on to the next job. Reality is that happy, well-paid employees will stick around. Loosing knowledge with high attrition is costly in a way that’s hard to quantify. It ultimately impacts the quality of your products and resilience of your business.