Business Moleskine Mania: How a Notebook Conquered the Digital Era • Hacker News Board

Re: Business Moleskine Mania: How a Notebook Conquered the Digital Era

#81

Post by FredPret » Tue, Sep 10, 2024, 1:11 AM UTC

_aavaa_ wrote: post #60

FredPret wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Both the politicians and the CEOs are only successful in direct proportion to how well the public responds to their decisions - buying their stuff, voting for their party. The public wanted cheap imported products, and so now that's what we have.

That's an overly simplistic picture. See for example recent tariffs of Chinese EVs to the US. The people buying EVs want cheaper models, but they get tarrifed just the same because the US manufacturers are complacent and far behind, yet again. People vote against their own interests all the time, all you need is a little propaganda.

People usually vote for lower prices, which translates to lower trade barriers and cheap imports.

But the EV tariff thing is another instance of people voting for their interests, even if the result is the opposite:

US conservatives are a) concerned about Chinese influence and b) rightly or wrongly think tariffs are the least bad form of tax, and at the same time on the left there are very numerous car union members who vote as a bloc and want to protect their jobs. So the easy answer for the politicians - in this case - is to levy tariffs.

But it's all driven by the people and the way they vote and buy.

Re: Business Moleskine Mania: How a Notebook Conquered the Digital Era

#82

Post by Tanoc » Tue, Sep 10, 2024, 1:42 AM UTC

FredPret wrote: post #49

_aavaa_ wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> “The CEOs” and “the politicians” are not to blame if the entire system isn’t working. Yes they are. The CEOs and the boards are choosing to focus on maximizing short term profit over the wellbeing of the people in the countries they operate. That's a choice. And the politicians are directly responsible for setting up the rules under which such systems develop. That they allow companies to offshore to other countrie…

Both the politicians and the CEOs are only successful in direct proportion to how well the public responds to their decisions - buying their stuff, voting for their party. The public wanted cheap imported products, and so now that's what we have.

The public often doesn't care about things getting cheaper. They care about things getting more expensive. Those in finance care about things getting cheaper -- to produce. Not to sell. They increase the final margins by continually cost reducing production, while the actual buying public is oblivious until they experience the new product, of which it's production they had no say in. The public reacts to prices reducing by single digit percentages as much as they do the price staying the same, which is to say not at all.

The exception to "people don't want cheaper" is new technology that is conforming production to economies of scale rather than artisan batches as it matures and understanding of production grows. People wanted the prices of 3D printers to come down, and they did as the technology matured. Same with lithium-ion batteries, carbon fiber sheeting, LEDs, and wireless digital transmissions. But for mature technology like a mechanical pencil? No. The price of something like a mechanical pencil was already low enough that reducing the cost further is a detriment to the economy and is not noticed by the end customer. Diminishing returns kick in very very early for the end customer.

For the workers the reduced cost of production to the point of affordability is a boon, as it means more people buy the product, necessitating increased production and thus the increased size of other industries to feed production and an increase in the number of employees. Yet within recent decades the increased profits never go to the employees or taxes. The viewpoint of the executives goes directly against that, since their job isn't to allocate or use the income, only accrue more of it.

There's a balancing act to stay around the limit of "affordable" without being "cheap." Modern first world countries began shifting into services economies in the 1990s because we severely screwed that balance up starting in the late 1970s. The inflation that we've experienced since 1978 is the very aggressive symptom of failing to maintain that balance.

Re: Business Moleskine Mania: How a Notebook Conquered the Digital Era

#83

Post by wrp » Tue, Sep 10, 2024, 6:10 AM UTC

Analemma_ wrote: post #78

wrp wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you want to buy European, Clairefontaine/Rhodia is still made in France.

I want to like Rhodia, but the problem is that their “sheen”-y paper doesn’t cooperate with left-handed writers: it doesn’t like pencil at all but if I write with pen it just ends up smeared everywhere. I’ve had to stick to Stalogy and other companies using Tomoe River (or similar) paper.

Clairefontaine paper has a clay coating that makes it hard and smooth, but causes wet inks to dry slowly and remain prone to smudging. With the right combination of fountain pen and ink, particles of the clay will be dislodged and float up into the pen, eventually clogging the feed. I had one pen+ink combination that would clog up after writing about 2/3 of a page on Clairefontaine paper.

Rhodia paper is made by the same people but has less clay coating, so these problems are a bit less. Still, neither takes pencil well, so I would just use ballpoint or a drier gel on either.